A faulty configuration change has been blamed for taking Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram offline for more than six hours on Monday night.

The social network's engineering team said that the changes affected the routers that coordinate the platform's network traffic between its data centres. This, they said, caused a "cascading effect" on the way its data centres communicate, bringing all of the company's services to a halt.

"Our services are now back online and we're actively working to fully return them to regular operations," the company said in a blog post. "We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change. We also have no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime."

In order to remedy the issue, Facebook sent engineers to one of its main data centres in California, according to The New York Times, suggesting it couldn't be fixed remotely. It was also reported that the outage prevented staff from accessing company buildings and conference rooms with their badges.

The incident caught the attention of internet giant Cloudflare, which initially assumed something was wrong with its own DNS servers. However, after an investigation, engineers realised something more serious was happening, and reported in a blog that "social media quickly burst into flames."

"Facebook and its affiliated services WhatsApp and Instagram were, in fact, all down," Cloudflare said. "Their DNS names stopped resolving, and their infrastructure IPs were unreachable. It was as if someone had 'pulled the cables' from their data centres all at once and disconnected them from the Internet."

The issues were down to BGP - the Border Gateway Protocol - which is a mechanism that exchanges routing information between autonomous systems on the web. The bigger versions of these make the internet work and have constantly updated lists for the possible routes of traffic, according to Cloudflare.

"The Internet is literally a network of networks, and it's bound together by BGP," the firm said in its blog. "BGP allows one network (say Facebook) to advertise its presence to other networks that form the Internet. As we write Facebook is not advertising its presence, ISPs and other networks can't find Facebook's network and so it is unavailable."

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Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers play a critical role in supporting modern businesses - especially amidst a period of remote and hybrid work.

With businesses having shifted en-masse to a remote and online environment during the pandemic, this prompted IT teams around the world to focus on protecting and managing the vital networks that support operations and keep the business running.

Ensuring the safety of all these remote terminals has been a key challenge during this period, largely because not all employees will be literate in cyber security best practices. One area of concern is manually configuring devices to a network by setting the IP address. It isn't a very time-efficient process and might be beyond the capabilities of the average office employee, but it is important. This is where DHCP comes into play.

What is DHCP and how does it work?

DHCP is used by organisations to connect their Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to an Internet Protocol (IP), both of which are needed to set up a connection between devices on a network.

DHCP makes this easier by automating the configuration of IP addresses across the width of a corporate network, and managing these addresses as devices connect without the need for IT teams to assign IPs manually. This is a key part of configuring the Domain Name Server (DNS) and subnet masks, alongside default gateways.

The DHCP resides in a DHCP server, from where it distributes IP addresses to devices that connect with the corporate network. This server also configures other pieces of networking information without requiring manual input.

In a small business or home environment, the DHCP server can simply be the router, while in a larger business it might be a single dedicated computer or server.

By using a client-server model, a DHCP server becomes the host, while the device connected to the network is the client. As soon as the client makes a request to the network for an IP address, the host assigns an IP address taken from a list of available options it holds. This then allows the communication between the device and the network to happen.

Main advantages of a DHCP server

One of the main benefits of using a DHCP server compared to other networking solutions is that it's a lot faster to set up a TCP/IP network. Additionally, it's much easier to manage such a network because there's no heavy lifting - the server automatically assigns IP addresses so IT staff don't have to.

IT staff can instead be tasked with carrying out more transformative tasks, rather than the mundane, but simple tasks that end up consuming a lot of manpower.

Other benefits of using a DHCP network include that there are less likely to be conflicts between devices. Because the server assigns IP addresses, rather than humans, it ensures no two devices are given the same.

Other benefits include:

IP Address Management: If you decide against using a DHCP server, you'll instead need to make sure you have the resource and time to manually move clients to subnets without the need for human interaction at all. All the network information is passed to the client from the DHCP server, so no manual work is required at all.

Centralised network client configuration: If you need a range of different of configurations for each client, you can create client groups, so each has different set-ups according to your business's requirements. All of this information is saved in the DHCP data store and this is where the configuration can be changed to roll out to all clients, without having to change them manually.

Large network support: DHCP is especially advantageous to networks with millions of DHCP clients, as they can use the server over multithreading to process many client requests simultaneously. The server also supports data stores that are optimised to handle large amounts of data. Data storage access is handled by separate processing modules and thus enables you to add support for any database that you require.

Do I need DHCP?

It's very likely that your business is already using DHCP protocols on its network – mainly because it simplifies the process of assigning fixed IP addresses to new devices joining the network.

This task would be fairly difficult for any big organisation to do manually, especially one that sees hundreds, or even thousands of devices connect to their network every day, each needing their own unique IP address.

Thanks to DHCP, this process can be automated through a handy feature called dynamic IP assignment. This automatically grants new IP addresses to devices that join the network and, crucially, delists them automatically once a device disconnects.

In some cases, it might be useful to assign manual addresses, although realistically there are a few reasons why you might want to go around DHCP. One such example would be on devices that benefit from having static IP addresses, like printers, scanners, file transfer servers, and others which require a constant connection with the network. In this case, using DHCP would need the device to update its connection setting each time it tried to communicate with the printer.

If you’re utilising machines that can be accessed remotely by staff, you might find similar issues with DHCP. If you assign a dynamic IP address to a remote server, it may cause issues with any software or applications that need a static IP connection. This is because it required details to be updated each time.

This is impractical. But even when DHCP is used across a server and network there's the option to manually assign static IP addresses to some devices - so really there's no drawback, regardless of the size of your business.

It's therefore worth taking a considered approach to what devices will benefit from static IP addresses and manually configuring them, then using DHCP to take care of assigning the rest of the IP addresses, leaving you and your IT team free to carry out more interesting and innovative work.

Things to be aware of with DHCP

Security Issues: DHCP automation is by no means risk-free and can cause serious cyber security issues. A rogue DHCP server being introduced to the network, for instance, can lead to data leaks with unauthorised parties intercepting connections - otherwise known as a 'man in the middle' attack.

Failure: Networks can also fail, particularly if only a single DHCP server is in place. Once that server fails, any connected devices that don't already have an IP address will try and then fail to connect.

Even the devices that were already on the IP address before the server failure will have issues. They will attempt to renew the IP and ultimately lose it, which will see complete network access loss until the server is restored.

If you’ve ever had the chance to work for a larger company, especially one which has multiple offices, you may already know what subnetting is.

But many will go about their jobs without ever knowing the vital role that subnetting plays in day-to-day communication, collaboration, and network security.

Subnetting explanation and benefits

Data moving through a subnet can do so as directly as possible. Imagine you were looking to get from your town to one further north, but had to travel via a major city to the east, where you could board a train to your final destination.

Subnetting this example would mean the creation of a dedicated line between your town and the northern one, thereby removing the need to go east at all.

Subnet masks are a necessary component for TCP/IP, and split an IP address into its two constituent parts; a host address and a network address.

It is important to understand IP addresses in order to fully comprehend the process of subnetting. IP addresses are combinations of 32-bit numbers, unique for each device, giving a maximum of 4,294,967,296 possible unique addresses in IP address version 4 (IPv4).

They are split into four octets, which is a group of eight bits. The most prevalent visible format of an IP address is created by converting each octet into a decimal, separated by a single dot. 

In an IP address, you’ll find a Network Prefix (or ID) and the Host ID, which can be thought of as two separate fields. These are separated according to the five classes of networks to which the IP address has been assigned.

