Tag: virus

Sophos sees shares jump

Posted on May 27, 2016 by - News

David-Lee-Roth-JumpOxfordshire security outfit Sophos has seen its shares jump after its sales figures for its first financial year as a publicly traded company shot through the roof.

Shares in Sophos went up by four per cent after it announced its first set of financial results as a publicly traded company. The security company floated on the London Stock Exchange last year and has drifted into billings growth of 19.7 per cent to $534.9 million in the 12 months ended March 31.

Cash earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation were up 31.6 per cent, to $120.9 million.

Sophos chief executive Kris Hagerman said that he was jolly pleased of the outfit’s strong performance during our first year as a public company.”

“The year has been marked by sustained strength across all major regions and product categories, with our financial and operational performance exceeding the Board’s expectations set at the start of the year and at the upper-end of our revised outlook.

“Our leading product portfolio, innovation to drive our strategy of synchronised security, commitment to ‘security made simple’ and ‘channel first’ sales strategy enabled us to grow our billings and revenue across both new and existing customers,” he added.

 

Sony still reeling from cyber hit

Posted on December 3, 2014 by - News

North Korea flagCyber attackers who hit Sony with a new breed of virus have caused the corporation so much grief that it is still attempting to recover from the damage.

Reuters has seen an internal Sony memo that said the entertainment unit has admitted a large amount of confidential data was stolen by the attackers, ranging from business info to personal data.

Proof of the success of the attack has emerged with unreleased Sony films emerging on the internet including a forthcoming musical called Annie, scheduled for release on the 19th of December.

And employees have been given new PCs to work with because the virus wiped all the data from their old ones and made them inoperative.

Reuters said it believes the attack only affected machines using Microsoft’s Windows software – Apple machines were impervious to the attack.

North Korea is still believed to be one of the main suspects in the attack – last June the government of the autocracy complained to the UN that a thinly veiled satire on its youthful leader was an outrage.

Apple security adopts hauhau method

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

i_257It seems that the Apple Cargo cult is taking the same approach to security that the Maori Hauhau did during the New Zealand wars.

Like Apple, the Hauhau was a strange cult built by a bullied people but under a charismatic leader. The Hauhau also believed, despite evidence, that they could bounce bullets off their chests.

Apple has the same view about security. Apple’s security technologies for Mac OS X cannot for the life of itself see the iWorm, a piece of malware discovered in late September that infected thousands of computers.

Apple released an update for its XProtect antivirus engine to detect iWorm, but the update only detects when iWorm’s installer is launched.

Patrick Wardle, director of research with Synack, a computer security company based in Redwood City, California said that computers already infected with iWorm before the update would still be compromised.

Wardle said unless the user has another antivirus product installed that has a correct signature, those infections aren’t going to go away.

Wardle said Apple is likely aware of the Gatekeeper’s weaknesses, as it appears the way it works was a conscious design decision.

In other words, you cannot rely on Apple to secure your machine, probably because the belief that Apple’s do not get viruses is hardwired into the reality distortion field. Still you get what you pay for.