Articles about Endpoints
Don't lose control of those fast-breeding endpoints
So you want to know about security? Well you have come to the right place. I have been here for a while and I can tell you that outside these gates it’s full of cowboys, sharks and pirates, none of whom will hesitate to take what is yours and call it their own.
The above is is a quote from a brochure I wrote in an attempt to …
Google brazenly strokes its mobile cloud tools just before Amazon shindig
Google has released two mobile development tools to coax app writers into storing data in the ad giant's cloud services.
The unveiling comes a day before the kickoff of cloud-rival Amazon's AWS:Reinvent, a love-in held in Las Vegas. Google's utilities give developers two ways to tie applications into cloud storage and compute …
Aaah-CHOOO! Brit boffins say WiFi can 'sneeze' malware
While the "head cold" metaphor is a bit laboured, the issue is genuine: a group of researchers from the University of Liverpool have found that WiFi access points are highly efficient at passing around virus infections.
Likening the spread of computer viruses over WiFi as akin to the spread of human viruses in the air, the …
Google App Engine update eases cloudy mobile app development
Google has updated its platform-as-a-service to ease mobile app development in the cloud.
The "Cloud Endpoints" feature was pushed out in its preview form by Google on Thursday, along with support for the Java 7 runtime on its App Engine platform-as-a-service.
"Cloud Endpoints gets rid of all the plumbing code associated with …
Bogus Firefox add-on FORCES WITLESS USERS to join vuln-hunting party
Cybercrooks have brewed up a botnet that uses a bogus Firefox add-on to scan the web for hackable websites.
The so-called Advanced Power botnet runs SQL injection attacks on websites visited from infected machines. The malware, disguised as a legitimate add-on for Mozilla Firefox, found its way onto 12,500 systems, reports …
Trustwave gobbles up Application Security, gorges itself on tech
Data security biz Trustwave has acquired fellow data security provider Application Security, a startup that specialises in automated database security scanning technologies.
Financial terms of the deal, announced on Monday, were undisclosed.
Privately-held Application Security develops security software for relational databases …
Tinfoil hats proven useless by eleven-year mobe radiation study
A long-term longitudinal study in the UK has concluded that mobile phones are safe, with the publication of a report finding “no evidence of biological or adverse health effects” from using mobiles.
The second MTHR (Mobile Telecommunications and Health Report) study is a follow-up to a prior report published in 2007. The report …
Rotten hackers feast on mouldy Java flaws
Most enterprise networks are riddled with vulnerable Java installations, according to a new study whose release coincides with the discovery of another 0-day Java flaw.
Less than one per cent of organisations are running the latest version of Java, according to a study by security software firm Bit9. The most frequently …
They've taken my storage hostage ... now what?
There's an encrypting ransomware Trojan making the rounds called Cryptolocker.
I will save the details on my battle with this beastie for later*, but suffice it to say that if this encrypts your stuff you are done. There is no getting your data back unless you have backups or pay the ransom.
Let's set aside the ultra-well …
IBM opens 'JumpGate' code to help devs navigate among clouds
IBM has developed a tool to tackle fragmentation in the cloud management ecosystem, and hopes its approach will encourage more providers to support OpenStack-based applications without having to run OpenStack.
The "JumpGate" technology was announced by SoftLayer engineer Nathan Beittenmiller in a blog post on Thursday, and sees …
The real reason why Dell wants to go private: To fondle big Boomis
Dell has added an API management tool to its Boomi platform, which connects up clouds and in-house applications.
The new component - which monitors and controls software interfaces used to hook together various services within an enterprise - is included in an upgrade that also adds new integration and process management …
Firewall-floggers in FLAMING MESS: Where'd our mystery margin go?
If you work in the fields of technology distribution, services and resale, you'll surely hear about cloud, mobile, social and virtual more than anything else. However, it is the changing patterns in security spending that are perhaps most dramatically re-shaping our businesses.
Gone are the good old days of pushing traditional …
CloudBees straddles firewall with VPN connection
Cloud startup CloudBees has launched a technology that lets customers of the developer-oriented cloud connect their sensitive on-premises resources to the company's cloud via VPN.
