Devoted to hardware, software, IT issues, and information technology management

Security and storage have been identified as the fastest growing information technology (IT) segments among mid-sized businesses in Malaysia and Singapore. 

According to a study commissioned by Symantec Corp, the security segment for midsized companies was growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.3% in Malaysia and 19.8% in Singapore. 

For the storage segment, the CAGR for Malaysia and Singapore was 24.4% and 21.4% respectively. 

The key drivers of growth identified were information security, compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity planning. 

“With 78% of respondents choosing to enhance their data security and privacy using firewall, encryption and anti-virus solutions, the study shows that the majority of midsized companies understand the benefits of enhanced data security and storage,” Symantec said in a statement.

As crackers and phishers get more sinister and smart, it would seem that security companies will need to be on their toes 24/7. Hence as can be seen from this InformationWeek article by Larry Greenemeier, Symantec Corporation will be concentrating on combining technologies that protect information rather than just roll out scattered software. This is their so called "Security 2.0" initiative. And now we have the Norton Confidential Online Edition which is a transaction security product that will reside on banking and financial Web sites and asks users to download the software, which will then authenticate the bank's Web site at every login.


clickz reports

According to Symantec chairman and CEO John Thompson, the problem of “worms and viruses is solved.” Today’s more relevant threats today are phishing and fraud, as well as organized crime’s interest in stealing and reselling personal information. In response to identity theft concerns, Symantec is launching a series of Security 2.0 offerings, which include a Norton Confidential Online Edition that helps secure online transactions, an identity-protection partnership with VeriSign, a security services partnership with Accenture, and new Symantec products for increasing e-mail security.

Its incredible how diabolical virus makers are turning out to be and you always have to be on guard in case you lose your data. The worms comes in two versions, aptly called as w32.bounds and w64.bounds whereby they can target 32-bit and 64-bit processors from AMD.

Security researchers at Symantec have discovered a new proof of concept virus that targets processors AMD rather than operating systems. The worm comes in two versions, targeting 32-bit and 64-bit processors from AMD. Symantec refers to the online pests as w32.bounds and w64.bounds. Because it involves proof of concept code, both viruses are rated as low level threats.

Although at this point it concerns harmless proof of concept code, the virus could be used as a starting point for creating malware that affects computers regardless of the operating system that they run, cautioned Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec's Security Response Group.

Symantec has just released an in depth report on the security of the Windows Vista kernel. This is a detailed technical report that discusses how Vista boots, how PatchGuard and Code Integrity work, as well as a technique on how to bypass them.

You can find the paper here