Columnists

Antivirus in the Cloud: Fad or future?

Although identified by Gartner as a top ten IT strategy for 2011, cloud technology has yet to realise its full potential in corporate IT departments - the promise of increased flexibility and scalability provided by the cloud is offset by ongoing concerns about the security of corporate data. So it is ironic that the cloud represents one of the most exciting and promising new channels for the development and use of anti-malware software.

: MALCOLM TUCK, UK Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab; Columnists; Posted On Sunday, 17 April 2011 20:55

Where Microsoft comes up short

Mind the Gap – bridging the security gap in Microsoft’s communication and collaboration platform to support secure file transfer

As the next wave of Microsoft products aim to define how people work, there is still one area in which SharePoint 2010, Outlook 2010 and OCS come up short - the ability to move files quickly and securely. Microsoft SharePoint, Outlook and OCS products offer collaboration and communications functionality to business users, including basic file transfer. However for today's businesses, this basic file transfer comes up short in size and security. SharePoint limits file transfer between internal and external recipients, Outlook best practices limits file attachments to 10MB, and OCS provides no tracking or security for file transfers.

: DR PAUL STEINER, Anccellion Managing Director; Columnists; Posted On Sunday, 17 April 2011 20:43

Ensuring infrastructure resilience in an online world

The Internet is a wonderful tool when it works, but we are increasingly at a loss when it encounters problems. Steve Durbin, Global VP at ISF (Information Security Forum) looks at what organisations should do to minimise the risks.

Server outages at global ISPs may be an extreme case, but they illustrate the challenge faced by businesses that are shifting a growing proportion of their information and transaction infrastructure online – often to cloud-based computing.

: STEVE DURBIN, Global Vice President, Information Security Forum (ISF); Columnists; Posted On Sunday, 17 April 2011 20:33

The dark side of Outsourcing – what management needs to know!

Many CISOs are caught by this logical paradox as, encouraged by the greed of their CEOs to cut costs, the increase in IT outsourcing starts to reveal its dark side

Not every outsourcing firm is bad news. It depends on who brought them up. It depends to a large extent on their parenting. Like The Dog Whisperer says: “There are no bad dogs – just bad owners.” This is a cautionary tale of a poor CISO driven witless by a ruthless, cost-cutting boss who falls foul of the worst traits of the mongrel outsourcing firm Offshore The Salvage IT Support company. Before I tell this sorry tale I want to say that not everyone is the same and there are exceptions to the rule. However, when you hear a story as many times as I have, you do start to generalise...