By building hosted OpenVPN into its infrastructure, the Java cloud has been able to launch the service which it says can assuage security concerns and …
Are you in charge of a lot of biz computers? Got Java on them?
Java security vulnerabilities - exploited to hack Apple and Facebook this month - are rife across business computers worldwide, according to new research.
The overwhelming majority (94 per cent) of PCs and other endpoints running Java software and surveyed by Websense are vulnerable to at least one Java runtime exploit, …
Promisec Endpoint Manager: So we gotta cope with BYOD... Help!
The explosion of internet-connected gadgets, sensors and other devices that underpins the "internet of things" concept makes my head hurt.
When combined with the completely new security model presented by IPv6, BYOD and cloud computing, automation of endpoint management is rapidly becoming non-optional.
I've started taking a …
MS brandishes 'Katana' HTTP/2.0 server
Microsoft has gone public with a prototype HTTP/2.0 server.
The server is designed to implement the version 4 HTTP/2.0 implementable draft published by the IETF earlier in July. The idea, according to IETF HTTPBIS chair Mark Nottingham, is that progressive implementations of HTTP/2.0 will feed back into the standard.
“We're …
A Tapestry of network complexity
Forget drawing network maps or sending your network management software on an epic tour of auto-discovery: a group getting ready to launch an open-source “network complexity scoring” tool says it's all about the endpoint.
Infoblox, part of the Flowforwarding.org SDN (software defined networking) community, is prepping the ground …
The SECOND COMING of Virtensys: HPC boffins turn PCIe into in-memory network
HPC boffins at startup A3CUBE have picked up where Virtensys left off and designed a way to use PCIe interfaces to provide direct shared global memory across a network with lower latency and higher scalability than Ethernet, InfiniBand and Fibre Channel.
San Jose-based A3CUBE was founded by in 2012 by Emilio Billi, its chief …
Reports: NSA has compromised most internet encryption
The NSA and the GCHQ have compromised much encryption used on the internet through a potent mix of technological theft, spycraft, and collaboration with major technology companies, according to new reports.
In a series of news articles that highlight how the code-breaking crypto-fiddling agencies NSA and GCHQ are doing their job …
AWS peers into soul of Load Balancers for DNS failover
Amazon Web Services now lets users apply automated DNS failover policies to data fronted by load balancers rather than just IPs.
As El Reg predicted, Amazon has now added Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) failover to Route 53 just three months after launching a new auto-redirect feature. This means Amazon's "dead man switch" failover …
A backdoor into Skype for the Feds? You're joking...
Heavyweights of the cryptographic world have lined up behind a campaign against proposed US wiretapping laws that could require IT vendors to place new backdoors in digital communications services.
Technical details are vague at present, but the planned law could mandate putting wiretap capabilities in endpoints to cover …
New NSA leak reveals invasion of the management consultants
The Register can reveal that while the NSA has been infiltrating the highest echelons of the governments of US allies, a counter-infiltration has taken place.
Crack teams of Microsoft marketing droids, sleeper cells of incognito TEDx speakers and the greatest sociologists ever to torture a syntax into confessing to crimes of …
Services fuel the next generation data centre
In its basic form, a data centre is just a big room full of cages and cabinets, with highly reliable power, efficient security, fire and flood protection and a variety of internal and external network connectivity.
In recent years providers have tried to differentiate their offerings but there is not really that much you can do …
Google plumps up one-click mobile cloud
Google is tightening the links between its cloud services and the Android mobile OS to help it woo developers into its rentable infrastructure with a new service for deploying mobile apps onto its cloud.
With the release of the Mobile Backend Starter on Monday, the Mountain View Chocolate Factory unwrapped a tech that takes the …
Microsoft embraces Android with Azure Mobile Services update
Microsoft has added support for Android apps into Windows Azure Mobile Services, letting developers programmatically add authentication and push notifications.
The updates were announced by Microsoft on Tuesday, and follow Google's release of a similar range of mobile updates for its cloud in mid-February.
