* Welcome to the afternoon edition of Network World Daily News.
Breaking news
Skype warns users of Windows worm
Skype users are under attack from a new worm that spreads through the peer-to-peer Internet phone application’s chat feature.
Powerhouse player blesses Google Apps
This one had to get their attention in Redmond: Heavyweight systems integrator Capgemini, a worldwide IT buying influencer for major corporations, has given its seal of approval to Google Apps as an option for the enterprise.
VMware, beware
Competition looms for the virtualization frontrunner as VMworld conference kicks off.
In depth
The spiraling cost of compliance
Staff time and storage requirements eat away at IT budgets as companies grapple with logging and archiving compliance data
From the blogs and forums
Our newest blogger: Wendell Odom. Odom, CCIE No, 1624, splits time between writing books for Cisco Press and teaching classes for Skyline ATS. In his 25-ish years in the networking industry, he has worked as as a pre-sale and post-sale SE for a few networking vendors, as well as a network engineer implementing network technology. In this post, he considers troubleshooting Cisco gear.
Deb Radcliff reports how spam/scammers are now going after her personally. Michael Morris asks if users really know how much bandwidth 1 Gbps is. Paul McNamara continues his series: Just how many houses can Verizon start fires in?
Brad Reese looks at growing frustration among Cisco users with Cisco TAC. David Platt discusses why software today sucks.
Tyson Kopczynski looks at free Windows tools. Colin Spence discusses how to get Excel data into SharePoint 2007 lists. Susan Hanley explains why a good search engine is essential to the help desk these days.
James Gaskin looks at the ADP Small Business Report. John Obeto explains why it’s time for SCO to just disappear already.
Users wonder: When everybody has RFID chips and readers, what happens to our privacy? Also, users compare Cisco’s and Microsoft’s approaches to VoIP. Greg Royal wonders if Microsoft and others will ever be able to catch up to the Apple iPhone. Laurence Koret explains the iPhone’s real secret weapon – no buttons.
Jim Jackson can’t wait for Cisco 802.11n wireless gear. Techy111 seeks some help with home VoIP and alarm systems.
Your Take: Security advice from network pros
We interview three enterprise security experts: Raytheon’s CISO, Jeffrey Brown, warns about new social engineering attacks. Thomas Weisel Partner’s CSO, Beth Cannon discusses SOX compliance and new threats to mobile devices. Inergy Automotive’s Arun DeSousa explains how to craft security policies for a global enterprise.
How to
Ron Nutter compares T-1 and DSL service.
More news
VMworld a launching pad for virtualization wares
Dunes, InovaWave, SWsoft, XenSource are among vendors unveiling new virtualization products at VMware’s VMworld conference in San Francisco.
Good policy makes for good security
Almost everyone agrees that proper security stems as much from good policy as it does from technology, but you don’t hear much about creating great policies. Arun DeSouza is responsible for policy and a whole lot more at Inergy Automotive Systems, a manufacturer of plastic fuel systems that sells to automakers around the world. With some 4,500 employees in 18 countries, it’s not possible to create policy by consensus. DeSouza explains the strategy he used to shape Inergy’s security policies and shares his view on how proper identity management can make security a business enabler rather than a burden.
Seeking compliance in a mobile world
When Thomas Weisel Partners went public last year, it forced some dramatic changes in how the San Francisco-based investment-banking company approached IT – and in CSO Beth Cannon’s job description. She recently completed an 18-month retooling of the policies and procedures the company follows for everything from managing change to using mobile devices. Looking ahead, she sees a new crop of threats on the horizon that target the mobile devices that many of the firm’s 650 employees use daily.
Defending the defense industry
Raytheon is a $20 billion defense technology company with about 73,000 employees and customers from around the globe. Jeffrey Brown is CISO and director of infrastructure services for the firm, which means he’s responsible for traditional security functions in addition to metropolitan networks and WANs. “I have no one to blame if things don’t go right,” he puts it. What has Brown most concerned these days is the onslaught of socially engineered attacks brought on by new spamming techniques. We talked to him about the next-generation tools required to combat such threats, as well as some of his techniques for fending them off in the meantime. He also discussed the challenges inherent in providing identity management in a large company that has to meet strict U.S. and international security standards.
