Over the past two months, InfoWorld has been researching a flaw in Oracle’s flagship database software that could have serious repercussions for Oracle database customers, potentially compromising the security and stability of Oracle database systems. Typically, when a bug results in a database outage, affected systems can simply be recovered from backups. But as InfoWorld [...]

Symantec today backed away from earlier statements regarding the theft of source code of some of its flagship security products, now admitting that its own network was compromised. In a statement provided to the Reuters news service, the security software giant acknowledged that hackers had broken into its network when they stole source code of [...]

The SOPA/PIPA blackout today by Wikipedia, Mozilla, WordPress.com and many other sites is (I hope) drawing attention to proposed legislation that is considered a threat to “Internet freedom.” That’s fine, admirable, and (with any luck) will be effective at curbing SOPA/PIPA for at least another legislative season. The backgrounders I’ve read so far by Wikipedia [...]

In testing cloud computing services and observing the growth of cloud activities, we’ve noticed that there are distinct phases that organizations go through in adopting cloud. First, application developers fall in love with cloud-based disposable infrastructure and/or ready-built app development platforms that circumvent long purchasing cycles and capital asset growth limitations. Then other attractions, like [...]

The Apache Tomcat developers are advising users of the 7.0.x, 6.0.x and 5.5.x branches of the Java servlet and JSP container to update to the latest released versions 7.0.23, 6.0.35 and 5.5.35. Recent investigations revealed inefficiencies in how large numbers of parameters and parameter values were handled by Tomcat. Analysis of the recent hash collision [...]