To let Azure support …
MIT boffins give computers control to clock faster TCP
A group of MIT researchers has unveiled a machine learning approach to TCP congestion which could form the foundation of the next round of improvements to the venerable protocol's performance.
Dubbed “Remy”, their TCP control software is based on the idea that even sophisticated modern congestion control algorithms (like …
Office 365 goes to work on an Android
Unlike the video editing or CAD workstation beasts that are still utterly reliant on Windows, Android is slowly evolving into a workable platform for basic productivity.
Browsers are becoming passable. Onboard applications are decent and there are an ever-growing number of applications designed for both touch input and mouse. …
Cisco untroubled by mega-clouds fleeing its proprietary ASIC grip
Networking giant Cisco is facing the same onrush of terrifying low-cost competitors that server vendors and chipmakers are dealing with, and is now trying to convince the world that its tech is more open and interoperable than people think.
The new marketing approach has come about as the networking company prepares to sell its …
GenieDB uncorks database-as-a-service
Startup database company GenieDB has announced a cloud-hosted database named – we apologize in advance for what you're about to read – GenieDB Globally Distributed MySQL-as-a-Service (DBaaS).
The tongue-twisting tech was announced on Monday, and sees the company claim to have "solved the problem of geographical [data] …
Druva: We can do a mixture of anything you can do
Mobile, desktop and notebook backup startup Druva has dropped file sharing into its product mix and reckons it's distanced itself from pure-play endpoint backup vendors and file sync 'n' share players.
Druva was founded in 2008 and says its software is used to protect more than a million endpoints - desktop and notebook PCs, and …
Mass domain hijack leaves Reg reader angry with 123-Reg
A customer of domain name and web hosting provider 123-reg blames the firm for a domain hack that redirected surfers to malicious sites pushing a ransomware scam.
The problem was compounded, according to the aggrieved customer, when 123-reg support staff purportedly forgot to tell the customer when they found that the account …
Sysadmins: Let's perch on Microsoft Santa's lap, show him our wish list
Griping is easy. Solving problems in an acceptable way is not. I've had a year to chew on what exactly it is about Microsoft's recent moves that bugs me, so it's time to put my money where my mouth is and try to be constructive. Here is my wish list for the next iteration of Windows, offered in the vain hope that someone at …
Researcher sets up illegal 420,000 node botnet for IPv4 internet map
An anonymous researcher has taken an unorthodox approach to achieve the dream of mapping out the entire remaining IPv4 internet - and in doing so broken enough laws around the world to potentially put him or her behind bars for thousands of years.
To scan the IPv4 address space, billions of pings must be sent to discover all the …
What we learned at our Windows Azure Regcast
On 10 October QA’s Matt Bishop became the latest and the bravest techie to enter El Reg studio for a hands-on session.
Bravely ignoring advice never to work on stage with children or real-time internet feeds he did both, sitting alongside the Reg’s Tim Phillips for an hour of breakneck live Windows Azure configuration.
Why, …
Trend Micro squishes 'stuck in a loop' SafeSync bug
Trend Micro has issued software patches for its SafeSync product after some users complained that the software was not syncing files between two or more devices properly.
Posts of complaints on a user forum, and a tip from a Reg reader, suggested the software's synchronisation of files between devices was not functioning and …
Symantec to offload Altiris: report
Almost six years to the day since announcing it would acquire infrastructure management outfit Altiris for a cool $US830m, Symantec is said to be offloading the company.
The Wall Street Journal reports “people familiar with the process” Symantec is willing to offload the products it acquired for less than the purchase price. …
McAfee tears wrapping off MSP scheme, hands it to resellers
McAfee is formally hoisting resellers into the hosted services game with a Managed Service Partner programme for its security software and services.
The utility style monthly-billed subscription to be sold via distributors includes protection for endpoints, servers/ networks, virtual environment and mobile devices – software …
Q&A: Schneier on trust, NSA spying and the end of US internet hegemony
Bruce Schneier is the man who literally wrote the book on modern encryption, publishing Applied Cryptography in 1994, and for the past 20 years has been an important and sometimes outspoken voice in the security industry.
