Anti-Virus Software is Not a Security Defense

While anti-virus software is an important component to a secure defense, it is a tool  that addresses a portion of the problem. Alfred Huger, VP of Engineering for anti-virus vendor Immunet, described the effectiveness of an anti-virus program similar to the effectiveness of a seat belt. The safety feature will only possibly protect you in the event of a crash. While it is a necessity to wear it every time you operate a vehicle, you need other larger-scale measures to prevent the accident.

Don’t Let Smartphone Networks Repeat History

If we do not want history to repeat itself, it is necessary to take preventative measures to protect the integrity of smartphones. As of December 2009, 42% of US consumers owned smartphones and the figure is still climbing. Before significant numbers of smartphones become infected, smartphone network operators should deploy technology to make it very difficult for infected devices to be usable by malicious actors. Failure to do so would lead to a repetition of history: having the smartphone network operators needing to be reactionary to threats; bandwidth saturation; and other problems.

Umbra Data Is Hiring a Software Engineer

We’re looking for a skilled Software Engineer to come be Employee #4 at Umbra Data, our funded startup in the Internet Security space.

This job will involve the creation of software for the purpose of identifying, tracking and communicating malicious Internet activities. The focus is primarily from a botnet perspective. Skills in the use of C, Ruby-on-Rails and Perl on Unix/Linux platforms are required. A demonstration of self-directed work habits, strong communication skills both written and verbal, and the ability to gauge schedule requirements are vital to our mutual success. As the work environment is an early-stage startup, prior experience in such an environment is a major plus.

Your Password Sucks!

Maybe your password doesn’t really matter.  A determined hacker with enough computing power can guess your password fairly quickly.  But please!  For Pete’s sake, please try to make your password difficult for others to guess!

My early career was in IT and I’ve seen many stupid passwords.  The problem spans the entire organization.  The CEO at one company I worked for had the password “getrich”.  The CFO at another company had “123money”.  These are smart people.  Why did they pick such incredibly stupid passwords?