The classes are named alphabetically, ranging from A to E. In the majority of cases, IP addresses are likely to be placed in the A to C class. Class D is reserved for multicasting, in which a single host can send a stream of data to multiple hosts at the same time. Class E, meanwhile, is reserved for research purposes respectively.

Class A networks use a default subnet mask of 255.0.0.0 and have 0-127 as their first octet. Class B networks use a default subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 and have 128-191 as their first octet. Class C networks use a default subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and have 192-223 as their first octet.

Although the IP system made finding specific networks easier, it also introduced hurdles to the transfer of data to specific machines within a network. The networks of large organizations can become particularly inefficient without subnet use.

Organizations can use IP subnets to divide networks by physical constraint, e.g. smaller broadcast domains, or by logical reasoning for features such as firewalls. In this way, subnets guide the routing choices that routers make.

Subnetting is also used to improve network security, as the divisions between each subnet allow organizations to enforce access controls - which also helps to contain any security incidents.

When a computer on one network needs to communicate with a computer on another, it uses a router. A router specified on a host, which connects the host's subnet to other networks, is called a default gateway. This passes traffic on one subnet to devices on other subnets. This gateway often connects the local subnet to the internet.

Aruba has designed a new software-defined networking (SDN) tool to allow multi-site customers to manage their networking in a simpler and more streamlined way.

The HPE-owned company's new SD-Branch links SD-WAN, wired and wireless networking infrastructure together, routing them all through Aruba's new Branch Gateways so they can be managed and controlled through the cloud-based Aruba Central management platform.

In addition, the inclusion of Aruba's ClearPass policy manager means network policy can be created and enforced remotely and automatically, without administrators having to manually provision equipment or conduct on-site maintenance. For Aruba, the aim is to help businesses cut out inefficiency, speed up deployment and reduce networking complexity.

"First and foremost, this software-defined branch solution and architecture significantly increases IT's ability to respond in real time to the business's need to be agile," Aruba's Lissa Hollinger said at HPE Discover 2018 yesterday, citing the fact that many customers have 10 to 12 IT staff managing up to 3,000 branches.

"You can imagine how complex that is if you don't have a centralised way to automate deployment and provisioning and monitoring, so this significantly increases IT's ability to be agile and to focus on more strategic initiatives as opposed to just keeping the lights on," she added.

Simple, zero-touch provisioning is another key benefit of the service, and vice-president and general manager of Aruba's cloud and SD-Branch division, Kishore Seshadri, noted that this is a critical feature for many customers.

"If you own a thousand cafes or a thousand restaurants, and you want to deploy these solutions," he explained, "previously you could do this across two or three years - now we're asked to be able to do this in two or three months. You have to assume that there is no technical resource on the ground, there is no IT team on the ground, so it's just expected that you will ship a device to the location, somebody unpacks it, plugs it in; it just has to work."

As with any networking technology, security is a critical feature of SD-Branch. Aruba has partnered with network security vendors including Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks and Check Point to offer cloud-based firewall protections, in addition to the Branch Gateway's built-in firewall and deep packet inspection tools.

The new branch gateway units also offer context awareness, allowing for dynamic traffic optimisation to ensure maximum quality of service for bandwidth-hungry business-critical devices and applications. This also feeds into policy-based routing tools that ensure organisations can specify exactly which services they want to prioritise.

SD-Branch is hardware-agnostic, in that customers do not necessarily need to deploy Aruba's switches or access points in order to make use of it - although the company claimed that customers may be limited by the features offered by third-party vendors.

In order to deploy the new package, customers will need to be subscribed to Aruba Central, with a headend gateway in their datacentre to manage traffic and a branch gateway unit in each physical location. Prices start at $1,495 each for the physical gateway hardware, as well as $450 in subscription fees per gateway per year.

London is set to get a major broadband upgrade if the promises of Mayor Sadiq Khan come to fruition.

The Mayor of London plans to boost London's digital connectivity by improving infrastructure across the city. This means faster broadband to homes and workplaces, along with 4G connectivity on the London Underground. Khan wants to ensure that London can live up to its reputation as a world leader in technology.

The Mayor's plan for better connectivity means that 4G data coverage will extend across all London Underground tunnels from 2019. The Elizabeth line formerly the first Crossrail line will lead the way with such an initiative when it opens in December 2018.

Khan also plans to form a dedicated "Not-spot team" to work with local authorities to discover dead spots in the city and work on how to best resolve them. The idea behind such a plan is to ensure that those who live within London's inner zones, along with the businesses based there, can gain access to reliable and speedy broadband regardless of where they're located.

With more than 40,000 digital tech organisations in London, ensuring that the city has better broadband connectivity is essential to keeping these companies in the South East. Currently, too many of them suffer from London's connectivity issues.

London's local authorities apply for the government's Digital Infrastructure funding to help ease the financial burden of making such vast improvements to their constituency.

Finally, the Mayor's office has also committed to putting on a Digital Connectivity Funding Forum at City Hall. The summit is designed to help Khan's plans mean fewer dark spots and no more suffering with connection dropouts on the underground as you jump between stations and desperately stab the Wi-Fi logo in hope of connecting again before the train starts moving.

The Mayor's words come hot on the heels of a new study that revealed Britain's broadband speeds are some of the slowest in Europe. In terms of the UK as a whole, London actually has some of the slowest speeds in the nation despite having the widest coverage. Perhaps other recently elected mayors could take note of Khan's proposals as they have substantial powers to improve local broadband.

A coalition of almost 20 major telecoms providers, including BT, Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, have offered to roll out 5G networks across Europe, if the EU weakens its open internet rules.

The group has drawn up a 5G manifesto', in which they promise to start extensive tests of 5G technology across Europe by 2018, and launch 5G on a commercial scale in at least one city in every EU member state by 2020.

However, the telecoms companies argued net neutrality regulation will involve "dangers" harming returns on investment, and want to see the rules softened.

Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data equally, and not discriminate or apply different charges, regardless of the content or user.

In their 5G manifesto, the telcos argue: "The EU must reconcile the need for open internet [net neutrality] with pragmatic rules that foster innovation. The telecom industry warns that current net neutrality guidelines create significant uncertainties around 5G return on investment.

"Investments are therefore likely to be delayed unless regulators take a positive stance on innovation and stick to it."

The European Commission rejected amendments aimed at strengthening net neutrality when the legislation was passed last year, and the Commission's digital economy chief, Gunther Oettinger, has expressed his support of the new manifesto.

"I very much welcome the 5G Manifesto and discussions today with the high-level industry group," he said. "These will help us focus on the key levers to ensure European digital leadership in 5G. I will come forward with a 5G Action Plan in the autumn."

While 5G networks are not yet a reality, the technology is expected to have a major role to play in the development of autonomous cars, personal healthcare, transport, smart cities, and other areas, such as media.

SMBs need secure, managed wireless networks just as much as enterprises but most don't have the time, money or expertise to deploy them. Netgear's new ProSafe WAC730 could be the answer for businesses that find themselves in this position, with this affordable access point (AP) offering a choice of four management methods.

Naturally, the WAC730 can be used in standalone mode, but Netgear's Ensemble mode means you can add it to a cluster of up to ten APs managed through a central web console.

For even larger wireless networks, you should turn to Netgear's ProSafe WC7600 and WC9500 central wireless controllers. There's also Netgear's Business Central cloud management portal, which bowled us over when we reviewed it in our sister title, Cloud Pro.

Ensembles must comprise the same AP model, but otherwise are simple enough to create. We gave our first AP a unique ensemble name and specified a "priority", where the one with the highest number becomes the master AP.

