Rise of The Next-Generation Firewall

Social networks and other Web 2.0 technologies are ways for hackers to penetrate enterprise systems because Facebook pages, instant messaging and the such are closely intertwined with business networks.

Many corporations have recognised and are moving quickly into social networks to help them push their products and services, as well as to conduct market research and headhunt new employees. And with so many new avenues opening up, hackers are turning social media and web applications into launch pads for spreading malware (malicious software) or for stealing confidential data from organisations.

Traditional firewalls are not able to effectively detect such threats, said network security company Palo Alto Networks. "The reality is that policies which IT departments now employ to block (intrusions that come through) Web 2.0 technologies aren't working," said Yuming Mao, co-founder and chief software architect at Palo Alto Networks. "Simply blocking Facebook from your network isn't the solution because employees will still find ways to work around the system."Organisations need to determine the appropriate balance  between blocking and blindly allowing such applications," he said.

Palo Alto Networks is one the first security companies to introduce a next-generation firewall (NGFW) solution. "Our NGFW enables organisations to monitor users, applications and other content over their networks," Mao said. "With applications, it looks at each one that passes through the network, monitors their behaviour, checks known vulnerabilities and assesses the potential for misuse." Palo Alto Networks said its security solution is also able to identify and control user-access to Facebook over a network. IT managers can allow employees access to a read-only version of Facebook - allowing them to view updates but not to post messages or comments, which reduces network security risks.

"With our next-generation firewall, any IT department will be able to better control employee usage of social networks while protecting the organisation's confidential data," Mao said. Among its new products are GlobalProtect and PA-5000-series firewall solutions that implement NGFW features. GlobalProtect is a system-wide solution that protects users even when they are mobile, by installing a small application on each user's PC that applies an enterprise firewall policy on the devices. The PA-5000 series enables enterprises to extend protection to all types of traffic, applications and threats. It can sustain a traffic flow of up to 20Gbps (Gigabits per second) in data networks.


(Source:http://techcentral.my)

Japan Earthquake Disrupts Technology Companies

Technology firms are facing major disruption to supplies in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami which have devastated parts of Japan. The country is home to several of the world's major high tech manufacturers. Many of them have had to stop production to carry out safety checks and the prospect of rolling blackouts means further interruptions are likely over the coming weeks. Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Canon are among the companies affected. Panasonic Corp said ongoing aftershocks had prevented it from inspecting two factories in northern Japan. Sony confirmed that it had voluntarily suspended operations at seven manufacturing plants, while the country assesses the state of its power grid. The company's Sendai Technology Centre in Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture has also been closed due to earthquake damage.

Internet hub

While the Japanese high tech industry is struggling to get back on its feet, much of the fixed communications infrastructure has survived remarkably intact. The seas around Japan are a major hub for undersea telecoms cables, forming a critical part of the global internet.

According to Stephan Beckert, an analyst with telecoms research group TeleGeography, several sub sea cables have been damaged as a result of the earthquake. "All of the outages appear to be on cable segments that land in the Ajigaura or Kitaibaraki landing stations, approximately halfway between Tokyo and Sendai," he told BBC News. "Fortunately, most of Japan's cable landing stations are well to the South of Tokyo, or on other side of the sheltered inlet that becomes Tokyo Bay," he added.

That has meant that internet services have been largely unaffected by the disaster. "There is no significant impact on overall traffic volumes in or through the region," said Craig Labovitz, chief scientist at internet monitoring firm Arbor Networks. Nevertheless, other parts of Japan's communication infrastructure have been damaged. Telephone operator NTT East Japan said 879,000 telephony lines were out of service, as well as 475,400 fibre-optic lines.

(Source:http://thestar.com.my/)

HOW RFID WORKS....?????

How does RFID work?

 

 

 

 

A Radio-Frequency IDentification system has three parts:-

• A scanning antenna
• A transceiver with a decoder to interpret the data
• A transponder - the RFID tag - that has been programmed with information.

The scanning antenna puts out radio-frequency signals in a relatively short range. The RF radiation does two things:

• It provides a means of communicating with the transponder (the RFID tag) AND
• It provides the RFID tag with the energy to communicate (in the case of passive RFID tags).

This is an absolutely key part of the technology; RFID tags do not need to contain batteries, and can therefore remain usable for very long periods of time (maybe decades). The scanning antennas can be permanently affixed to a surface; handheld antennas are also available. They can take whatever shape you need; for example, you could build them into a door frame to accept data from persons or objects passing through.

 

When an RFID tag passes through the field of the scanning antenna, it detects the activation signal from the antenna. That "wakes up" the RFID chip, and it transmits the information on its microchip to be picked up by the scanning antenna.

 

In addition, the RFID tag may be of one of two types. Active RFID tags have their own power source; the advantage of these tags is that the reader can be much farther away and still get the signal. Even though some of these devices are built to have up to a 10 year life span, they have limited life spans. passive RFID tags, however, do not require batteries, and can be much smaller and have a virtually unlimited life span. RFID tags can be read in a wide variety of circumstances, where barcodes or other optically read technologies are useless.

 

• The tag need not be on the surface of the object (and is therefore not subject to wear)
• The read time is typically less than 100 milliseconds
• Large numbers of tags can be read at once rather than item by item.

In essence, that's how RFID works.

(Source:http://electronics.howstuffworks.com)