Database and Network Journal articles from December 2004

Database and Network Journal archives from December 2004

Virtual organizations.(The Virtual World)
December 1, 2004... New technological possibilities bring with them a flood of new terms. Alongside terms like information highway, multimedia or information society are the "virtual organization" expressions, terms like virtual firm, virtual administration,...

Latest articles on companies act, spyware, identity in IT security, intrusion detection and cyber criminal.(The Virtual World)
December 1, 2004... When is a virus not a virus? When it's a piece of spyware. Spyware--AKA advertising-supported software or adware--has been until recently a fairly benign snooper on your surfing habits. The data it gathers is then used to target you with...

Virtual storage equals real confusion.(The Virtual World)
December 1, 2004... While doing research for a current book project on storage virtualization, I found it useful to keep a large bottle of aspirin handy for the headaches that were bound to ensue. Storage virtualization is the elephant that vendors and...

Virtual storage strategies.(The Virtual World)
December 1, 2004... The storage industry has matured to a large extent and offers new strategies, solutions, and business potential. The storage virtualization concept helps focus your strategy and the SSP model creates new business avenues. Storage...

Applying Agile Database Techniques.(Software Progress)
December 1, 2004... In this feature I describe how your organization can adopt the agile database techniques described in my book 'Agile Database Techniques". My expectation is that it will be difficult for many organizations to adopt agile database techniques not...

Definitions of a scripting language from the Web.(Software Progress)
December 1, 2004... * A scripting language differentiates itself from other typical languages in that they are usually simpler to learn and use as well as not needing to be compiled. The language is interpreted at run-time so you can execute instructions...

Defending the network.(Security)
December 1, 2004... The World Wide Web is lauded for its ability to deliver instant communications and connectivity. However, the web's speed and convenience brings with it the threat of both targeted and indiscriminate malicious attacks. The DTI Information...

Integrated network management system.(Security)(TeVISTA Enterprise PLUS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Chevin has announced the availability of its new integrated solution, TeVISTA Enterprise PLUS, which combines the existing TeVISTA Enterprise product with TeVISTA Performance Manager and 100 Software agents at a much reduced price. Enterprise...

Achieving internal security.(Security)
December 1, 2004... It wasn't too long ago that external IT security threats were the main concern for organisations and the internal network was perceived as a relative haven of calm. However, times have changed drastically and inner peace is no longer something...

Software disasters often people problems.(Viewpoint)
December 1, 2004... New software at Hewlett Packard was supposed to get orders in and out the door faster at the computer giant. Instead, a botched deployment cut into earnings in a big way in August and executives got fired. Last month, a system that controls...

IBM eServer 595 sets new db-processing record.(Database & Network Digest)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... IBM executives told a meeting of industry analysts in Austin, Texas, that IBM's Unix eServer 595 computer running an IBM's own Power 5 line of computer chips has set a new database-processing record that surpasses by nearly three times the...

Software patents.(Database & Network Digest)
December 1, 2004... The latest attempts to scupper the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions--more commonly referred to as the Software Patent Directive--by the Polish Government and the open-source developers are misinforming the IT...

Growing demand for e-commerce functionality.(Database & Network Digest)
December 1, 2004... UK web designers are increasingly required to include ecommerce functionality in the sites they build for clients, according to the latest independent research published by Actinic. At the same time, the average price that web designers are...

BCS members ask for IT in print.(Database & Network Digest)(British Computer Society)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Even the UK's leading IT professionals, members of the British Computer Society (BCS), prefer paper to electronic formats for some of their publishing. New research by education and learning consultancy Shift Media into BCS members media...

Russia seeks to boost software production.(Database & Network Digest)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Russia is seeking to slow the brain-drain of computer specialists and increase software production, in an effort that some hope will help diversify the country's oil-dependent economy. Dimitri Milovantsev, deputy minister for information...

Sense Engine.(Database & Network Digest)(Crystal Semantics )
December 1, 2004... Crystal Semantics has developed the 'Sense Engine' in order to produce relevant search results by utilising the senses of words, rather than statistical algorithms used by other search technology. Because any word in the English language can be...

DigiGuide--personal TV guide.(Database & Network Digest)(GipsyMedia Limited's television program guide)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... GipsyMedia Limited is announcing the launch of their new version of DigiGuide, the latest device to help people organise their television viewing. Once installed on Windows PCs, DigiGuide works off-line and allows customers to personalise their...

SAMwise asset management service.(Database & Network Digest)(Grey Matter)(Software Asset Management )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Grey Matter has announced the launch of its new software asset management service, SAMwise. This is a cost effective and flexible solution that breaks Software Asset Management (SAM) down into manageable steps, by offering a range of services...

Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64.(IT Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Mandrakesoft has released Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64, a version of its Linux Operating System that runs on AMD x86-64 and Intel EMT architectures. Linux has always been ahead of the competition in this area: it was the first operating system...

Navision 4.0.(IT Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Microsoft Business Solutions-Navision 4.0 is a fully customizable business management solution designed for small and midsize companies seeking an integrated solution to help increase productivity without disrupting everyday operations....