We gave the ensemble its own IP address, secured access with a passphrase and enabled auto-channel assignment. This allows the ensemble to adjust the channels used, based on real-time RF conditions. Moving to our second WAC730, we just entered the ensemble name and passphrase and it joined up with the master AP.

From the ensemble dashboard we saw that both APs were now members, and coloured pie charts displayed the percentage of clients connected to each one. The separate ensemble monitoring page showed further AP details, such as firmware versions, and listed each client along with the physical AP it was connected to.

Prior to configuring an ensemble, we wirelessly connected a Windows 10 desktop PC via a Netgear AC1200 adapter. Using a share mapped from a server on the LAN, Iometer reported very good read speeds of 40MB/sec at a 10m range and it never lost contact during ensemble creation.

Ensemble-wide firmware upgrades are simplified through the option to select any or all members and push a firmware file to them in one go. When you want to extend your wireless network, you only need to add a new AP to the ensemble and it will pick up all the central settings when it joins.

The WAC730 is full of business-class features and has simultaneous 3 x 3 MIMO 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios with 802.11ac Wave 1 support. Three dual-band aerials sit under the hood, and optional external aerials can be fitted to its three SMA connectors.

The Gigabit network port supports PoE and PoE+. Since Netgear expects most deployments to use this, it doesn't include a power adapter - the optional 12V power unit costs 12.

Build quality is excellent, and the AP's metal base is finned so it can act as a heatsink. The box includes a single bracket that you can use to wall-mount it, and it's also designed to give you the option to clip on to drop-ceiling rails.

Installation is a doddle thanks to the well-designed web interface. Our only complaint was its occasional sluggishness. The radios can be enabled or disabled individually and support up to eight SSIDs apiece - each with their own security profile.

These make the WAC730 very versatile, since profiles are used to apply an authentication scheme, mask or broadcast the SSID and assign it to a VLAN ID. The latter is useful for provisioning guest wireless access as it can keep them away from the LAN.

Profiles can also be used to enforce limits on upstream and downstream bandwidth, and we could apply quality of service (QoS) to selected security policies for identifying and prioritising voice and video traffic.

The WAC730 is a great choice for SMBs that want secure, simple and affordable wireless networks. Netgear's four management choices make it extremely versatile and we found the Ensemble mode takes the effort out of managing and extending the network.

This review originally appeared in PC Pro issue 260.

Verdict

The WAC730 is a great choice for SMBs that want secure, simple and affordable wireless networks. Netgear’s four management choices make it extremely versatile and we found the Ensemble mode takes the effort out of managing and extending the network.

3 x 3 MIMO 802.11ac Wave 1 router

Concurrent 2.4/5GHz radios

Gigabit PoE/PoE+ port

RJ45 console port

3 x internal aerials

3 x external SMA aerial sockets

Kensington lock

197 x 197 x 40mm (WDH)

Lifetime warranty

Mitsubishi's Outlander hybrid car can be wirelessly hacked, allowing its alarm to be disabled and its battery drained, security researchers have discovered.

The breach is present in the car's on-board Wi-Fi system, and could make it easier for thieves to steal the vehicle without its owner being alerted.

The Outlander's exploit was found by security expert Ken Munro and his colleagues at Pen Test Partners. Munro and his team's findings were "greeted with disinterest" by Mitsubishi until they involved the BBC, who helped get the car manufacturer's attention.

"Mitsubishi have since been very responsive to us! They are taking the issue very seriously at the highest levels," wrote Munro.

Mitsubishi has recommended that Outlander owners turn off the car's Wi-Fi system while it investigates the issue.

Munro's own investigation started when he was waiting to collect his children from school, and noticed an unusual Wi-Fi signal on his smartphone that turned out to be coming from a nearby Mitsubishi Outlander.

The car belonged to a friend who showed him the accompanying app could be used to control aspects of the vehicle. Munro then decided to buy an Outlander of his own to experiment with how the car and app connect.

Network-connected cars from other manufacturers use web-based services to communicate with their smartphone apps. Typically, these commands pass through a server before being sent on to the car over a mobile network.

However, with the Outlander, Mitsubishi's app talks directly to the car's on-board Wi-Fi, and Munro asserted that it has severe security issues.

Firstly, Munro said that Wi-Fi SIDD is very distinct, which can be easily identified once known. This has led to the location of many Outlanders being recorded on websites that list the names of access points.

"Some were spotted whilst driving and others parked at the owner's house," he wrote. "A thief or hacker can therefore easily locate a car that is of interest to them."

In their experiments at Pen Test Partners, Munro and his colleagues tinkered with the car as a hacker might. Using their infiltration techniques, they used a method of replaying commands to the vehicle, and were "shocked" to find they could control it at will.

Using their hack, Munro and his team were able to turn the car's lights on and off and mess around with its electric charging programme including draining the battery, turning on the air conditioning, and, disabling the car alarm.

"This is shocking and should not be possible. Once unlocked, there is potential for many more attacks," Munro wrote.

A demonstration of the issue with the Outlander's on-board Wi-Fi was shown to Mitsubishi UK on Friday, 3 June, and the bugs were still present in the latest version of the app.

Speaking to the BBC, Munro said he had been impressed by the cooperation he had received from Mitsubishi.

In response to the finding, a Mitsubishi spokesperson said: "This hacking is a first for us as no other has been reported anywhere else in the world."

Amazon has come under attack from the US Author's Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the International Publishers Association (IPA) and retailer Barnes & Nobel over plans to control the generic top-level domains (gTLDs) .book, .author, and .read.

The organisations have protested that allowing this type of generic domain to be privately held is anti-competitive and would allow profitable companies that already hold a dominant position in the market to consolidate their power.

In an official letter sent to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Jens Bammel, secretary general of the IPA, said: "We do not believe that an individual for-profit company should be able to obtain the right to control all uses of the .book' ending without any clear guidance that ensures fair and equal access.

"It is in the public interest that the domain name .book therefore remains outside of the control of an organisation that has an interest in competing with or exerting economic pressure in a contractual commercial relationship on persons who would like to register such a domain name."

Barnes & Nobel has also lodged an official complaint with ICANN, saying: "Amazon's ownership would also threaten the openness and freedom of the internet and would have harmful consequences for internet users worldwide.

"Amazon's clear goal is to dominate the bookselling and publishing markets. Their drive to further consolidate these markets will be greatly aided by their control of the .book, .read and .author TLDs. By having Amazon control these TLDs, creativity will be limited and content diversity threatened."

The company therefore urges ICANN to deny Amazon's application.

Amazon has also come under fire from across the cloud computing sector after also applying for control of the .cloud gTLD.

The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has spearheaded a campaign to stop Amazon from being given ownership of .cloud by ICANN and is in the process of lodging a formal Community Objection to the international Chamber of Commerce.

IT departments are failing to understand the demands on their networks, and seeing application performance fall as a result. And a significant minority of CIOs do not even know what applications their business is running.

According to a research report commissioned by Easynet and Ipanema, 69 per cent of IT staff do not know how much network bandwidth applications are using. As many as 31 per cent do not know how many applications their networks are running; unsurprisingly, 44 per cent are reporting problems with application performance.

And, although applications such as video and voice over IP are most often associated with network performance issues, the research found that the largest proportion of issues (26 per cent) were reported with line-of-business applications.

A further 21 per cent of IT professionals reported problems with "enterprise" applications. However, the respondents also predicted that video was likely to be the most demanding application in the future. And the demand on the network from cloud applications is expected to more than double.