He founded the firm Counterpane Internet Security (later sold to BT), and is also a board member of the …
Microsoft to link Lync voice and IM to Skype by June
Microsoft kicked off its first-ever Lync Conference in San Diego, California, on Tuesday by announcing a series of planned upgrades for its Lync unified communications platform, including new mobile apps and interoperability with Skype.
In a statement, Tony Bates, president of Microsoft's Skype division, said that all Lync users …
Oracle talks performance, NoSQL, 'internet of things' at MySQL Connect
The MySQL Connect sessions may have been just a small part of the massive Oracle OpenWorld conference that they helped kick off this year, but the message from Oracle's MySQL team is that the open source database is thriving and its community is as strong as ever, despite mounting competition.
"A lot of people thought that …
The Register Guide to Windows Server 2012: A short extract
Two weeks ago, we published the The Register Guide to Windows Server 2012 as a free ebook. (You can get it here via our ebooks page.)
To date there has been about 6,000 downloads, which is cool. To give you a flavour of the book, co-written by Trevor Pott and Liam Proven, we are republishing two extracts - but to read it all you …
VMware sharpens axe for PCs: Horizon boxset brings Windows to iPads
After eighteen months of hints, VMware has unveiled the final version of its “Horizon Suite” end-user computing stack.
VMware has wanted more of a desktop presence for years, shelling out for Zimbra in 2010 in the hope enterprises liked the idea of webified email and calendars operating within their own data centres.
Zimbra's …
What's wrong with network monitoring tools? Where do I start...
For as long as I can remember I've worked in an environment where there's a screen on the wall showing the status of the company's systems. Or actually, in one case, showing the status of the company's systems unless there was a test match on.
From time to time that information's been useful. Unfortunately, most of the time we' …
Microsoft haters: You gotta lop off a lot of legs to slay Ballmer's monster
Contrary to increasingly popular belief, Microsoft is not a “dead” company, nor at immediate risk of collapse.
I do, however, believe that Microsoft’s “Windows on the endpoint” monopoly days have passed, that Microsoft’s senior management are aware of this and are actively taking steps to compensate. Similarly, I believe that …
First Google wants to know all about you, now it wants a RING on your finger
Top Google bods are mulling over using cryptographic finger-ring gadgets and other ways for users to securely log into websites and other services.
The ad giant's security veep Eric Grosse and engineer Mayank Upadhyay have submitted the paper Authentication at Scale to the IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine; their central argument …
McAfee upgrades cloud security and Intel identity kit
McAfee has upgraded its enterprise Cloud Security Platform and activated the first in a series of integrations with parent company Intel's identity management systems.
The security company has beefed up data loss systems to cover email and web gateways and added in a simplified management control and reporting panel that allow …
Let the software run the network
Across the IT industry, vendors are increasingly looking at defining datacentre operations in software.
Whether it is VMware with its software-defined datacentre concept or Microsoft with its Virtual Machine Manager product, they are bringing home the benefits of abstracting key datacentre functions away from the hardware. …
Enabling the on-demand data centre with SDN
The hybrid cloud is becoming a notable thing. Companies such as Microsoft are pushing visions like CloudOS while work patterns change to allow more flexibility in worker location.
Traditional networks focused on situations where workers perform all duties on premises owned by the company. How will that change?
I sat down with …
Sophos antivirus classifies its own update kit as malware
Sophos users woke up to mayhem on Thursday after the business-focussed antivirus firm released an update that classified itself and any other update utility as a virus.
As a result enterprise PCs running the application went haywire, generating false positives reporting SSH/Updater-B malware. Sysadmins were bombarded with …
Secunia bets on open information for security growth
Danish vulnerability specialist developer Secunia has released the latest beta of its Personal Software Inspector (PSI), and says it is betting on an open approach to security information to grow the company.
Founder Niels Henrik Rasmussen told The Register that his company will continue to work on open information sharing with …