FastNET.ASP.(IT Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... FastNET.ASP provides Microsoft.NET developers with a toolset for producing business applications in, it is claimed, under a quarter of the time of traditional development projects. The FastNET.ASP toolset provides a robust web-browser...

Macromedia captivate.(IT Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Macromedia have announced the immediate availability of Macromedia Captivate, which enables anyone to easily record onscreen activity and create software demonstrations and interactive simulations. Demonstrations visually show the steps...

New version of double-take.(IT Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Sunbelt System Software, provider of Windows system administration tools and enterprise solutions, have announced that their partner NSI Software, has released a new version of its recovery solution, Double-Take software, the host-based data...

OpenLoad 4.5.(IT Products)(OpenDemand Systems Inc)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Contemporary Software UK distributor for OpenDemand Systems Inc. has released OpenLoad 4.5, the browser-based load and functional testing software.. The 4.5 release contains new features such as support for testing boxed applications like...

Piano Coach.(IT Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Piano Coach, is the latest edition from Charanga's range of Music Coach PC CD-ROM software. Piano Coach allows learners to develop at their own pace in the convenience of their own home and allows lessons to be fitted in whenever they have a...

Bionformatics Toolbox 2.0.(IT Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Addressing the needs of computational biologists and bioinformatists, The MathWorks have released the Bioinformatics Toolbox 2.0 for MATLAB. Scientists and researchers can now perform mass-spectrometry data analysis, perform statistical...

Why current generation intrusion prevention systems fail: Infosecurity Manchester 17th Nov 2004.(Conference Notes)
December 1, 2004... Ever since Gartner declared 'IDS is Dead', you would have thought that the rush of vendors putting out IDP systems would have by now solved all problems and resulted in a dramatic reduction of viruses, worms and whatnot. But it just isn't so;...

Cyberwars: how to fight back.(Conference Notes)
December 1, 2004... Angela Cunvin, Appsense The current security threats to business IT infrastructures have increased dramatically. Most notable are the rising number of viruses and similar malicious programs that threaten serious financial loss. 'The...

Microsoft sues seven sex spammers.(Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Microsoft has filed seven new lawsuits against hackers who allegedly used third-party PCs to send sexually explicit spam messages that violated rules set down by the USA's CAN-SPAM law and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The seven lawsuits...

2004: the security year reviewed, Sophos.(Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... 2004 saw the number of new viruses at their highest for almost three years, with 1,230 new viruses identified in August alone. As well as increasing in prevalence, worms also became more sophisticated, with some even allowing remote hackers to...

Cahoot security blunder could have been prevented.(Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Cahoot, Abbey's online bank, had a major security breach recently, enabling customers to see each other's online banking information, including customer account information. Kavado's CEO Vik Desai said that this security breach could easily...

Police question ex-virus writer.(Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... According to reports on an IT security website, Czech police have interviewed and confiscated computers from 'Benny", a former member of the 29A virus-writing gang. The 22-year-old man, who lives in Brno in the Czech Republic, was questioned by...

Malicious code in internet ads.(Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... It has been confirmed in the last few days, that viruses are hitting web sites and its users through compromised ad servers. Whilst the malicious code was unintentionally served from Falk AG's ad servers it sends an important message to all...

Pointsec data encryption solution for Linux.(Security)(Pointsec Mobile Technologies AB)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Pointsec is broadening its endpoint security solutions to encompass Linux. Pointsec for Linux enables users to protect their most confidential data stored on laptops and desktop computers running Linux. The explosion of Linux, especially on...

A new phishing attack.(Security)
December 1, 2004... Phishing seams, already one of the main nemeses on the Net, have apparently just become even more sneaky--and ingenious. Now, it appears phishing authors are borrowing some time-tested tactics from computer virus writers to steal personal...

Spy sweeper enterprise.(Security)(growth of spyware usage)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Richard Stiennon of Webroot, has warned that unless firms wake up and start doing more to protect their systems and networks, sensitive information could be intercepted. Importantly, companies could face prosecution for failing to guard data in...

Phishers recruit UK computer users into money laundering.(Security)(new email seam encouraging innocent people to help phishers)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Spam researchers at Sophos are warning UK computer users to be wary of a new email seam encouraging innocent people to help phishers, under the guise of a money-making opportunity. Sophos believes that recipients of these messages could...

Fasthosts launches LiveMail.(Security)(Fasthosts Internet Ltd)
December 1, 2004... Fasthosts have launched LiveMail, a new suite of hosted business email solutions. Powered by Microsoft Exchange, LiveMail is available completely free, for 30 days to all customers. Unique to Fasthosts, LiveMail offers: * Integrated...

Spammer training course loses money.(Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A spam campaign, masterminded by a group of Russian spammers, poses as a training course which will lead to a job with the financial institution Credit Suisse is intented to defraud innocent computer users out of their savings. The emails,...

