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Security Conference news…

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This week the big RSA Security Conference is going on in San Francisco. For those that don’t know what it is I suggest taking a look a the conference website to get more info overall.

There have been some interesting Keynote addresses that I plan on checking out online when I have time, but in the spirit of time I came across an interesting announcement from Symantec.

Symantec has acquired Security Vendor MI5, and this could be both good and bad. MI5 makes appliances that do some of the things that say a Barracuda appliance does, Web Security and the like. Symantec on the other hand, was once one of the best AV companies out there. I say once, because I know a lot of people had gotten turned off by their more recent offerings.

Now I am not going to bash Symantec’s AV stuff, especially considering that with their new CEO, they seem to be working on making their product better. I’m hearing reports that the new versions of their AV and Endpoint products are less resource intense, and work much better. Plus they are bringing back the Norton Utility line to where it should have always been.

What has me worried about them acquiring MI5 and assimilating it, is what has happened with BackupExec. When Symantec bought Veritas and got its hands on BE, it seemed like it could be a good thing. Unfortunately, BE has basically stagnated under Symantec’s rule, the online support for the latest versions is almost non-existent, and they have yet to make it to handle removable SSD (solid state drives) in an easy fashion. I hope to god that they don’t do the same sort of thing with MI5.

Monday Microsoft Musings

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Monday morning, another work week starting, and a bunch of thoughts and questions about Microsoft for you all.

First off, how does Microsoft determine when it is going to release new software? SBS 2008, which has Exchange 2007 built in it, just came out in November, and now Exchange 2010 is in beta. How fast do they expect people to change? Figuring that it take a while for companies to even consider switching to the newest software, and then the testing and learning curve for it, maybe there is a method to the fast turn around on the next gen software.

Second, and even more annoying to me, is the links inside of the Microsoft Event Logs.   You click on the link, it asks you if you want to send the information, and then 80-90 percent of the time you get a message back saying there is no information from Microsoft on this Event ID. Why the heck do they even offer us a link when most of the time it does nothing but make us bang our heads? Yes there are great ways of finding out about the Event IDs through Google, but the links inside of the event logs are supposed to make our search much easier, and more official.

So, am I way off base on these thoughts? Am I just another looney IT guy who wants more from his vendors than they give, or do you feel the same way?

Innocence Lost: Welcome to the real world Mac Users

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Mac Vs. Windows. The age long battle, has been fought in advertising, on store shelves, and amongst computer users for a long time now. The arguments we can all say from memorys. Windows has more software, more hardware offerings, are less expensive, are more prevalant. Mac’s are more stable, produce better graphics, are more secure. Not anymore. Mac users have officially lost the right to say more secure. They no longer can claim that they can’t be hacked, and they definitely need to start looking into anti-virus solutions.

There are tons of articles floating around the net right now about the iBotnet, the unfortuante result of installing pirated copies of  iWork09. Yes I know, not everyone installs pirated software. Not everyone even knows how to get pirated software. That is not the point.

The point being that Mac’s have been so “secure” because noone felt they were worth writing malware for. With the growing popularity and large visibility Apple has been getting lately, its no surprise that something like this has happened. Yes this one might only affect a very small ammount of people, but now that proof of concept has been delivered, and now that one piece of malware has been made and put into the wild, the real question is how long until the copy cats start?

Look at the world of Windows malware, and you will find so much of it is variants. People download the original code, and modify it, making it meaner, nastier, more eveasive, easier to distribute. Do you really think that won’t happen with Mac malware? Are you that naive?

I’m a PC user. I have my Windows machines, and my Linux boxes. I’d love to have a Mac so I can learn it inside out. I don’t see any problem with Mac except that it is too expensive for my tastes. Well, now that you really should get AV for it, and like any other real software for Mac it costs because access to the APIs are all controlled by Apple and they charge a lot for that sort of access, it will cost more, plus that OSX is built on a *nix (Unix/Linux) system, well I guess I’ll wait longer.

Welcome to the real world my Mac friends.