Web Security


Feds to Focus R&D Efforts on Designing Security in to Applications

The federal government is planning to focus some of its research and development efforts on developing methods for building security into software and hardware systems used in federal agencies. This a major change for the government, which has historically focused its energies on defenses such as IDS, custom desktop images and firewalls.

Restaurant Depot Admits They Were Hacked, Customer Data Stolen

A hack has the Restaurant wholesale chain Restaurant Depot in hot water, after thieves compromised the firm’s credit card processing systems and made off with customer information, including credit card numbers. One published report claims as many as 100,000 individuals may have been victims of the breach.

Google Fixes 15 Flaws in Chrome

Google has fixed 15 security vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser, including six high-risk bugs. As part of its reward program, Google paid out $6,000 in rewards to researchers who reported flaws.


Adobe on Tuesday released a patch for a vulnerability affecting versions of its ColdFusion Web application development platform. A company spokeswoman said the company still hasn’t set a date for an emergency patch for a critical and previously unknown hole in both the Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat applications, after promising to issue a fix this week. 

A class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in California against Hewlett-Packard could have wide ranging implications for software makers, should the court agree with the plaintiff’s claim that the company violated the state’s consumer protection laws by failing to disclose a serious vulnerability in the software that runs some of its printers. 

Adobe said a previously undisclosed vulnerability in its Reader and Acrobat applications was passed along by defense contractor Lockheed Martin, raising the specter of a targeted attack on the important military supplier.

You only have to glance at the headlines to know that the state of computer application security is bad. But a new report from Veracode makes clear how bad: just 16 percent of almost 10,000 applications tested in the last six months received a passing security grade on their first attempt.