New Trojan horse sends mobile phone spam.(Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Sophos have identified a new Trojan horse which attempts to send spam messages to mobile phone users. The Delf-RA Trojan horse (Troj/Delf-HA) infects PCs then contacts a Russian website to download instructions on which spam campaign to...

Vaulting Technology in Europe.(Security)(Cyber-Ark Software Ltd. has opened its first European office )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Cyber-Ark Software Ltd. has opened its first European office based in Holland. Vaulting Technology, which was developed by a team of former Israeli Military engineers and security experts, has so captured the imagination of the corporate...

Webwasher fills gap in Internet Explorer hole.(Security Products)
December 1, 2004... Security advisors are warning of a hole uncovered in Microsoft Internet Explorer. The newly reported weakness allows threats to enter computers through infected Web pages or through HTML e-mail viewed in applications that use Internet Explorer...

Central Password Manager.(Security Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Cyber-Ark Software Inc., have released the Central Password Manager, a new component for the Network Vault that secures, and automates labour-intensive administrative password management for servers, routers and other vital enterprise systems....

Nebulas resells email protection in UK.(Security Products)(Nebulas Security)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Nebulas Security will resell Postini's email security and management services to corporate customers in the UK. Postini's Perimeter Manager is a managed email security and management service that is based on cutting-edge pre-emptive...

New holiday phishing seam.(Virus Notes)(increase in the number of phishing sites )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Internet traffic from scammers is on the increase according to CyberGuard Corporation Citing reports from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWO) that indicate a 100 percent increase in the number of phishing sites between September and October...

New virus sounds phishy.(Virus Notes)
December 1, 2004... A new computer virus that lures victims the same way phishing e-mails do is on the loose, antivirus firms say. Potential victims get an e-mail saying their credit card has been charged $175 by PayPal, and are urged to click on a link for...

29A virus-writing gang Russian member sentenced.(Virus Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Authorities in Russia have pronounced a member of the notorious international 29A gang guilty of writing viruses. Eugene Suchkov admitted writing the W32/Stepan and Gastropod viruses, and posting their live code alongside the source code...

JVM vulnerability.(Virus Notes)(Java Virtual Machine)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A vulnerability in an application that is present on most desktop computers poses a significant security threat because it will not be closed by the usual Microsoft update process, according to Webwasher. However, proactive filtering...

Anti-Virus for NetApp Storage Systems.(Virus Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Sophos Anti-Virus for NetApp Storage Systems, is a new product that defends Network Appliance networked storage solutions from the very latest viruses, worms, Trojan horses and spyware. Its flexible configuration options allow administrators to...

Italian Senate hit by gay porn worm attack.(Virus Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... According to media reports, the upper house of the Italian Senate in Rome ground to a halt as it was hit by me of the many variants of the Rbot worm. The worm allowed hackers to display hardcore homosexual pornography on monitors around the...

Lycos anti-spam screensaver put on hold.(Virus Notes)(Lycos Europe)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The website hosting Lycos Europe's controversial "Make Love Not Spam" screensaver, which attempted to hit back at websites owned by spammers by generating internet traffic, appears to have been withdrawn--at least temporarily. The site now...

New variant of Sober worm.(Virus Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The latest variant of the Sober worm, Sober-I is spreading widely. The worm is a bilingual mass mailing worm which sends itself to email addresses harvested from an infected computer. It uses a variety of subject lines, message bodies and file...

Webwasher thwarts Sober.1.(Virus Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A dangerous mass-mailing worm that uses its own SMTP engine to spread itself threatens to be a dreaded zero day attack. 'Zero day' refers to an exploit either a worm or a virus, that arrives immediately following or even before there is a...

Webwasher 5.1.(Virus Notes)(Content Management software)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... CyberGuard has released a new version of its Webwasher Content Management Suite (CSM), which proactively filters against adware/spyware at the gateway before it has a chance to get inside. It offers two-pronged protection. First, it proactively...

Sober I-worm accounts for 25% of virus reports.(Virus Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The Sober-I worm (W32/Sober-1), which discovered recently has continued to cause problems for unprotected computer users and is currently accounting for 25% of all virus reports at Sophos's global network of monitoring stations. Comment:...

Netsky-P tops list of year's worst virus outbreaks.(Virus Notes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Sophos has released a report revealing the hardest hitting viruses of 2004. In a year which saw a 51.8% increase in the number of new viruses, the Netsky-P worm has accounted for almost a quarter of all virus incidents reported, making it the...

New Trojan fraud.(Virus Notes)(Banker-AJ Trojan)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A new Trojan horse helps criminals break into the accounts of British internet banking customers. The Banker-AJ Trojan (Troj/Banker-AJ) targets users of online banks such as Abbey, Barclays, Egg, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide and NatWest. ...

Virus top twenty for November.(Virus Notes)
December 1, 2004... Position Name Percentage 1 I-Worm.Bagle.at 21.39% 2 I-Worm.Mydoom.ab 11.52% 3 I-Worm.Netsky .q 8.70% 4 I-Worm.Zadti.b 7.83% 5 I-Worm.Netsky.aa 7.33% 6 I.Worm.Lovgate.w ...