According to Justin Fielder, CTO at Easynet, customers are increasingly reporting issues with network and application performance, yet spending on the network remains a relatively low priority for IT teams. This is being reinforced by the fact that two-thirds of IT managers surveyed said their budgets were either flat, or declining.

At the same time, though, Fielder suggested that companies are in danger of making false economies by ignoring the network demands of otherwise expensive applications, and by failing to monitor application performance properly. Improving network usage will, he said, boost real-world application performance quickly.

"We found that 55 per cent of companies relied on end users to tell them if there was something wrong with their applications," he said. "And the industry has not helped itself by providing too many ways to measure performance, when what really matters is the end users' abilities to do their jobs."

Enterprises will need to do more to control and manage personal technology brought to work by staff, according to a leading network equipment vendor.

The trend for using personal tablets, smartphones and laptops in the enterprise also known as "bring your own device" -- continues to raise data privacy and security issues, as well as concerns around device management and control.

According to Ian Foddering, chief technology officer for Cisco's UK operations, businesses need to tackle the BYOD trend, or risk exposing themselves to problems, especially around data management and security. But businesses that either ignore, or block moves for staff to bring their own equipment to work risk losing out on productivity gains, and may even become less attractive to new recruits.

"We find that the organisations we talk to fall into three groups," said Foddering. "There are those that embrace BYOD, those that ignore it, and those that block it. But the key thing is to have a policy in place, whether that is to enable BYOD, or to block it. Ignoring the issue is most likely to bring problems."

Companies that do allow staff to bring their own devices see not just savings on the cost of equipment, but also improved productivity. A recent Cisco survey suggested that younger knowledge workers might even accept a lower salary, in return for the flexibility to choose their own technology at work. According to Foddering, businesses might move to giving employees a technology allowance, along the lines of car allowances, instead of forcing them to use corporate technology.

Allowing employees to use personal devices at work does, though, have potential downsides. Security and data protection need to be addressed; so does the question of how much control the IT department has over devices that the business does not own. "You have to be very, very clear about the end-user agreements that are in place. For someone to bring in their own device, you have to be very clear what they can and cannot do on that device."

IT departments both need to control the data staff load on to personal devices, but also decide whether, for example, they need consent to wipe a personal device and personal data if the device is lost or stolen.

Cisco has announced a "unified" approach to managing wireless devices, based on a combination of the vendor's existing network infrastructure, and integration with third party mobile device management (MDM) tools. Cisco plans to launch MDM integration this autumn.

The large-screen TV is on order, and you've bought the kids a cuddly Wenlock or Mandeville. The scene is set for the world's greatest sporting event to come to London.

So why are so many businesses apparently in fear of the games? Over the last few months, the Government has done little to quell concerns about large-scale disruption to everything from the UK's transport system to the internet. Large-scale demonstrations of physical security (the SAS boarding boats on the Thames, Typhoon jets stationed in the London suburbs) may reassure the public about physical safety. But suggestions that companies should ask people to work from home, or to avoid travelling on public transport into London, are only adding to concerns that the country cannot cope.

A Cabinet Office guide for businesses sets out the main risks: staff shortages, transport disruption, supply chain problems and technology failures. And there are plenty of commentators, including technology companies warning that infrastructure may not be able to cope. Even the Civil Service has been running a large-scale exercise in home working, in case mandarins cannot make it to their ministries.

For IT managers looking at potential problems during the Olympics which start officially on 19 May, with the torch relay - the problem needs to be looked at on two levels.

The first is unplanned disruption: a transport failure, a security scare, or even a hacktivist attack on the capital's internet infrastructure. Here, the Government rightly advises that businesses undertake a business continuity planning exercise, to test whether their systems (and back-up systems) are robust enough to cope.

This is of course good practice, and something that a well-drilled IT department should rehearse at least once a year anyway. There is no point having a backup plan that is never tested. But yet, according to Deloitte (which is an official services provider for the Olympics), just one in five companies will review their business continuity arrangements.

But a more serious concern among businesses is the planned-for disruption. As one executive at an IT company based in South-East England told IT Pro, high-speed rail services into the capital are being cut in half, to accommodate Olympic visitors. This will make it pretty hard for him to meet clients, even if all the Olympic arrangements go according to plan. Home working will not really help here.

And other companies are warning that if businesses have not already started work on projects to improve home working or remote working setting up more VPN capacity, ordering more 3G dongles or laptops, or setting up SharePoint servers, to take just a handful of examples it will be hard to put those improvements in place in time for the Games. At least the Civil Service is ready, and putting its systems to the test.

So, for businesses that have not checked their contingency plans, and increased remote working capacity, there is no time to lose. Unless, that is, they are taking heed of another Olympics survey, this time from Casio. According to the electronics vendor, 39 per cent of Londoners will not be heading out to work at all: instead, they will be going down the pub to watch the Games.

Time to check how beer-proof those new corporate laptops really are?

Stephen Pritchard is a contributing editor on IT Pro.

Image credit: London 2012

Cisco appears to have turned a corner after posting record revenue alongside solid profit growth in the company's second quarter results.

Net profits rose 43.5 per cent reaching $2.2 billion (1.3 billion) for the three months leading up to 28 January. Sales figures hit $11.5 billion.

The networking giant had a turbulent 2011, a year in which there were widespread job cuts and a major strategic refocus, although the company's UK CTO recently told IT Pro no more employees would be sent packing in 2012.

We are executing well on our three-year plan to drive earnings faster than revenue.

Products including Flip cameras and the umi home videoconferencing have been ditched along the way, after Cisco decided to turn back on its foray into the consumer sphere.

The company had repeatedly disappointed investors, but in the past few months Cisco has performed considerably better.

The results hinted at weaknesses in public sector buying power, largely thanks to austerity plans of Governments across the world, CEO John Chambers revealed in a conference call. Yet the company's core products, including switches and routers, brought in plenty of revenue.

Cisco's switching business saw eight per cent revenue growth. Switching gross margins have returned to where they were two years ago, again hinting the company is getting back to what it's best at. Routing also grew eight per cent in revenue.

"We are executing well on our three-year plan to drive earnings faster than revenue. Our operational focus continues to yield positive results - we hit our billion dollar expense reduction a quarter early - and our ongoing innovation enables our customers to solve their critical business needs," Chambers said.

"You will continue to see a focused and aggressive Cisco that is helping our customers use intelligent networks to transform their businesses."

The company is also making gains in the data centre, with its UCS servers acquiring 10,000 customers overall, with 3,000 in Europe.

Cisco has been benefitting from competitive weakness too, with Juniper Networks' fourth quarter results showing revenue below expectations and net income falling to $96.1 million from $190.2 million the year previous.

Read on for our Q&A with Cisco's vice president for enterprise Laurent Blanchard.

Nicira today claimed it was bringing the last piece of the cloud puzzle to the market, virtualising the network and removing the hardware restrictions it faces.

The Network Virtualisation Platform (NVP) is a software product deployed at the edge of the network. It views the network infrastructure as an IP backplane to enable virtual networks to run across the same hardware, mimicking the services the physical networks offer including security and quality of service policies.

Nicira allows us to repurpose network infrastructure on-demand and move applications dynamically.

The virtual networks can then connect up virtual machines across a single data centre or multiple locations, enabling companies to get the most out of their network infrastructure and utilise their servers to a higher degree.

"Network virtualisation is the biggest change to networking in 25 years," said Stephen Mullaney, chief executive (CEO) of Nicira.

"NVP provides the final pivotal piece to cloud computing, the most transformational change to IT in a generation, and the largest most forward-thinking cloud providers are laser focused on operations and economics, the two benefits Nicira delivers."

