Dennis Fisher

The power vacuum atop the Department of Homeland Securitys cyber-security division is straining the DHS relationship with key private-sector allies and hampering government efforts to improve security on public and private networks. According to insiders, the situation has industry representatives set to take action on their own after five reports on security have failed to […]

Lawmakers and chief security officers are fed up with the lack of security in todays software products, and its up to vendors to change their practices if they want to hold on to their customers and avoid onerous regulations, Oracle Corp. CSO Mary Ann Davidson said at the eWEEK Security Summit in San Francisco last […]

The pressure from Capitol Hill on corporate America to clean up its act with regard to safeguarding sensitive customer information continues to increase, as Sen. Jon Corzine said Thursday that he plans to introduce a new bill next week that will require corporate officers to attest that their companies have adequate measures in place to […]

When phishing emerged as a serious problem in 2003, many law enforcement agencies were caught off guard. The Internet boom had spawned special task forces staffed with investigators trained in electronic crimes, but these teams were uniformly understaffed and overburdened. As a result, the FBI and the Secret Service have relied on the private sector […]

A series of new versions of the Bagle virus hit PCs last week, several of which attempted to install Trojans on infected machines. The viruses were seeded through a massive spamming effort that experts say was facilitated by the many PCs infected by previous variants of Bagle and are being used as spam proxies. The […]

The raid was like something out of a Michael Mann movie: Police in four Brazilian states swept through the homes and businesses of dozens of suspects, tagging evidence that included cash, PCs and piles of stolen merchandise. Police said the suspects were involved in a sophisticated, organized criminal ring responsible for stealing cash and property […]

A group of researchers backed by the Department of Homeland Security is launching a new program to identify flaws in the security of current SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems and look for ways to build more resilient next-generation systems. The Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection, known as the I3P, said Friday that DHS […]

Following the lead of a number of European banks and financial institutions, eTrade Financial Corp. on Tuesday announced that it plans to offer its online banking customers the option of using RSA Security Inc.s SecurID tokens as an added layer of security for online transactions. This deal makes eTrade the first major financial institution in […]

CA on Tuesday will announce a new security framework for the mainframe that is designed to tie together the various aspects of identity, authentication and authorization in a standards-based architecture. Computer Associates International Inc. has been moving full speed into the network and desktop security arenas, but company officials still believe that there is room […]

In the wake of recent high-profile thefts of sensitive personal information from what were considered protected databases, legislators are preparing to turn up the heat on private enterprises that fail to safeguard customers data. Lawmakers renewed urgency is being fueled largely by the recent security blunder at data warehouse vendor ChoicePoint Inc. The incident, which […]