CTO

Read about the latest threats, partnerships, and innovations in the world of security from experts such as George Kurtz, Simon Hunt and Phyllis Schneck. Armed with decades of experience in the security industry, the authors of this blog analyze current technology issues and define the terms and techniques required to resolve them.

RDP+RCE=Bad News (MS12-020)

See March 15 and 16 updates at the end of this blog. —————————————————-   The March Security Bulletin release from Microsoft was relatively light in volume. Out of the six bulletins released, only one was rated as Critical. And for good reason. MS12-020 includes CVE-2012-0002. This flaw is specific to the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) present on Read more…

Tags: Cyber Security Mom, Cybercrime, data breach, Data Protection, Endpoint Protection, enterprise, global threat intelligence, labs, malware, McAfee Labs, Microsoft Security Bulletin, MS12-020, Network Security, Risk and Compliance

RSA Keynote: Securing the Unsecurable

Yesterday I had the honor of keynoting at RSA.  This theme of this year’s conference is “the Cipher is Mightier than the Sword” – based on the story of the Great Cipher, which was used for nearly 200 years before its key was cracked in 1893.  The lessons for me with this story are that Read more…

Security Precautions and Best Practices for ANY Border Crossing

Recently, the New York Times wrote an article titled “Traveling Light in a Time of Digital Thievery.”  The article focused on China, and the precautions that some executives take when traveling to that country.  When I was approached to speak to the reporter for this story, I told her that I didn’t think it was Read more…

Evil Twitter… Finding malware amongst the maelstrom..

Would it surprise you to know that yesterday, more than 5000 tweets were posted with URLS which would have dropped you on sites which distribute malware? It was only a small portion of the total number of tweets containing URLs, around 2.5 million or so, and there were an additional ~200,000 that went to sites Read more…

Tags: innovation, OCTO, twitter

15 Minutes With… Ben Andrew

Welcome to “15 minutes with” – an occasional contribution between Simon Hunt, CTO Endpoint Security and the movers-and-shakers within McAfee’s technical community. This week on the stand is Ben Andrew, Senior Product Manager for Virtualization Security. So Ben, care to tell us how long you’ve been with McAfee, and what you’ve been involved in? Hi Read more…

15 Minutes with… David O’Berry

Welcome to “15 minutes with” – an occasional contribution between myself and the movers-and-shakers within McAfee’s technical community. This week on the stand is my good friend and occasional co-presenter, David O’Berry CSSLP, CISSP-ISSAP, ISSMP, CRMP. Now a McAfee Strategic systems engineer, his previous life was 19 years in the public sector, culminating as Director Read more…

Piggybacking WiFi at 60mph…

I was in Madrid speaking at a conference a couple of months ago, and arriving after one of my favorite trans-Atlantic flights (you know the ones, where the ratio of screaming children to adults is not conducive to rest or even playing Angry Birds) I was excited to take one of the citi-cabs which have Read more…

Tags: automotive

Take Two Of These Pills And Call Support In The Morning…

“McAfee launches a range of pharmaceutical anti-viral medications to thwart the growing problem of Biological computer viral attacks”   Sounds far fetched? Maybe not given that researches at Caltech have successfully engineered a biological computer which can calculate square roots using DNA replication. Given that the researchers Lulu Quan and Erik Winfree have successfully demonstrated AND and OR logic gates at the Read more…

Tags: attacks, Biological Computer, Hackers, virus

Mobile Device, Or Not? That Is The Question

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been presenting around the U.S. at events such as Secure360 in St. Paul, and the McAfee Executive Summits in Boston and New York. One question I was asked at every event, was “What is a mobile device?” The flippant answer of course which after two weeks of middle Read more…

Tags: Cybercrime, Data Protection, enterprise, Mid-Market, Mobile, mobile security

Security In The Post-PC World by George Kurtz

The recent arrival of Google’s Chromebook — a gadget designed to run only a Web browser — was heralded by some as spelling the end of antivirus and a nail in the coffin for companies that sell antivirus software. The Chromebook is part of a burgeoning category analysts call “post-PC devices.” Since these devices are Read more…

Tags: beyond the PC, chromebook, Consumer, Data Protection, embedded, enterprise, kurtz, Mobile