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Vol. 11, #51 - Jan 8, 2007 - Issue #607
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Crystal Ball 2007
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- EDITORS CORNER
- Crystal Ball 2007
- Quote Of The Week
- ADMIN TOOLBOX
- Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without
- TECH BRIEFING
- Here Are The 2007 Predictions
- WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS
- This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
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Kerio MailServer adds Direct Push email for Outlook Mobile
The latest release of Kerio MailServer 6.3 gives businesses
the easiest way to deliver mobile email to all their employees.
Kerio will wirelessly push email to Windows Mobile devices and
synchronize contacts, calendars and tasks using the ActiveSync(r)
protocol. Kerio MailServer downloads and installs in minutes on
Windows XP for quick and easy evaluation. Best of all, the new
10-user base license starts at just $399.
http://www.wservernews.com/070108-Kerio-MailServer
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EDITORS CORNER |
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Crystal Ball 2007
And poof...another year flew by! As I do every January, I pull out my
asbestos undies, so you can safely flame my poor behind after reading the
2007 predictions. The Palantir has been dusted off, and here we go gazing
in the crystal for the coming 12 months.
However, to begin with, I'm repeating the tradition of my same New
Year's Wish that you have read at this spot for these many years:
"A world without war, crime and insanity, where people can flourish,
prosper and reach greater heights". And let me add to that that I'd
really like to see World Peace for all of humanity, and the abolishment
of all nuclear weapons, but again I'm not counting on it.
First, how did I do with the 2006 predictions? I got 7 out of 10,
just like the year before. Notable failures: "Vista will be early!"
- we know how that turned out; "Wi-MAX will be hot" - not yet, think
2007; "Spam levels off at 70% of total email traffic" - it's more like
90% right now, and the CAN-SPAM law is still completely ineffective.
However, the massive surge in spam might slow down a bit in 2007, unless
botnet owners develop new ways to circumvent Vista and the constantly
improving anti-spam technology. Social engineering bots anyone?
And here is your first 2007 SunPoll, it's a (close) repeat of 2006, and we
will see if anything has changed over the year! "For 2007, which do you
expect to be the greatest security threat to your networks?"
- Blended Malware
- Botnets
- Viruses
- Outside-in hacking attempts
- Internal security hacks
- Phishing attacks
- Other
Vote here, bottom middle column: http://www.sunbelt-software.com
Quote Of The Week
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends
on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw
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TECH BRIEFING |
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Here Are The 2007 Predictions
MICROSOFT: Like last year, MS is going to barrel along fine. They will
continue to buy companies that have interesting technology, and try
to fend off Oracle and Google. Getting in bed with Novell/SUSE will
not bring them the benefits envisioned. Look for continued push in the
enterprise, focusing even more on collaboration. Redmond will declare
botnets as the '07 top Net threat, as the unlimited bandwidth of millions
of zombies allows spammers to send hard-to-kill image-spam and serve
as a vector for other malware.
OPERATING SYSTEMS: Vista will have a bull's eye painted on its back.
Redmond's highly touted SDL (Security Development Lifecycle) will turn
out to make Vista more secure, but not secure enough. There will be dozens
of Vista vulnerabilities found during 2007, and Vista's default support for
P2P protocols and IPv6 will facilitate the delivery of malicious payloads.
Remember: OS upgrades break lots of things, so TEST, TEST, TEST! And if
you can, this would be a good time to get rid of apps with OS-dependencies.
IT BUDGETS: To start with hiring, that will be slow in '07, so you will get
lots of applicants for each opening. Flat IT budgets (no more than 6% up)
means spending will be focused on projects that show true bottom-line value.
Top 2007 IT skills companies are looking for: Programming/app development,
Project management, IT/business analysis, Security, and Help Desk/Tech
Support. No surprises here for the coming year.
MALWARE: Stand-alone, signature-based AV will die in '07. It's already
smelling funny. Stand-alone antispyware products will need morph into
a converged security client or they will die too in '07. Slapping a bunch
of different agents together in a "suite" is going to be exposed as the
quick-and-dirty resource hog it really is.
SMART MONEY: '07 is going to look a lot like 1999! Venture Capitalists
are pouring cash into consumer-focused start-ups doing things like sharing
photos and videos online and chatting with friends, hoping to do a 'YouTube'
deal. Other areas that will break out in '07 are phone-over-internet;
biotech companies, and 'green' energy start-ups.
HARDWARE: Virtualization was hot in '06 and will be smoking in '07, expect
wars over standards and market leadership -- One Laptop Per Child will ship
its $100 product, with a Linux Desktop -- Surveillance cameras will connect
to facial recognition software, and IT will move into physical security --
Mid '07, 64-bit quad-core CPUs will ship standard for both desktop and
server. With the new expansion slots, you will be able to buy a 32-way
server for what you paid for a four-way server in '05. -- Certified Wireless
USB will make major strides in '07, but lots of gadgets will come with
Wi-Fi built-in!
NETWORK VULNERABILITIES: The two 'drivers' of testing networks for holes
will be a) compliance and b) a realization that no pen-testing is really
a major business risk. Bad guys will continue to ferret out and exploit
existing holes, and will have "zero-day" exploits for 30-40% of announced
patches. McAfee predicted that hackers are going to target MP3 files, so
get those off your servers and workstations. Time to set a testing
schedule/methodology and stick to it! Heads-up on Vista here; Lots of
network monitoring tools cannot inspect Vista's IPv6 packets, making
that a huge potential security hole. -- VoIP will be adopted massively,
will be hacked and spam voice mail will show up.
MESSAGING SECURITY: ISPs are going to shut down both corporate and private
users that allow spam to be sent from zombie PC's -- You will find some
employees violating corporate policy and forward all their corporate
email to gmail, since they get way more storage space there. Microsoft will
urge you to give -each- employee 2Gig storage space -- 2007 will be the
year you migrate away from stand-alone Exchange security tools to an
integrated product that does it all -- A bug in the BlackBerry/Exchange
middleware will be exploited and spread in 10 minutes through all email
servers; and after you install Exchange 2007 you will create a smart
phone/PDA policy.
2007 TECH TRENDS: Vista adoption will be slow and measured but steady.
Plan to patch it every month just like older OSen. -- Google will continue
to scoop up other content providers. -- TV delivered by the Net is going to
really penetrate in 2007. Municipal Wi-Fi networks will continue to get
rolled out throughout 2007 -- 'Web 2.0' was a bust, and people will say
that the real future of the Net (Web 3.0) will turn our to be 3D virtual
environments like "Second Life". -- More and more underground server
bunkers will provide protection from intrusion and natural disasters.
WEB SECURITY: Cyber criminals will increase their bot networks -- Spear
phishing will get even more targeted -- major players will get big time
into 'behavioral marketing' (adware's 'ivy league sibling') -- blended
malware will somewhat lower in volume, but become more virulent and hard
to kill -- rootkits will proliferate but protection and remediation will
increase too. Big companies spend a lot of money and are getting safer.
Smaller outfits will feel the burn of attacks more in '07 than ever before.
Identity Management will be the most important technology to both privacy
and security compliance in 2007, but the bigger the organization, the harder
it is to implement.
"WILD-ASS GUESSES":
- Google will buy AOL
- Yahoo Will buy AOL
- YouTube will be hacked and millions of PC's infected
- Indiana Jones 4 will be '07 biggest block-buster.
- Google buys eBay (Lord knows they have the money)
- Cisco buys Trend Micro
- A YouTube Celeb makes it in a Hollywood movie
- Google may come out with some form of GoogleOS
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WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS |
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This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
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