Bloor Security Blog on IT-Director.com

Take a more holistic view of email security

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Emails are essential business communications and collaboration tools and the vast majority of business information is, at some point of its lifecycle, communicated via emails and their attachments.... [Read More...]

Keynote Panel at InfoSec 2012 - Smart Devices

rss@it-analysis.com (Nigel Stanley, Bloor Research) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Any Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy needs a robust security governance and policy in place to allow such a concept to work effectively. However mobile devices have their own specific security... [Read More...]

Taking the offensive on endpoint security

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Buzz phrases of the day include consumerisation of IT and BYOD - bring your own device. The former phrase refers to the use of increasingly powerful and feature-rich devices, be they PCs,... [Read More...]

RSA Cybercrime Trends Report 2012

rss@it-analysis.com (Nigel Stanley, Bloor Research) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0100

RSA has recently published their 2012 cybercrime trends report. They calculate that every minute, 232 computers are infected by malware, despite on going education and awareness campaigns.... [Read More...]

Getting ahead in the cloud

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Cloud-based computing is growing faster than the IT sector as a whole. There are plenty of analysts throwing numbers about regarding cloud spending. Here are some from Forrester Research: in 2011,... [Read More...]

Migrating to Exchange 2010 and email archiving options

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0100

According to recent research, Microsoft Exchange accounts for 65% of email servers in use in organisations today. Many of these are deployments of Exchange 2003, for which Microsoft no longer offers... [Read More...]

Best practices for email archiving

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 06:00:00 +0100

Given the amount of business information that is contained in the multitude of emails received and sent every day and the need to preserve business records and correspondence for regulatory... [Read More...]

What did IPv6 Day prove?

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:00:00 +0100

IPv6 Day came and went without much fanfare. That is because, according to participants, it worked. True, there were a few problems encountered, but no more than expected and that was one of the main... [Read More...]

The security challenges of modern data centres

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0100

To reduce complexity, a high proportion of organisations are looking at modernising their data centre infrastructure through consolidation, virtualisation and by leveraging the cloud. In traditional... [Read More...]

Whitelisting and change control for improving integrity

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 06:00:00 +0100

Today's security threats are complex and sophisticated and are getting ever harder to defend against. Attackers use multiple methods and vectors to try to bury deep into networks and are increasingly... [Read More...]

IPv6 Day

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0100

The internet protocol (IP) is the primary communications protocol for determining how data packets are routed around the internet and is responsible for the addressing system that ensures traffic is... [Read More...]

Secure Systems Development Conference - A Must See!

rss@it-analysis.com (Nigel Stanley, Bloor Research) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:00:00 +0100

On Thursday 19th May 2011 I will be speaking at The 2nd International Secure Systems Development Conference in London on the subject of smartphone security, entitled I own your smart phone (and of... [Read More...]

BBC Interviews Nigel Stanley on Phone Hacking

rss@it-analysis.com (Nigel Stanley, Bloor Research) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:00:00 +0100

Another phone hacking story went live last week here� This was a package we had recorded a couple of weeks ago and it was scheduled for release during InfoSec 2011 week - as if that week wasn't going... [Read More...]

BBC Story on Bloor Research into Jihadists use of Smartphones

rss@it-analysis.com (Nigel Stanley, Bloor Research) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:00:00 +0100

An interesting story from the BBC based on some research I have been doing with Nico Prucha based at the University of Vienna. We found jihadists were compiling packages of information designed to be... [Read More...]

DDoS attacks: coming to a network near you

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 07:00:00 +0100

There has already been much fallout from the recent massive release of information by the WikiLeaks organisation—including attacks on WikiLeaks itself by those angered by its actions and aiming... [Read More...]

Web security in an always-on world

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:00:00 +0100

My habits are not dissimilar to those of many others. In the morning, my first act is to collect my phone from beside the bed, check my email accounts and then look to see who has posted what on... [Read More...]

Critical infrastructure under attack

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:00:00 +0100

Critical infrastructure is a term that is used to describe assets and facilities that are essential for the functioning of society and the economy. It encompasses a wide range of vital assets,... [Read More...]

Charting the vendor landscape for web and email security

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 07:00:00 +0100

Today's threat landscape is complex. Hackers no longer lust for fame, rather looking for ways to make their fortune. Simple exploits, such as a malicious email sent en masse, are no longer effective.... [Read More...]

Webinar on developing a user-centric approach to cloud security

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:00:00 +0100

From a user perspective, the term cloud refers to applications and services that are accessed via a browser, with no software or other agents needed to be installed on the device used to access them.... [Read More...]

Securing retail environments from the insider threat

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 07:00:00 +0100

The retail industry is one that operates under tight profit margins and the recent economic slowdown has seen those margins put under even greater pressure, with many retail chains reporting that the... [Read More...]

Anti-virus alone is a poor strategy

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Computer viruses and other malware such as worms, trojans and spyware, are rife and can cause tremendous damage to systems that become infected. Because of this, anti-virus (AV) technology is one of... [Read More...]

Securing the internet's infrastructure

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:00:00 +0100

DNS stands for the domain name system of the internet. It works like a directory--rather like a phone book--that allows computer-generated addresses to be translated into words that humans can... [Read More...]

Email archiving in the cloud webinar

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0100

Emails are essential business records and today form the bulk of much of the communications an organisation has internally and with business partners and customers. They, along with their... [Read More...]

The next-generation secure internet

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:00:00 +0100

The internet was designed to be easy to use. As its use expanded rapidly, what was needed was a scalable system for associating an internet host's name with its IP address. Therefore, the domain name... [Read More...]

When the cloud improves security

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Once considered a dirty word, no one today would doubt the importance of security. A decade ago, the world had a shock when the ILOVEYOU worm was unleashed by email, infecting an estimated 10% of... [Read More...]

Leveraging the cloud for more effective email archiving

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:10:00 +0100

Today, email is the primary means of communication for any organisation and emails and their attachments can contain a goldmine of information, such as contract details, hiring and compensation... [Read More...]

Call for participants for cloud security survey

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Is your organisation involved in a cloud or SaaS project? Bloor Research is currently undertaking a survey that aims to discover how organisations see the security issues of cloud-based or SaaS... [Read More...]

Building Security In Maturity Model gets an Update

rss@it-analysis.com (Nigel Stanley, Bloor Research) — Mon, 17 May 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Today we saw an updated release of the Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) study, which significantly expands the data defining benchmarks for successfully developing and growing an... [Read More...]

Call for participants for cloud security survey

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Mon, 17 May 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Financial sector reform

rss@it-analysis.com (Fran Howarth, Bloor Research) — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:00:00 +0100

The global financial crisis has highlighted the need for reform of the financial services sector. In the UK, the Financial Services Authority, which regulates financial sector, including banking... [Read More...]