The technology has already won the seal of approval from big names in cloud computing, such as Rackspace, AT&T and eBay. Lew Moorman, president of Rackspace, even went as far as calling it "a game changer."

NVP is compatible with any networking hardware and Nicira claims it can be installed without any disruption of service.

Payment will be delivered in typical cloud model, with users paying usage-based monthly subscriptions, dependent on the number of virtual network ports.

"Nicira allows us to repurpose network infrastructure on-demand and move applications dynamically," added JC Martin, a cloud architect at eBay.

"This eliminates the operational constraints associated with the existing network environment and reduces the time it takes us to deliver a service from days to minutes."

For anyone who's been watching Cisco's development over the past few years, they'll know the company went through a somewhat chaotic period in 2010 and 2011.

In a bid to galvanise investor confidence, the company distanced itself from the consumer sphere, streamlined operations and went back to focusing on the enterprise.

This translated into the death of Flip cameras and umi home videoconferencing, job losses and greater embracing of technologies tied to the network.

Three years ago, no one would have believed Cisco would play a role in the server market.

We caught up with Laurent Blanchard, the networking giant's vice president of enterprise, at this year's Cisco Live event to ask why IT departments should get excited about Cisco again.

Cisco is still fairly new to the server space, having only entered the market with UCS (Unified Computing and Servers) a few years back. What can you say to IT departments to convince them Cisco is a worthy contender in this industry?

I'm not here to convince you if you are not ready to be convinced but I'm going to give my point of view.

Three years ago, no one would have believed Cisco would play a role in the server market. Actually, what we did was apply our knowledge of driving a huge amount of data through something the network into a server. We redesigned a server from scratch. When you have a legacy of many years, it is very difficult to do this. But the structure of the UCS is new from the design perspective.

In two years, we have just signed the 10,000th UCS customer. Who would have though that we would do that three years ago?

We can differentiate ourselves and the market is actually accepting it very well.

What about bringing in more storage capabilities? Is that something Cisco will do in the future rather than just partnering?

When you look at what is happening, people are moving to the cloud and we've found that there are three levels of services for infrastructure that have to be provided: compute, storage and network.

We believe we have a very strong knowledge of servers, we have 25 years+ in the network and today we believe in storage we are better off partnering with very big companies such as EMC.

We work with NetApp and we work with others as well. We have building blocks together with NetApp in the same way we have with EMC. You can say one is larger than the other one but our approach in the cloud is to drive and to work in an ecosystem.

I think the industry is understanding that the previous way of looking at IT has changed. Now the three elements are extremely integrated and you need to have a huge amount of knowledge in intelligent networks, you have to understand very well how you can virtualise in the server and therefore have the storage as capacity for those two other elements.

It is normal that the industry is going in this direction. Three years ago nobody would have believed it. I think Dell is looking at it as well, like HP, like the others.

With companies coming together in clusters to provide services, what would you say to those worried about vendor lock-in, or siloed IT architectures?

This is not what people have on their minds. First of all, a CIO of a very large organisation, they have an environment with many providers, many suppliers. They may have HP servers and Brocade solution, they don't have only one provider.

The industry is understanding that the previous way of looking at IT has changed.

Our value is that we know how to get all these pieces together and working extremely well.

There was a lot of talk about innovation during the Cisco Live keynote. Can you convince IT departments that you really are innovating when so many smaller players are making big strides?

Our key differentiator is that we know how to manage huge volumes of data transfer in an intelligent manner, in a secure manner.

If you look at the cloud, in 2010 people were saying there is roughly $30 billion investment being made into the cloud. By 2014, it will be at $100 billion and 50 per cent of the compute consumed will be cloud based.

Now if you agree with this, and if you agree with the fact that the volume of data is going to explode, and if you agree the security issue is going to be important you need to have the right network. This is where you put the most intelligence.

The innovation is to continue investing into development of the network and to answer major trends like bring your own device (BYOD), the internet of things, smart grid. Smart grid is huge business. We apply our innovation into the energy market, the smart grid.

We can make video data intelligent. You can do a search on videos now, for example. So you can search for what someone said or for keywords.

Going back to cloud, how much traction have you got within service provider data centres?

We do work with the traditional service providers, like Amazon and Google.

A lot of the talk at Cisco Live has been around providing better than 'good enough' networks, rather than premium ones like Cisco claims to offer. But a lot of IT managers are happy with good enough as long as it has got a low barrier of entry. Do you worry some of the cheaper providers are going to steal business away from you in the current climate?

I think the trend from the IT and CIO/IT manager side, the big one, is the move from Capex to Opex. When you look at the cost of running an operation, most of the cost is not the initial investment, it's running it.

You can go and buy a very cheap server with no security built into it, but it is going to cost you a lot of money after that.

But then you have the business angle which is continuously pushing you to get a new environment, new devices to be supported. Actually, what you're looking at is elasticity and agility at a cost which is the lowest cost.

We're clearly looking at the total cost of ownership (TCO), the cost of running the operation, as well as doing no compromise on security.

You can go and buy a very cheap server with no security built into it, but it is going to cost you a lot of money after that. Security is an environment where we feel there is no compromise and today it is one of the top asks of the CIO.

Can you prove that your TCO is lower than others?

We have very large companies who've done this. Let's take banking firm ING, they moved into a solution using UCS for virtualisation and they've been consolidating many servers they have IBM, HP, Dell servers. They have been consolidating using Cisco technology UCS with a VMware hypervisor and EMC. The cost of what they are running is lower than what they had before.

I don't like overall studies covering this because each environment is different, but I can tell you we would not have gotten to 10,000 customers if the competition was cheaper.

I've been at HP where I sold x86 and you would sell it, sell it, sell it. But if you don't have any differentiators, you are under an additional pressure margin. This is not where we want to play.

Cisco is looking to help IT managers deal with ever-expanding traffic, today announcing upgrade options so customers can achieve 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet capacities in their switches.

The networking giant is offering 40GbE and 100GbE capabilities in its Nexus 7000 switches via two separate modules, alongside a 40GbE module for its Catalyst 6500 products, all delivered by a tonne of 10Gbps lanes.

The latter focuses more on campus setups, the former more on enterprise data centres.

If we got lazy we would get left behind.

The upgrade modules for the various switches will please those looking to cope with ever increasing bandwidth, or IT departments hoping to kick start cloud or big data projects.

Customers appeared at Cisco Live in London today to talk about why they were excited about the announcements.

"We're seeing higher and higher peaks of traffic, so the next natural step is to go to 40G. The announcement on that was really the right timing for us. It is time to look for higher capacity links as we're really going to need them," said Jeroen van Ingen, from the University of Twente's ICT service centre.

Malcolm Days, head of infrastructure services at Warwick University, said the educational body sees ever increasing volumes of data and so needs the extra capacity.

"When 7,000 students are watching video and its moving towards high definition, that's using up a lot of bandwidth," Days said. "As long as the modules are coming when we need the bandwidth, we're happy."

The Catalyst 6500 40GbE module will be release in April 2012, whilst the two Nexus 7000 modules will be released in the second quarter.

Innovator or slow starter?

Cisco was keen to point out that it was leading the pack by getting 40GbE and 100GbE to market, noting Juniper was not supplying such capabilities on its switching platforms.

"Let's compare apples to apples," said Ram Velaga, vice president of product management for switching.

Cisco is convinced it has come along at the right moment with its 40GbE and 100GbE modules, as now is the time when customers are looking to upgrade.

