Ahead of next week’s VMWorld in San Francisco, here are some thoughts on the safe use of cloud computing for smaller businesses, along with a podcast (see the link at end of the post). The Cloud concept, a flexible Virtual Machine (VM) based system that allows rapid expansion and dedicated functionality without hiring new staff,

Sharing details of the hack that “wiped his life” has earned Mat Honan a place in the annals of information system security; the specific inter-dependence of flawed authentication systems that cost him so dearly–encompassing Apple, iCloud, Amazon.com, Gmail and more–would probably still exist if Mat had not gone public. Wired has the full story here

The consumer cloud expanded again this week with the addition of Google Drive to more familiar brands like Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive, Apple iCloud, and Amazon Cloud Drive. Unfortunately, most of these cloud-based file storage services come with privacy and security caveats, often involving language such as "You give us the right to access, retain, use

SKYPE: Securely Keep Your Personal E-communications From time to time people get new computer equipment and need to (re-)install all their favorite programs. Often a painful and time-consuming job, but afterwards it should ease the way of working with the new equipment. Even security gurus have to undergo this procedure at regular intervals. In November

I’m not paid to find irony in life, it’s just how I’m wired. For example, I found it hilarious that in a Singapore airport restroom with toilets that flush automatically, touch-free sinks, touch-free soap dispensers, and touch-free hand driers, they have a TOUCH SCREEN “rate our bathroom” survey! I’m not making this up, here’s the

About a month ago I gave a presentation in Kuala Lumpur that covered some of the concerns about the seemingly enthusiastic rush to push everything out "to the cloud". People in the Marketing business love the term "cloud computing" and have come up with some lovely images of fluffy clouds reflected on office blocks and

ThreatSense.Net® is a form of distributed computing that for several years has supplemented and extended the capabilities of the ThreatSense® detection engine, which is the heart of the advanced heuristics that characterize ESET products. ThreatSense.Net® sends back information to the Virus Labs on both known and new threats. As well as tracking the prevalence of

I was asked to comment on Google Chrome OS (operating system): specifically, on the security model that is being proposed, and on the privacy issues associated with running an operating system in the cloud. You can find the article by Orestis Bastounis of Computeract!ve here: http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2254227/google-unveils-chrome It's difficult to speak authoritatively about Chrome OS so

The next presentation here at Virus Bulletin is called “Tales from Cloud Nine” and is presented by Mihai Chiriac, the head of research from BitDefender. While using the word “cloud”, Mihai continued to explain what the technology is that is being used, how and why it used. This was an exceptionally well balanced presentation that

I’m sitting in a presentation at the Virus Bulletin conference in Geneva. The topic is “Why in the Cloud scanning is not a solution. The presentation is done by Andreas Marx and Maik Morgenstern from AV-Test.org. What they found in extensive testing is that “Cloud” scanners do not have a detection advantage over traditional solutions.