Modern VoIP phones are specialised computers that just happen to look like phones. So they can be attacked at many different points, ranging from the communication protocols to planting trojan horses in the devices’ operating software. It’s laptops and desktop PCs all over again. In their AusCERT lecture, Chris Gatford and Peter Wesley focus a lot on problems specifically associated with Cisco phones and the Cisco Call Manager software. But the underlying problems affect most […]
Cloud Computing
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Voice over Internet protocol essentially describes audio communication carried through Internet-based networks – basically, phone calls made over the Web, rather than through traditional phone lines. The term is also sometimes used to describe video-based communication carried over the Web from mobile devices, but is usually reserved for Web-based phone calls. For years, VoIP never really caught on in the consumer market, and even less in the business world. Because the service is dependent on […]
“You don’t know what you don’t know” might be the expression most appropriate for small to medium-size businesses (SMB) when it comes to the benefits of technology and their business, according to an independent survey of more than 500 SMB decision makers released at National Small Business Week. The study, commissioned by Verio Inc., a provider of online business solutions to SMBs worldwide, showed that more than two-thirds of respondents are uncertain if they will […]
The research arm of the Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking to develop cloud-computing-based infrastructure that builds resiliency directly into the network to more effectively support military missions. Through a project called the Mission-oriented Resilient Clouds (MRC) program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to build a cloud-based network that will preserve “mission effectiveness” even in the event of a cyber attack, according to an announcement of a Proposer’s Day for the project […]
Securing Voice over IP (VoIP) doesn’t have to be a challenge for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). VoIP is basically a phone call over the Internet. It offers the same promises – and pitfalls – as the Internet. The promises are cheap and easy communication over a readily available and easy-to-use public network – the Internet. The pitfalls are the same security weaknesses of that network, which wasn’t originally designed for security – or phone […]
A new IBM study of more than 3,000 global CIOs shows that 60 per cent of organisations are ready to embrace cloud computing over the next five years as a means of growing their businesses and achieving competitive advantage. That’s nearly double the number of CIOs who said they would utilise cloud in IBM’s 2009 CIO study. As demand for ever-growing amounts of information continues to increase, companies are seeking simple and direct access to […]
Ask anyone in IT what the biggest barrier to adopting cloud computing services is and the most likely answer is security. As Shirief Nosseir, EMEA security product marketing director at CA Technologies, explains securing the cloud isn’t rocket science; cloud is just another environment in which security should be seen as an enabler rather than a barrier. Many organisations perceive the adoption of any form of cloud computing to change a company’s risk profile, but […]
Notable trends in virtualization: 1. Hybrid clouds mature. The nature of hybrid clouds – meaning parts of your infrastructure are running in both public and private data centers – is getting more mature and sophisticated. New providers are springing up frequently, which make evaluating them all that much harder. Some are traditional hosting providers, other offer more virtualization expertise and some have built their own management tools around their services. One example: Terremark’s VMware-based computing […]
A cloud computing service is like an airliner – even though it can experience devastating crashes that affect many people, like Amazon’s crash last month, it’s still safer than driving your own car … or IT infrastructure. That’s the rationale provided by Simon Crosby, CTO of Citrix, during a panel discussion on cloud computing during a keynote address at Interop 2011. Also on the panel were Randy Rowland, senior vice-president of product development at Terremark; […]
Cloud computing will play a critical role in helping organisations meet the threefold challenge of an explosion in data, IT budget costs and security threats, according to EMC CEO Joe Tucci. Speaking at EMC World in Las Vegas, Tucci said the hybrid cloud – where companies rely on IT services provided from both the public and private cloud – will provide organisations with “the answer” to these challenges. Tucci illustrated the scale of the difficulties […]