Symantec has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire PGP Corporation for $300 million and GuardianEdge Technologies for $70 million
Source: The H Security
Category: Online Security News
After declining in number for the last few years, a new wave of security breaches is hitting UK organisations, costing them billions of pounds, despite the fact that security remains high on management’s agenda and the recession has not dampened spending on security, according to a survey released today by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) at Infosecurity Europe.
Technology has continued to evolve rapidly through greater use of cloud computing and social networks, and public and private sector organisations appear to have a greater understanding of security risks and the need for assurance over them.
Version 3.6.2, which so far is only available as a beta, fixes a critical security hole in Firefox 3.6 for Windows that was discovered some time ago
Source: The H Security
20 security holes in Apple software are about to be disclosed: Charlie Miller intends to present details of the vulnerabilities at the CanSecWest conference next week. The expert talked with heise Security about the security of Mac OS X beforehand
Source: The H Security
Barracuda Networks Inc., a leading provider of security, storage and networking solutions, today released its Barracuda Labs 2009 Annual Report, revealing data from three areas: Twitter trends and tracking, Web threats and trends, and email spam and viruses.
One in eight accounts created was deemed to be malicious
“As more users joined Twitter in 2009, the Twitter Crime Rate continued to escalate reaching 12 percent in October 2009. This means that one in eight accounts created was deemed to be malicious, suspicious or otherwise misused and was subsequently suspended – clearly showing that the criminals do, in fact, follow the users online.”
The report is available at the company’s newly launched security research portal at barracudalabs.com.
The report drills down into 2009’s fastest growing social networking application Twitter, and reviews growth drivers, usage trends and the overall Twitter crime rate.
Barracuda Labs analyzed more than 19 million Twitter accounts, both legitimate and malicious, for frequency and content of tweets, user-to-user interactions, and each account’s overall activity level.
Key highlights from Twitter’s Red Carpet Era – Celebrities and Criminals include:
Only 21 percent of Twitter users are actual True Twitter Users[1].
Overall, users are becoming more active on Twitter.
49 percent of Twitter users, and 48 of the top 100 most followed Twitter users, joined during the Twitter Red Carpet Era[2], indicating the significant impact celebrities have on the social networking landscape as they bring their real-world fans over to Twitter.
The Twitter growth rate spiked at 21.17 percent in April 2009 due to the Twitter Red Carpet Era.
During the Twitter Red Carpet Era, the Twitter Crime Rate[3] increased 66 percent, and continued to escalate reaching 12 percent in October 2009, indicating one in eight accounts created was deemed to be malicious, suspicious or otherwise misused and subsequently suspended.
Microsoft plans to release just two security updates to fix eight vulnerabilities in Windows and Office on its forthcoming patch day. Vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer will, however, remain unpatched
Source: The H Security
NewsFactor – Evidence from the recent Aurora hack attacks on major American corporations suggest that many may have tightly locked virtual front doors, but no cybersecurity inside their systems, a McAfee expert warned on Wednesday.
In a Security Insights blog post, Paul Kurtz, McAfee’s chief technology officer, discussed his study of the December-through-February attacks on Google, Intel, Adobe Systems, and other large firms.
Source: Yahoo! News: Software News
Three Spaniards have reportedly been arrested in connection with “Mariposa”, one of the largest botnets worldwide. The arrests took place over the past few weeks and the suspects stand accused of having taken control of more than 13 million computers and of operating the botnet since the end of 2008
Source: The H Security
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Until next time 
Peter – Your Online Security Guide