"Sometimes we are ahead of the competition, sometimes we are not," said Christian Korff, director of sales for Cisco's Borderless Networks division. "But if we got lazy we would get left behind."

Korff also claimed Juniper's main selling point was that it could offer a single operating system to manage networks Junos OS. However, Juniper customers will really have to deal with numerous operating systems, he claimed.

Force10, now owned by Dell, was the first to get on the 40GbE switching case way back in 2010. At the time, it distanced itself from 100GbE, saying most customers wouldn't want to shell out to support the premium standard.

Yesterday at Cisco Live, the networking vendor claimed WAN optimisation was just a feature, hinting it may not be a market at all in the coming years.

Cisco kicked off its premier event in London today by announcing a super-powered wireless access point (AP).

The Cisco Aironet 3600 Series AP looks to cater for the 'consumerised' world in which IT departments need to provide quality wireless connectivity to numerous employee devices.

Cisco has sought to innovate in the AP sphere, supporting the latest industry standards, the networking company said this morning at Cisco Live.

The Aironet 3600 supports the 802.11n wireless standard, which provides more stream and range than previous standards.

The hardware also supports the 802.11r standard, which "allows you to move around with very seamless connectivity," said Sujai Hajela, vice president and general manager of Cisco's wireless networking business unit. There is also 802.11u capability.

All this is delivered with this small bit of magic.

Delivered in a shiny white box, the AP is the industry's first four-antenna design for three spatial streams, Cisco said. This means more devices can hook up to the internet via the AP.

"What does that mean? The key part is it means I've got that reliability," Hajela said. "We design our own radio frequency chips, we don't ship them in like others."

Cisco claimed all this would help it achieve 30 per cent faster performance than other products on the market.

In particular, Cisco believes the AP will help provide high quality video, virtual desktop and voice over WLAN.

Other useful additions for IT departments include ClientLink 2.0 to give a performance boost. Importantly, ClientLink does not require Cisco software on client devices.

CleanAir, which will be available with a module in late 2012 to determine which channel is best for serving traffic over, aims to eliminate interference issues, Cisco said.

The Aironet 3600 also has a removable module so customers can insert add-ons or upgrades.

"All this is delivered with this small bit of magic," said Inbar Lasser-Raab, senior director at network systems for Cisco.

"Why are we so excited? If you look at a typical environment you have lots of people using multiple devices, some generate interference like microwaves and video cameras.

"In a regular environment where density of users and interference is high, you get bad signal. That is what wireless networks need to solve."

Cisco has sold 11.7 million access points since 2000 and is convinced the market is going to be a profitable one.

"That just shows you our momentum in the market," Lasser-Raab added. "This market is growing and it is growing really fast."

The Auronet 3600 Series AP is available now. With external antennas, it costs $1,595 (1,012), but with internal antennas the price goes down to $1,495.

There is little difference in radio power between the two models. It comes down to aesthetics, meaning the internal antenna AP is more suited to tight office environments.

Public sector bodies in London are to relinquish some of their spectrum in order to support capacity demands for the Olympics.

Ofcom today revealed organisations, including the Ministry of Defence, will loan out their spectrum on a short-term basis to cater for the massive bandwidth demands the Olympics will bring.

Spectrum freed up by the switchover to digital TV will also be used, the regulator said.

The 2012 Olympic Games will require up to 20,000 separate wireless frequency assignments, more than double the number usually needed in a whole year, Ofcom said.

We are working behind the scenes to make this capacity available, to ensure that this demand is met.

The smooth running of coverage of the Games will need plenty of spectrum. Alongside a massive amount of mobile phone and tablet use during the event, wireless cameras and microphones, walkie-talkies, timing and scoring systems as well as sports commentary technologies will all soak up bandwidth.

"The UK's airwaves are already among the most intensively used in the world. The London 2012 Games will significantly increase demand," said Ofcom's chief operating officer Jill Ainscough. "Ready and prepared for this challenge, Ofcom recognises that there is no room for complacency. We are working behind the scenes to make this capacity available, to ensure that this demand is met."

Ofcom has also designed a spectrum assignment system to ensure interference is kept to a minimum by carefully managing who is using what spectrum.

A sensor network covering the entire country has been built to identify any potential interference issues.

Ofcom has employed a sizeable team of engineers to deal with any interference too.

Ofcom is preparing for a busy year. The regulator is currently in the process of consulting with telecoms firms over the 4G auction, scheduled to take place at the end of the year.

Read on for IT Pro's report from behind the scenes at the Olympic IT control centre.

Cisco will not be reviewing its pricing strategy in 2012, even in the face of reduced IT budgets across the globe.

Customers IT Pro and others have spoken to have cited Cisco's premium prices as off-putting, when compared to cheaper offers from competitors.

Cisco, which is in the midst of major strategic changes, will not budge on pricing anytime soon though, according to Ian Foddering, chief technical officer and technical director for Cisco UK.

"We will always look to remain competitive but there will not be any wholesale change," Foddering said.

Cisco's refusal to budge on pricing will disappoint IT departments looking to make more out of less. UK councils, for instance, look set to have budgets cut by as much as nine per cent in 2012, according to a Socitm report released yesterday.

We will always look to remain competitive but there will not be any wholesale change.

CEO John Chambers called on Cisco to refocus on it's core strengths namely networking - in 2011 after repeatedly disappointing investors.

This has led to various consumer products being sent to the scrapheap, including Flip cameras and the umi videoconferencing offering.

Yet a pricing rethink does not feature in Cisco's re-organisation plans.

And now for some good news...

Cisco's refocusing has led to job losses too, but Foddering told IT Pro he does not believe there will be any more redundancies this year, even in the face of a difficult financial climate.

"I don't foresee any further changes," he added.

"I'm bringing on board six new apprentices and five new interns actually the big challenge right now is finding the right people."

Whilst he could not provide any figures for how many UK workers were made redundant, Cisco spokespeople said the majority of job losses were in the US.

Many people in the UK who did lose their roles did so voluntarily, according to the Cisco spokesperson.

The company will hold its premier event, Cisco Live, in London at the end of the month.

Check back on IT Pro for all the latest news from the event when it kicks off on 31 January.

The switch to IPv6 from IPv4 is gathering momentum with the announcement that the World IPv6 Launch day will take place on 6 June.

A host of tech giants have jumped on board, saying they will ensure their technology is compatible with IPv6 traffic, organisers the Internet Society said.

Companies including Cisco, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are taking part, as IPv4 addresses get close to running out.

As there are more IPv6 services, it becomes increasingly important for companies to accelerate their own deployment plans.

Outside of compatibility problems associated with this, cyber criminals could use IPv6 traffic to bypass firewalls and security appliances, some of which will not have been configured to pick up on IPv6.

"The fact that leading companies across several industries are making significant commitments to participate in World IPv6 Launch is yet another indication that IPv6 is no longer a lab experiment; it's here and is an important next step in the internet's evolution," said Leslie Daigle, the Internet Society's chief internet technology officer.

"And, as there are more IPv6 services, it becomes increasingly important for companies to accelerate their own deployment plans."

Last year, tech companies organised World IPv6 Day, which saw them testing out technologies in preparation for the switchover.

All businesses were called on to use the day as a test for the shift.

"Last year's industry-wide test of IPv6 successfully showed that the global adoption of IPv6 is the best way to keep web devices communicating in the future," said Jay Parikh, vice president of infrastructure engineering at Facebook.

"Permanently enabling IPv6 is vital to keeping the internet open and ensuring people stay connected online as the number of web users and devices continues to grow."

