Security

On Tuesday, the creators of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, a cryptographic protocol, and two of the creators of EMC security division RSA gathered onstage for the annual cryptographers' panel at RSA 2008 in San Francisco.

First, panel members offered their perspectives on the state of security since last year, then they answered questions posed by a moderator. The panel included: Whitfield Diffie, chief security officer at Sun Microsystems; Martin Hellman, professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford University; Ronald Rivest, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT; and Adi Shamir, professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute … Read more

John W. Thompson, chairman and CEO of Symantec, used part of his keynote address Tuesday at RSA 2008 to announce the merger of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance and the Information Technology Association of America.

CSIA includes the top security providers and seeks to influence security policy in the U.S. and the European Union; ITAA is a much larger policy group. He said "this will give CSIA a bigger platform and a stronger voice on these critical public policy issues and the ability to work with governments and key stakeholders around the world."

In a press release, … Read more

Predicting the future for technology and business is never easy, yet Symantec CEO John Thompson ventured into that Tuesday morning in his keynote speech at RSA 2008.

On the future, Thompson predicted three things: that malicious software will outnumber legitimate software, increasing the need for so-called white listing; that identity management will grow beyond the enterprise and start to include every customer in the world; and digital rights management will be become a reality for all content, not just music and video.

He said businesses need to start thinking about these things now. "I believe this starts with a … Read more

On Thursday morning, at this year's RSA Conference in San Francisco, Chris Boyd of Facetime and I will present a talk, "How to Adapt to the Echo Generation's Social Media Hacking Game." The following is a preview of that talk, presented in three parts. On Tuesday, we're looking at who are the Echo Generation hackers. Wednesday , we'll look at how they use online social media for hacks. And on Thursday, we'll talk about how Chris uses features of social networks and Web 2.0 to shut these kids down.

It's a world … Read more

At RSA 2008 on Monday, Hitachi announced its acquisition of M-Tech. Since last Wednesday, the Canadian ID management company has been using its new name, Hitachi ID Systems.

Forrester Research predicts that the ID and access management market space will grow from $2.6 billion in 2006 to $12.3 billion in 2014, and Hitachi, long known for its security electronics, wants to be a player in the enterprise security market by offering a complete package.

Hitachi currently offers advanced IT authentication with its finger vein biometric devices. Finger vein biometric authentication is used in 80 percent of Japanese ATMs … Read more

Want to cause trouble at RSA? Register with any of a number of special characters in your name or business name and watch the badge printer issue blanks. That's what happened to me.

Monday morning when I registered for RSA 2008 (where I'll be speaking with Chris Boyd of FaceTime), I thought maybe I'd get a little VIP service. (Our talk on "How to Adapt to the Echo Generation's Social Media Hacking Game" is at 9:10 a.m. PDT on Thursday.) Instead, I was stuck in various registration lines for more than half … Read more

Next week, the RSA 2008 security conference gets under way in San Francisco. But for members of the media, it has already started, with a barrage of phone calls from vendors (more and more each year) eager to get their products mentioned. Look for full coverage starting Monday on CNET News.com.

Unlike last year, when Bill Gates said good-bye, there are few "big" moments anticipated in the week ahead, which means there could more surprises. Last year, it was Larry Ellison having to cancel his keynote speech due to illness.

Themes and topics at RSA 2008 will … Read more

Worried about online auction fraud? If you're a man you should be, according to the latest Internet Crime Complaint Center report (in PDF). On average, men lost more money to online fraud than women in 2007. Men also perpetrated most of the online crime, accounting for 75 percent of the total reports last year. And while the overall number of complaints declined when compared with previous years, the total dollar value in losses rose to a record high of $239 million in losses in 2007. That's $40 million more than in 2006.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) … Read more

On Thursday, Microsoft announced it will release eight security bulletins next week. The news is intended as a heads-up for IT departments in advance of Patch Tuesday.

Of the eight patches, five are considered "critical," and three are considered "important" by the software giant.

Among the critical patches, one will affect Microsoft Office, two will affect Windows, and two will affect the Internet Explorer browser. Of the important patches, Microsoft says one will affect Microsoft Office and two will affect Windows. The potential vulnerabilities include spoofing and remote code execution.