Stories about: INS

Federated identity has long been a goal of many IT organizations. One look at the promise of federation, and it is easy to see why. After all, empowering one organization to serve as an identity provider for another frees IT from having to manage the identities of partnering organizations' employees and customers, thereby facilitating the pursuit of competitive-advantage projects. In this era of increasing enterprise decentralization, thanks in large part to the Web, establishing a federated identity framework is fast proving as essential as it is hard to pull off.

Many analysts consider Web application vulnerabilities to be among the biggest security threats facing companies these days. A lot of attention has been paid to understanding risks such as input-validation flaws, cross-site scripting errors and other Java Web application security threats.

A look at the all time greatest controversies in the history of the networking industry.

Despite official urging, telecommuting within US federal agencies is languishing, in part because standards for how to secure mobile endpoints don't exist -- mainly the laptops telecommuters would use when outside the office.

A unique demonstration showed user-centric identity software from major vendors, start-ups, one-woman projects and open source hackers all working in concert to replace passwords with validated identity-card access to Web-based resources.

Vista's security advances may be ambitious, but they could seem ho-hum in comparison to those of Longhorn when the server OS stampedes onto the scene later this year. The last time we saw Longhorn it was still prebeta 3, but its security promise remains bright.

As we all know, not everyone is fortunate enough to have a blank check for security-related procurement and implementation. As security executives, we are often called upon to pull a rabbit out of the hat on short notice and make security issues disappear. Making the best of your allocated budget may at times call for primary or supplementary solutions that are freely available. This strategy cuts procurement time completely out of the loop as well. Here's a list of security tools available on the Web for free that you should add to your toolbox.

Microsoft has won agreement with PC makers to add a fundamental change at the BIOS level to improve security in Windows Vista.

What's the problem? A vulnerability newly discovered in Microsoft Internet Explorer could allow an attacker to take over a targeted machine -- even a machine with all its patches up to date.

Online scams that lure online banking and e-commerce customers to phony Web sites and trick them into giving up sensitive account information have been a mainstay of online criminals for years. However, the increase in so-called spear-phishing attacks is new, as is the increasing sophistication of the software they use to penetrate enterprise networks.

Ten tips for managing your security message.