Security News & Articles

Underlining its growing interest in security products and solutions, IBM (news, site) has just announced that it is to buy Open Pages, a MA-based company that develops risk and compliance software for business.

When the deal is closed, IBM intends to add the company to its business analytics portfolio rather than to the Tvioli part of its business that benefitted from the BixFix security acquisition last July, an indication that Open Pages will be sold as part of its data analytics packages on which IBM has spent a whole pile of money over the last ten years.

While there are a number of new enhancements with the release of the most recent version of its web content management software Site Manager 9.0, Bitrix (news, site) has focused this time around on providing better security to underline its own claim that it is the most secure Web CMS on the market.

Since the ILTA conference in Las Vegas there have been a number of developments in GRC. Open Text for one has introduced new services and software to ensure SharePoint 2010 sites conform to corporate governance guidelines, while Guidance offers to bring e-Discovery in-house.

The Cloud clearly isn’t going away. But the concerns over security, privacy and compliance over Cloud computing haven’t gone away either, which have hindered adoption of Cloud computing by CIOs and other IT decision-makers.

Wonder how your company would hold up against a team of hackers? At this year’s DEF CON Hacking Conference, held last month, there were some interesting surprises.

After all the hoopla around the ILTA conference in Las Vegas last week seems things have quieted down a bit GRC-wise. Even still EMC is looking to guarantee the safety of data located in cloud services, CA is trying to set itself up as the cloud security provider and Guidance Software has just released a complete e-Discovery platform.

This week, Google continues to provide apps that will help SMBs. In this case their new Gmail and Google Voice Integration is not yet available in Google Apps, but it really only seems a matter of time before it is -- so watch out Skype. Meanwhile, Panda shows security is still a SMB problem.

It’s been a busy summer for mergers and acquisitions, and looks set to continue. In the case of IBM (news, site) who reportedly paid US$ 400 million for security firm BigFix and closed the deal on July 20, they have already used the company to produce new software for compliance and content security.

This week from a GRC perspective was always going to be about announcements from the International Legal Technology Association’s (ILTA) conference in Las Vegas that runs until tomorrow. Nearly everyone is there including Autonomy, Open Text, IBM and Recommind. But there are others too and we’ll catch up with them next week.

While the decision by Intel to buy McAfee (news, site)  may have raised some eyebrows, the agreement to pay US$ 7.68 billion for it  is causing absolute consternation, especially on Wall Street where such deals are pulled apart like fresh donuts.

This week new research from Check Point, carried out by the Ponemon Institute shows that many systems administrators get very jumpy when enterprise users try to deploy Web 2.0 apps, believing that the apps will expose systems to outside interference. Some GRC attention with a new partnership.

As more and more financial advisers wade into social media, the seas are still uncharted. There are still risks associated with combining the financial and social media industries.

Though many businesses are still resistant to engage via social media platforms, research has shown that if done correctly, the results can be beneficial.

Google and Microsoft continue to chase each other’s tails. Public sector email was in focus yesterday, today its Google Apps which has just received a government security certification. Meanwhile IGC has joined the XML project for Electronic Discovery.

Security is the big concern this week on the GRC front with Big Blue closing the BigFix deal that offers them better enterprise and database security, while Adobe also looks to the security of Adobe Reader with a new sandbox solution. Meanwhile, SAP and CA also get together this week for a combined GRC solution.

If simple is beautiful, then the new file delivery service from mobile software vendor SmithMicro is close to being a masterpiece if only for the practicality and general all-round usefulness of it.