At Google, almost all its services will be available over IPv6 permanently from 6 June for everyone.

"It will take years for the internet to transition fully to IPv6," said Erik Kline, a Google IPv6 software engineer in Tokyo, in a blog post.

"Permanently enabling global IPv6 access to Google services has been our goal since we first began our IPv6 project more than four years ago."

Virgin Media plans to double broadband speeds for the four million households it covers across the UK.

The mass rollout is expected to be completed by mid-2013, although the project will kick-off in February 2012.

Customers with 10Mbps, 20Mbps, 30Mbps and 50Mbps will all have their services at least doubled, whilst 100Mbps customers will have their maximum speeds go up to 120Mbps.

As for which part of the infrastructure is being upgraded, a Virgin spokesperson told IT Pro it would be at the local cabinet level.

Potentially, this can be seen as increasing the digital divide.

"We've got enough cable to go four times around the world so it's quite a lengthy process," the spokesperson said.

"Wherever we have network, our customers will be getting the boost."

Businesses may reap some of the benefits of Virgin's upgrade too, even though this is a consumer-related project, the spokesperson said.

"Any investment we make into our network will ultimately have dual benefits because it can help us with our business as well," he added.

Virgin is investing 110 million in the upgrade, most of which will come from the sale of UKTV.

Virgin claimed the upgrades would catapult the nation up the speed rankings. According to recent results, the UK lies in 25th globally.

Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the initiative, claiming it would "provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet."

"Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK's infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy," Cameron added.

A digital divide?

Andrew Ferguson at thinkbroadband said the Virgin upgrade would help push the UK up the broadband rankings, but the issue of poor connectivity in rural areas had still not been solved.

"There's no help here. Potentially, this can be seen as increasing the digital divide," Ferguson said.

"But whilst that is the case, it does mean to the councils who are working on various plans that this is where the market is going, this is where commercial operators are going. So if you are just going to try and barely meet the 25Mbps of superfast broadband then you're area is going to be very quickly left behind."

Operators have attempted to close the digital divide by bringing infrastructure to rural areas, with most hoping to jump on BT Openreach's Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) products.

Virgin is in bed with the Fujitsu consortium which is planning on bringing fast speeds to remote parts of the UK.

However, pricing issues have plagued BT's PIA products. They led to Geo Networks, which was helping deliver superfast networks in Wales, to withdraw from bidding for Government-provided BDUK funds, which are supposed to help boost broadband in British countryside.

Geo claimed the market was "not contestable." Two key reasons for Geo's decision surrounded pricing for Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) and "heavy restrictions" over what can be done with infrastructure.

As explored in IT Pro's 'Great fibre debate' report last year, the industry in-fighting threatens to stunt Britain's broadband growth.

BT battle

Virgin is battling with chief rival BT over who can offer the best speeds. Late last year, BT Openreach launched its Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) product, claiming it would be able to offer speeds of 300Mbps by spring 2012.

However, only six locations were to be covered by BT FTTP on the initial announcement.

"The issue there is the actual level of network coverage. Virgin Media, it's 100Mbps product covers pretty much 45 per cent of UK households," Ferguson added.

"The Openreach stuff it's really still just six exchange areas we're still waiting for bigger announcements.

At the time, BT also announced it was to roughly double speeds of its Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) service in 2012.

BT claimed Virgin was following its lead by doubling speeds.

"We announced we would do this for our fibre products last autumn and so they are trying to catch up with us," a spokesperson said.

However, figures from uSwitch compiled over the last 30 days, Virgin offered the fastest average broadband speed of 13.02 Mbps, with BT in second on 8.46 Mbps.

Parliament is looking to get hooked up with fresh Wi-Fi and networking equipment, according to a tender document published online.

Parliamentary ICT is looking for a wide-scale refresh for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, including a telephony system replacement to cover around 6,000 ports.

The same provider who installs the telephony technology may also be tasked with bringing future services, including unified communications and convergence with other parliamentary networks.

The supplier will be expected to demonstrate value for money, plus the capacity for flexibility.

The tender document also revealed Parliament is on the hunt for a managed Wi-FI network for members of both houses as well as for visitors.

"The new network infrastructure must be resilient and have sufficient capacity to carry additional network traffic at a later date," the document read.

"This will allow Parliament to achieve its long term vision of network convergence and delivering the strategic aim of enabling 'to connect members, the public and the administration to the information and services they need from anywhere, at any time and from any device; to reduce the cost of ICT; and to provide new opportunities and pathways for greater efficiency and effectiveness for Parliament.'"

One provider may be able to secure both 'lots' for the telephony and Wi-Fi deployments, but Parliament is open to using two vendors for the separate projects.

"The supplier will be expected to demonstrate value for money, plus the capacity for flexibility, innovation and continuous improvement throughout the life of the contract, together with the ability to manage the planned/unplanned small and large scale changes," the tender document read.

The tender revealed Parliament expects implementation to kick off in September 2012 and be completed by March 2014.

Major vendors like BT and Virgin will most likely be interested in bidding, although major mobile operators are capable of bringing the goods.

O2 yesterday revealed it had won a contract with Network Rail to refresh the company's current Cisco switch and router estate across 450 sites.

Suitors will have to bid to a Government that has become tougher on suppliers since the days of Blair and Brown's Labour rule, which was criticised for wasting money on IT.

Despite having three of its ads banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), TalkTalk has hailed the decision as a success for the company.

BT and two others lodged a complaint with the ASA over the use of the phrase "UK's safest broadband" in the TalkTalk adverts, which appeared on TV, a poster and in the national press.

TalkTalk argued that the claim was based on the company being the only home broadband provider in the UK to apply security features at the network level.

This probably wasn't the outcome that BT wanted when they made the complaint.

The telecoms company provides this in along with its HomeSafe service and means all devices using the TalkTalk connection are given protection. The company said other companies only provided protection for a limited number of devices, rather than at the network level.

The ASA said it took the "UK's safest broadband" claim as implying TalkTalk was promising the safest online experience, rather than making it clear about the unique network protection.

"We considered that the claim implied that customers would enjoy the safest online experience when using TalkTalk broadband," the ASA said.

"We also considered that the images shown in the ad reinforced this impression, as a father was pictured relaxing in an armchair whilst two children used the internet, giving the impression that using TalkTalk meant the actual online experience was the safest."

The ASA also claimed HomeSafe "only offered a basic range of security features" and suggested consumers would not understand what "network level security" would mean.

"As it was not a commonly used term in home broadband, and that it could be easily misinterpreted to refer to other features such as the security of the wireless connection," the body continued.

"We considered that the claim implied that customers would enjoy the safest online experience when using TalkTalk broadband, and that the qualification used did not sufficiently counteract this impression."

Despite the ASA's claims, TalkTalk has claimed victory from the decision. The telecoms firm suggested ASA had confirmed "once and for all, that TalkTalk offers the UK's safest broadband connection."

It claimed all TalkTalk has to do in future advertising is emphasise the network aspect.

"We've never been more delighted with a ruling that, on the face of it, would be seen as going against us," TalkTalk communications director Mark Schmid told IT Pro.

"What it means is that we can now say, beyond dispute, that we are the UK's safest broadband connection. This probably wasn't the outcome that BT wanted when they made the complaint."

BT said it had no further comment on the ASA decision.

BT has secured a lucrative deal with the European Parliament, which will see the telco giant provide networking under two framework contracts.

Network equipment and applications will be delivered to the EU body, alongside professional services for those products across three main sites in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.

