Stories by Ellen Messmer

Dept. of Homeland Security tools aimed at Heartbleed-like security evils

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has launched a Web portal aimed at assisting software developers in vetting their code for weaknesses hackers can exploit. The DHS calls this portal the Software Assurance Marketplace, or SWAMP for short. It's not a ‘marketplace' in the sense that money is changing hands for products and services, but rather more a place to share tools, techniques and information.

Ellen Messmer | 23 May | Read more

Check Point: 'Unknown malware' hits enterprise nets 53 times a day

Companies were getting hit on average with "unknown malware" around 53 times a day in 2013, according to Check Point's annual analysis of threat data collected from about a thousand enterprise customers. Check Point defines 'unknown malware" as malicious code that exploits a known vulnerability or weakness, but can't be detected at the time of its discovery by up-to-date anti-virus or intrusion-prevention systems.

Ellen Messmer | 09 May | Read more

DeRodes steps into breach as Target's new CIO

Target has named veteran IT executive Bob DeRodes as its CIO and is tasking him with taking the $73 billion retailer in a new technology direction following the mammoth data breach that it disclosed late last year. The breach resulted in information being stolen from 70 million payment card users and prompted the resignation of CIO Beth Jacob.

Ellen Messmer | 30 Apr | Read more