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Google, Verizon, Intel, McAfee, Microsoft and Savvis are joining a voluntary program set up by the Cloud Security Alliance that provides public information about whether contributors comply with CSA-recommended cloud-security practices. By reading reports submitted to CSA's Security Trust and Assurance Registry (STAR), potential customers of participating providers can more readily assess whether products and services meet their security needs. LEARN: 8 ways to become a cloud security expert To encourage other participants, CSA is encouraging businesses to require that any cloud vendors they deal with to submit reports to CSA STAR. For example, eBay is requiring the submissions fr... [More]

Summary: This morning, Microsoft officially took the wraps off of Windows 8, unveiling its radically revised new operating system in front af an audience of software developers. I had a chance to get my hands on the new system (literally) last night. Here’s what you can look forward to. If you think you know what to expect from Windows 8, just wait till you get your hands on it. I stayed up far too late last night, experimenting with the developer preview build that Microsoft will show off to the public for the first time today. I wanted to get a good night’s sleep, but I literally couldn’t keep my hands off the sleek Windows 8-powered tablet that I have on loan f... [More]

Many popular Web sites, such as the Coca-Cola, UPS, and the Register, had their Web addresses hijacked over the weekend by a Turkish hacker. When I first heard that The Register, a popular United Kingdom, technology news site had been hacked, I was doubtful that the site itself had actually been cracked. The first headline I saw read, The Register Hacked. That isn’t what I saw. To me, it looked like a typical Domain Name System (DNS) hijack attack. I was right. What I didn’t know at the time, though, that more than a hundred Web sites, several of them major ones, were having their addresses redirected to the wrong location. So, when you went to The Register, or sites ... [More]

It has been confirmed that DigiNotar, a SSL certificate authority from the Netherlands issued an Internet security certificate to unknown attackers on July 10th. For over 2 months this certificate would have allowed them to setup fake copies of Google websites that appeared genuine to the majority of users, and collect login information for all of the company's services, including Gmail. It's still unknown how attackers managed to get the fake google.com security certificate issued. First reports of the scam came from an Iranian web user, who posted the information in a Google help forum, sparking speculation that the Iranian government had been involved in the attack and subseque... [More]

Summary: Dell unveils its first public and hybrid cloud solutions with the help of the VMware vCloud Datacenter Service. Following through on a $1 billion investment in cloud computing services this year, Dell hasannounced its first public cloud-based data storage offering at VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas on Monday. The aptly and simply-named Dell Cloud is based upon the VMware vCloud Datacenter Servicesarchitecture, which is designed for secure enterprise-grade public, private and hybrid clouds. Basically, Dell and VMware will provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions for customer organizations, hosting and outsourcing firms, system integrators... [More]

Summary: Microsoft’s adCenter online advertising platform has been experiencing service problems during the afternoon of August 29, customers are noting via Twitter. Microsoft is working to address the issue. A number of Microsoft adCenter customers are reporting problems logging into the system that have been going on for several hours. Around 6 p.m. ET on August 29, the Microsoft adCenter Twitter account acknowledged there was an issue and that it was being addressed. I’ve asked Microsoft for more information on what’s going on and will update this post with any additional details I get. Several customers took to Twitter to air their frustrations and share up... [More]

Summary: Microsoft just let the world know that Windows 8 will come with native support for ISO and VHD files in Explorer! But there’s a catch… In a new post by Steven Sinofsky on the Building Windows 8 blog, we learn that Windows 8 will not only have native VHD, but also native ISO support in Explorer (finally!). Windows users can now rejoice at no longer having to use a third-party application to view ISOs. A video created by Rajeev Nagar, a group program manager on the Storage and File Systems team at Microsoft, explains the process and gives us another great glimpse of the new Ribbon UI in Windows 8, as well as the updated Taskbar — all this, after e... [More]

Summary: PHP, utilized by millions of Web sites around the Web, has a not-so-hidden secret on their Web site: a directory full of pirated content, config files containing user name and password information, and more. Update: The directory has now been taken care of; however, for the time being, Google’s cache of the directory remains intact. It’s interesting what a night of advanced Google querying can yield. On the heels of running across USA Today’s prototype Windows 8 application in a designer’s profile (thanks to advanced querying), I’ve now stumbled upon a directory on PHP’s official Web site that ... [More]

There are a ton of enterprise security products, from intrusion detection to data loss prevention to zero-day attack monitoring, that are based on monitoring logs for weird behavior. In fact, any serious discussion of enterprise security always boils down to carefully monitoring your server logs. You can employ high-end applications to do this for you, but ultimately your IT team needs to know how to protect and utilize the logs that spell out virtually every aspect of your network’s health.   The National Institutes of Standards and Technology has prepared a Guide to Computer Security Log Management that covers the full gamut of issues relating to monitoring and &mdas... [More]

Free antivirus software provider Avast has released information from a six-month study which reveals that Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system is home to 74% of their customers’ rootkit infections. Data gathered from over 600,000 Avast customers pointed to Windows XP as the most vulnerable desktop OS for rootkits. XP, which was released in 2001, is the most widely used operating system to access the Internet according to w3schools. The dated OS was installed on 49 percent of tallied Avast customers. 38 percent of users in the study were running Windows 7 while 13 percent had Vista installed. In contrast, only 12 percent of rootkits were detected on Windows 7 machin... [More]