We had no immediate use for the silicon fabrication plant where memories were made and had to shut it down - Andy Grove - Only the Paranoid Survive
|
|
|
Google beefs up security
CLOUD SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Google is beefing up the security of its Google Apps software and making moves to increase transparency just days after it decided to drop use of Microsoft Windows due to security vulnerabilities.
The Internet search giant landed another blow against insecurity in the Vole's world by disclosing a security whitepaper for Google Apps.
"As a next step toward increased transparency, today we're releasing a new Google Apps security white paper to help customers learn more about the security practices, policies, and technology that support Google Apps," said Eran Feigenbaum, director of security for Google's enterprise software.
Feigenbaum blogged that Google Apps sits behind a strong security infrastructure. He claimed that Google's data centres are protected by physical security controls with information monitored at multiple levels.
User's data is stored in fragmented locations on different servers and networks to beef up security. He also claimed that Google performs software patching across identical server stacks, making sure every environment is bolted down with the latest releases.
Feigenbaum said Google has excellent system recovery operation tools and had another dig at Microsoft. He said that Google offered full public disclosure about its China hacking incident. This was obviously aimed at Microsoft's lack transparency about, well, everything.
Google's proactive push on security is just the latest slap in an increasingly less friendly round of competition between it and the Vole. We reported rumours last week that Google employees are being required to drop Windows for more secure Linux or Apple Mac OS X systems.
Microsoft then weakly retaliated, claiming that Windows is no less secure than any other operating system on the market.
While the Google Apps Security Whitepaper isn't a direct riposte to the Vole's bumbling security issues, its timing couldn't be better. µ
Share this:
Share
I think the idea that they are going to switch to Macs from windows over security concerns has to be a load of fud. They were targeted in the incident that caused this switch so all of the press they are going out of their way to garner for this move has to be to create interest in ChromeOS because otherwise it's akin to getting robbed and then deciding to get rid of the intrusion detection functions of your alarm system and announcing it to everyone specifically making sure that the previous thieves know you are even less protected.
Every year at Pwn2Pwn OSX goes down in minutes compared to hours for Windows and Linux. If they weren't specifically targeted by that attack on IE6, which is crazy in and of itself that someone was using a 9 year old browser on their desktop at google, and didn't announce to the world that they were dropping windows maybe this wouldn't seem like a crock of hooey.
For one security should be the primary concern in any company not just after an incident occurs but sometimes its what takes a company to realize where they need improvement.
If Google is serious about switching to Apples I'm betting that Google is going to be hacked much more than when there were on Windows machines that by the way were never patched with the latest software patches.
To anyone from IT Google has egg on its face for not running patched windows machines to begin with but for fanbois this is some sort of victory and an attempt at Google to sling mud at Microsoft.
As for Linux its only as secure as the people configure it to be same as any windows server. Judging from the lack of patching in google its hard to say if it will be of any benefit. Google has some seriously talented people but your only as good as your weakest tech when it comes to security.