Enterprise Snippets: BYOD, Cloud Storage, TPC Benchmark

IT, Employees Differ on BYOD

A new survey by Mimecast of 500 IT professionals and admins conducted at the Microsoft 2012 DevConnections conference underscored the tension between IT and employees when it comes to “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies.

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Attacks Skyrocket as Hackers Exploit Old Techniques

A new year-in-review report from Symantec holds some bad news for security administrators. Although the number of brand new attacks decreased last year, the number of attacks themselves has risen by 81 percent. The Internet Security Threat Report, 2011 Trends report cites the easy availability of Web attack kits that make it easy to “tweak” a vulnerability rather than invent new ones. (The report is available at no cost; registration is not required.)

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Dirty Disks May Pose Cloud Security Risk

If you were concerned about the security of your data in the cloud, you may have good reason for concern -- for an entirely new reason.

Context Information Security has found “potentially significant flaws in the implementation of Cloud infrastructure services offered by some providers” that could make its clients’ data vulnerable.

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Enterprise Snippets: Mismanaging Admin Rights; Programmer’s Professional Network; VDI Projects Stalled

Survey Shows Impact of Mismanaging Windows Admin Rights

A new survey of 1000 British IT personnel this month reveals several hidden dangers of (and massive costs due to) mismanagement of user administration rights. According to a release prepared by Avecto, a Windows privilege management specialist and the survey’s sponsor:

• 19 percent of those surveyed missed a critical deadline as a result of being denied full access to an application
• Nearly 30 percent believe they don’t have access to all the applications they need to get their work done
• 16 percent of respondents would be tempted to use their admin rights to access sensitive data if they still had them after they left their company
• Nearly one in four call IT support three or more times a year because they can’t get an app to work due to issues with admin rights (the average of all respondents is 1.77 calls per year)
• More than 1 in 5 people taking the survey say they know someone in their organization who has breached IT security policies

Paul Kenyon, Avecto’s COO, noted that “Being denied access to work applications has a greater impact on men than women -- with half of men saying it has caused them problems compared to just a third of women. It also worried more men, with a quarter fearing that they won’t be able to access the technology they need to do their jobs. Perhaps this ‘loaphobia’ (Lack-Of-Application-Phobia) will be the next big thing worrying the UK’s workforce?”

Masterbranch Unveils Professional Network for Developers by Developers

Masterbranch, a site used by 500,000 developers to showcase their 1.5 million projects, has added a new "Project Leaderboard" that ranks its contributors’ Open Source projects using DevScore, its own system for assigning a numerical rating that factors in developer contributions, project reputation (downloads, followers, likes, etc.), and the reputation of co-workers.

The site, which automatically updates and scores developer’s projects, has added a "Company Wish List" feature that lets developers contact companies directly with, along with project and skill information, their relocation preferences and salary requirements.

It strikes me that Masterbranch in some ways is a cross between a sophisticated jobs/talent board and a social site. It serves as a venue for displaying a programmer’s talent instead of their (often-boring) résumés, and could be a good source for enterprises looking for coding talent. On the social front, the new “Connections” feature allows developers to connect with other developers (and only developers) and connect with people working with colleagues or other people they might know.

VDI Projects Are Hot, But Half are Stalled

A new study of 500 IT professionals funded by Virsto Software confirms what most IT professionals already know: virtualized desktop initiative (VDI) projects are hot, especially among most midsize- and large-enterprise IT organizations. Unfortunately, they’re being hampered by three factors: cost, performance, and end-user complaints.

Over half (54 percent) of respondents are involved with VDI -- they’ve either started a pilot project or have implemented a VDI project. Of those projects, however, 46 percent are stalled “due to unacceptable end user performance and projected cost overruns.”

According to a company release, the survey also found that

• Two-third (67 percent) of respondents plan to work on a VDI project in the next year. Among this group, three-quarters (76 percent) say cost reduction and ease of management are driving their initiative.
• Over half (54 percent) have a budget target per desktop (including storage, licensing, and end points) of less than $500
• 65 percent of respondents selected VMware as their deployment hypervisor; 12 percent chose Citrix XenServer, and 8 percent selected Microsoft Hyper-V. Half (50 percent) plan to deploy VMware’s View desktop solution.

-- James E. Powell
Editorial Director, ESJ

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Security Snippets: Flashback Update, Disorganized Encryption

Flashback: Lessons Learned, Free Removal Tool

Symantec says the number of Flashback-infected computers is on the decline; roughly 270,000 systems (down from the original 600,000), mostly in North America, Australia, and the UK. The company has also launched a free Flashback detection and removal tool available at www.norton.com/flashback.

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Data Centers Not Prepared for Disaster

When disaster strikes, IT will be woefully ill-prepared -- and they know it.

That’s the upshot of the 2012 Service Availability Benchmark Survey from Continuity Software, a provider of disaster recovery and business continuity monitoring and management solutions. The survey found that “many enterprise IT organizations remain woefully ill prepared to face and endure an interruption in services and/or disaster of any duration, size, or scale.”

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Financial Services Target of More (But Shorter) DDoS Attacks

A new report from Prolexic Technologies, which offers distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection services, says its Security Engineering and Response Team (PLXsert) team found a nearly three-fold rise in attacks against its financial services clients in Q1 compared to the last quarter of 2012. That’s not all -- it reported a 3000 percent increase (that’s a 30-fold rise) in malicious packet traffic.

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Unit Testing Kills Bugs Best; C “Overtakes” Java

Unit Testing Best Bug Killer

According to a new developer survey from Typemock, a vendor of unit-testing solutions, over 90 percent of developers say that unit testing is effective in reducing software bugs -- more so than integration testing, pair programming, and quality assurance. The survey also found that 80 percent of respondents acknowledge that developers are responsible for bugs; 8 percent said it was up to QA.

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