Symantec To Open Its Consumer Cloud Platform Shasta (video)

June 3, 2010

The Shasta Architecture: Symantec's Consumer Cloud Platform

Shasta is Symantec’s “uber” consumer cloud platform on top of which the security company is building it’s current and future cloud services like Safe Web, Download Insight, Anti-spam, Facebook scanner application, Norton DNS…

Symantec plans to open access to Shasta’s API to third parties so they could integrate some of the company security services in Twitter clients, Web Mails or browsers.

Overview of the Shasta platform:

Evolution of the Shasta platform:

The Shasta platform could scale beyond Twitter!


Symantec Bashes McAfee Artemis Reputation, Cloud Strategy (video)

June 3, 2010

McAfee Antivirus Update Fiasco Will Happen Again, Symantec Predicts (video)

June 3, 2010

According to rival Symantec, McAfee antivirus update problems are not over yet.

At a media meeting dubbed “Next @ Norton” today, the Mountain View, Calif.-based security company warned that McAfee’s faulty signature update fiasco might happen again despite using cloud technologies to mitigate future risks.

“They say they are going to use the cloud to stop from ever happening again. And that concerns me a little,” explains Kevin Haley, product manager of Symantec’s Technology and Response group, comparing McAfee’s cloud solution to a warehouse!

Symantec faults McAfee “cloud” response

For Haley, McAfee will still be using “rushed out” signatures, but this time, it’s sitting in the cloud and will get faster to the user.

“It doesn’t do anything to mitigate false positives. In fact, probably, it’s going to do the opposite,” adds the Symantec executive who contends that this could not happen with Norton Antivirus.

“There are some critical systems files that if removed are going to cause something bad. And if anytime we have the urge of removing them, there’s a fail-safe mechanism in the [Norton] product that will not allow it to be removed.”

In the video below, the Symantec executive found McAfee explanation for the fiasco lousy and suggests his version of what he thinks “really happened:”


[Video] IT Industry And Cloud Computing In Dating Stage, Fujitsu says

April 14, 2010

Fujitsu CTO Dr Joseph Reger (right) is interviewed by Symantec's vice-president of product marketing, Steve Morton at the Symantec Vision 2010 conference

The new keynote format ‘sans Powerpoint slides’ at the Symantec Vision 2010 conference makes it all the more enjoyable, but also unpredictable.

Case in point: When asked about its cloud computing strategy, Fujitsu’s CTO Dr. Joseph Reger had this to say:

“The IT industry and the cloud thing are in the dating stage… Dating is when you see only the bright side, the opportunities and you don’t sit down and worry about what could be the issues,” said the Fujitsu CTO.

Fujitsu pushes for a ‘Cloud stack’

Reger went on to say that Fujitsu developed a concept it called ‘Trusted Cloud’ that does not treats cloud computing as “a totally different affair from current IT.”

“It is a step away from current IT but it needs to be connected to the current IT: so private-public cloud. We’re thinking about trusted boundaries, the security perimeters and so on. And we are seriously hoping that the cloud will be just another incarnation of IT, not a total different thing. Meaning that there will be a cloud stack where everybody can contribute… Because if the cloud is like an end to end proprietary big heater proposition, that’s not good for us, for you [Symantec] and for our customers either.”

Despite important turmoil at its top, Fujitsu is in the midst of launching a major effort to expand its product/hardware and IT services business globally.

“We are a major force in Japan with 180,000 employees and $50 billion in annual turnover revenues… And we’re the 3rd or 4th IT services company in the world,” emphasised Reger.

Fujitsu is also a big believer in open standards despite being vertically integrated, which in the long run could result in a lock-in for customers.

“We are diligently working on open standards. In fact we’re the only company outside of VMware who submitted a cloud management interface API to the DMTF.”

It’s okay to make money on Green IT

On Green IT, Reger sees no harm in profiting on this new trend.

“The goal is to save the planet. And now while we are saving the planet, if there are some people or companies making a fortune while doing that, then that’s good for the planet actually and good for all of us. It’s okay to make money.”


[Video] Symantec’s New Security Vision: Firewalls Are Dead !

April 13, 2010

Symantec CEO Enrique Salem speaking with the media at the Vision 2010 conference

Sounds like a revolution… at least to me, having covered IT security for only 15 years!

At Symantec’s Vision 2010 in Las Vegas, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company has a big news for the 2,500 IT managers attending the conference: firewalls are dead!

“There are really 2 concepts that matter to security. It’s users or identities and the information that you are trying to protect… So the firewall that used to be just ‘how do I keep things for coming in’ is not the right answer. Because I need people to integrate with me. I need people to leverage the information. So the right concept is: find the information that matters and make sure it’s secure,” confided Enrique Salem, the CEO of Symantec during a media roundtable at the show.

The head of the largest security software vendor went as far as to say that he doesn’t believe in screening everything, because only a very small portion of the data is worth protecting or even saving.

To which Greg Hughes, Symantec’s President of the Enterprise product group i.e. 2/3 of the company’s revenues, added:

“I think it’s a good way to think about it: protecting and creating that periphery, is sort of an outmoded concept. You’ve got to protect the information. And I think that’s where we’re really distinctive.”

Now you have it. But are you ready to turn off your firewall?


Kaspersky Lab Readies Anti-Malware Product For Macs; Sees Emerging Market

August 10, 2009
Kaspersky Lab confirms launch of anti-malware product for Mac will be shipping by year-end

Kaspersky Lab confirms launch of anti-malware product for Mac by year-end

As the urban legend goes, Macs are just less vulnerable to viruses, malware and other various cyber attacks that usually plague Windows users.

And in large part, the status quo is mostly respected with some notorious exceptions however; like Apple recommending to run an antivirus software (from Intego, McAfee or Symantec) last November (Apple erased the note from its site a few days later), the “exploit” against Safari last March or the latest Mac OS X release that patches several vulnerabilities found in the Apple operating system.

MacOS X has a lot of vulnerabilities: FUD or not?

Should that make me feel less secure while working on my MacBook? Not really; which made Kaspersky Lab marketing manager Peter Beardmore grin when we met last week while touring Silicon Valley.

“The Mac today is far more vulnerable than people think it is. Percentage-wise a lot of Macs are not protected at all, meaning there’s an inherent vulnerability associated with that… The vulnerabilities are there and we can cite chapter and verse if you’re interested but there’s a lot of vulnerabilities out there,” said Beardmore.

Beardmore confirmed that Kaspersky will release a Mac version of its security suite later this year. So his remarks have been taken with a grain of salt as it’s hard to know if this is to build up the scare prior to the product launch or an actually real concern.

Follows a video excerpt of our conversation with Beardmore on the future Mac product. More on Kaspersky plans in later posts.


Performance Still Key To Computer Dissatisfaction

July 9, 2009

Ask PC owners what gives them the greatest dissatisfaction with their computers and the answer will likely be performance.

Recent studies show that more than 50 percent of users single out responsiveness as their key concern.

Adding memeory is one way to improve performance, installing modern security software is another, says Symantecs Jens Meggers

Adding memeory is one way to improve performance, installing modern security software is another, says Symantec's Jens Meggers

Machines simply don’t run as fast as they should. This was especially true three or four years ago when memory chip prices rose and vendors responded by scrimping on the RAM memory they installed.

While overall performance is better today, it is still not everything it should be. Fortunately, there are several ways to change this – all worth a little attention.

According to Jens Meggers, vice president of engineering at Symantec’s consumer products division, one key step is to add more memory. No secret here. Memory has long been the key performance variable, especially in machines making due with 500 MB.

A second way is to de-install unused applications. Computer users who frequently download software from the Internet can unknowingly end up with multiple toolbars and programs that soak up unnecessary chip capacity.

A final step is to install a modern suite of security software, obviously Symantec’s bread and butter. Meggers says older security software slowed down machines by using too much memory and adding to PC boot time.

With Norton Internet Security 2009, the suite’s boot time was reduced to 10 seconds and its use required between just 5 and 7 MB of memory. The suite also sped up malware scanning.

Symantec sent Norton Internet Security 2010 into beta testing last week with another key improvement – a performance monitor that shows how different software applications impact computer speed.

Computer performance is better today, says Meggers. But the problem hasn’t been eliminated, he adds.

He is right about that. The next step may come with better scrutiny of the downloads computer owner permit.


Amazon Rain Forest Weight Loss Spam Now Accounting For 10% Of Spam

May 18, 2009

Acai is a small berry from the Amazon rain forest filled with antioxidants and believed to be potent agent of weight loss.

Cutwail botnet believed behind the rain forest campaign

Cutwail botnet believed behind the rain forest campaign

It also is at the heart of a fraudulent spam campaign accounting for as much as 10 percent of spam coursing across the Internet.

According to MessageLabs, part of Symantec, the swarm has increased over the past two months from about 5 percent of worldwide volume to a peak of 10 percent.

It appears to be coming from the Cutwail network of botnets, and it links people by way of several URLs to a Russian Web site.

The spam messages tout a concoction called Acai Power Slim and direct a victim to a site where a special offer is available.

The power of the Cutwail botnet is obviously astonishing.


Symantec To Embed Security With Companies Information; To Prevent Data Leaks

April 20, 2009
Mark Bregman, CTO, Symantec

Mark Bregman, CTO, Symantec

The problem of the consumerization of the enterprise is becoming more pervasive as public computing clouds and “hot” devices such as the iPhone proliferations throughout company ranks.

But for Symantec CTO Mark Bregman the dilemma is between blatantly banning those usages and devices inside a corporation – and by the same time scare good talent away – and ways to “manage” the issue.

“In the financial services sector, we’ve seen people performing computational work on public clouds because it was a faster to complete their jobs, but without anyone at IT knowing it and against company policies. Same thing on the device side, where employees are using their private iPhone to send corporate emails or work on company documents,” said Bregman speaking at Symantec’s “influencers” event in San Francisco.

Enterprise digital rights management can’t solve the IT headache from the “consumerization” of the enterprise

To try to prevent data “leaks” or “breaches”, Bregman suggested to automatically classify the data that comes out of an enterprise and embed security to it by adding strong digital rights like “who can read the document, copy/paste it, print it, etc…”

A strategy that complements Symantec’s current solutions centered around its “data loss prevention” (or DLP) solution (from the Vontu’s acquisition) and “endpoint virtualization” solution which now only work on Windows machines and creates a secure and isolated environment that IT can control.

“Today’s Enterprise Rights Management solutions (from Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, EMC and Liquid Machines) do not scale and adds too much complexity in managing endpoints as you need to write ERM plug-ins for each applications you are trying to secure,” adds Brian Witten, senior director of Advanced Concepts at Symantec’s Research Labs.



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