BT will provide the technology to support a host of telecoms services, including VoIP, unified communications, videoconferencing and telepresence.

BT put together a competitive and strong offering which really stood out.

The deal has been valued at 120 million (100 million).

"BT put together a competitive and strong offering which really stood out," a representative for the European Parliament said.

"Their highly-skilled integration experts and a vendor agnostic approach should enable us to implement all communication infrastructures and services according to our Call for Tender specifications. This makes me confident that we have chosen the right partner."

The deal marks another high point for BT's Global Services division, which is responsible for a sizeable chunk of the telecoms firm's revenue.

In early 2009, the division was actually holding back BT revenue. At one stage it was reporting losses of 124 million. In 2008, BT said it would cut 10,000 jobs due to Global Services' poor performance.

Fast forward to the company results in November 2011, profits had risen 15 per cent and the division was making money thanks to some big deals.

BT has scored a number of contracts in the public sector this year, including one to become a provider for the Public Sector Network.

"Our extensive portfolio of services and our professional services capabilities were instrumental in winning these deals," Luis Alvarez, president for EMEA and Latin America at BT Global Services, said today of the European Parliament deal.

"Our consultancy and systems integration expertise is increasingly recognised in the industry. I want to thank the European Parliament for the trust they put into BT."

CASE STUDY Real Madrid have been known to chuck inordinate sums of money at twinkle-toed footballers. In recent years, spending sprees haven't brought back the glory days. Even with Jose Mourinho at the helm, the club is still playing second fiddle to Barcelona.

At least Los Merengues should have a more high-tech stadium though. Thanks to a deal with Cisco, even if the likes of Ronaldo and Kaka aren't dominating on the pitch, fans will be appeased with the exciting mobile experiences they will be able to enjoy at the Bernabeu.

The club's IT team and the networking giant have been working on implementing some Cisco Connected Sports Solutions to give fans more to do once in the stadium other than watching the game. End users will be able to log-on and access apps for interacting with the stadium, whilst HD video will be on display in the stadium, meaning you'll be able to spot what interesting new hairdos players are sporting in really fine detail.

This is one IT project with a few missing pieces right now.

The Connected Stadium Wi-Fi network should provide improved non-data services too. Cisco thinks that by off-loading all data traffic through the cellular network, bandwidth will be freed up for phone calls and texts.

A trip to the Bernabau should soon be a more immersive experience. But 'should' and 'soon' are the operative words here. This is one IT project with a few missing pieces right now.

No end in sight?

Despite the promise of a fantastic IT project, all is not as rosy as it seems at the Bernabeu. Planning hasn't been perfect. For starters, even though Cisco was keen to push out a release this week, the initiative isn't complete yet and there is no confirmed end-date.

"Cisco and Real Madrid are working together to define the optimal implementation schedule, one that takes into consideration all planned events at the stadium," said Stuart Hamilton, director for business development in sports and entertainment at Cisco. "Unfortunately, we do not have an exact date at this stage."

Real Madrid hasn't figured out how it is going to market the service either. It appears the planning phase didn't look at the whole picture.

"[The] business model is now being defined and we cannot exclude any scenario. The range of possibilities is huge and we should be accurate in the proposal we launch to spectators," said Real Madrid CIO Enrique Uriel.

"What is really sure is that either spectators or visitors will need to log-in in an application that will launch all the services."

What services though? There's been a lack of detail on what the Cisco set-up is actually supporting. Whilst there will be ways to interact with the stadium, neither Real Madrid or Cisco have been forthcoming in what format this will be delivered. They say apps, but there has been no mention of what these apps will do.

Of course, Cisco simply provides the networking back-end for the entire solution. It seems it's Real Madrid that hasn't quite figured out what the whole shebang will look like. When asked what other vendors had supplied infrastructure for the project, Hamilton said that was "still to be determined."

Uriel said the project was "the result of an actual study of the scenario and all details have been considered in the design phase." Yet the admittances that certain decisions have not been made indicate the entire project, from its design to its implementation, was not outlined from the start.

The networking side has been dealt with, it's just other pieces of the jigsaw are lacking. Do the Real Madrid faithful care about the quality of the network though? No. They just want to tuck into the potentially exciting services that the overall deployment will offer.

Despite the initiative's current shortcomings, at least the network will be up to scratch. Cisco said this was more than just "super dooper Wi-Fi" it was bringing to the Bernabeu.

"What Cisco has done here is used the set of tools that we have (Rogue AP detection, Radio Resource Manager, Clean Air for RF interference detection, Band Steering to move clients to the appropriate radio band) along with new innovations such as narrow beam High Gain Antennas and new RF tuning techniques to optimise the Wi-Fi network for the most demanding environments," Hamilton said.

Grand ambitions need substance too.

"The connection speeds of the client will depend on the type of client and what it supports, but the Connected Stadium Wi-Fi network supports the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands with 802.11g and 802.11 a respectively as well as 802.11n on both bands.

"For example, speedtest measurements using the speedtest.net application on iPhones have measured upload and download speeds in the 15-20Mpbs range in some stadiums."

If those speeds prove to be accurate in the real world, that's some speedy mobile internet. Better than what a lot of people get in their own homes.

The actual workforce to manage the task has been established too. To nail an IT project for an entire stadium, especially one as massive as the Bernabeu, you need quality planning and the right people on board. In this case, given the range of different technologies being used, particular skills were required.

"The team selected to deploy the project by both Cisco and Real Madrid are people with deep knowledge and skilled in all the domains (Wi-Fi, networking, TV, cabling, mobile applications, business, etc) that compose such a projects like this."

It's clear some headway has been made to achieving the end goal. However, just as with Mourinho's men, the package looks promising but the team is yet to deliver. Grand ambitions need substance too.

As any manager will tell you, whether in IT or football, having a complete strategy in place from the start is a big boon. If Real Madrid can fill in the gaps, however, the Bernabeu may well become what its owners hope it will be: one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world.

Broadband speeds in the UK are around 35 per cent slower at peak times, research from uSwitch shows.

The study, based on two million speed tests across the UK, found the fastest average download speed of 9.6Mbps is only available between 2am and 3am.

During the peak surfing hours of 7pm to 9pm, average download speeds fall to 6.2Mbps, the slowest of the day.

In Evesham, Worcestershire, a massive fall of 69 per cent takes place during peak hours, with average morning speeds of 15.5Mbps declining to 4.9Mb/s in the evening.

Not many internet users enjoy the maximum headline broadband speeds offered by providers, and certainly not during the working week.

Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, showed speeds falling by almost two-thirds between off-peak mornings and peak evening times, from 9.5Mbps to 3.4Mbps.

In Wadebridge, Cornwall, the speeds drop from 4.1Mbps during off-peak hours to a low of 2.1Mbps in the evening.

"It really is surprising just how much broadband speeds fluctuate at different times of the day, with drop-offs of almost 70 per cent in some areas of the UK," said Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch.com.

"Not many internet users enjoy the maximum headline broadband speeds offered by providers, and certainly not during the working week."

Reasons for surfing the web have changed over the years, with more people downloading music and watching TV shows online. Research shows that this also adds more strain to the network.

"It is important to remember that the fastest headline speeds are not guaranteed and home broadband users should perform an online broadband speed test to check that they are getting the best possible package for their area," said Doku.

There is a long road ahead to ensure that everyone can enjoy a much more consistent broadband service, uSwitch added.

Cisco has forecast revenue and earnings above Wall Street expectations as it looks to bounce back after some tough times.

Analysts had expected conservative quarterly guidance, given the economic uncertainty.

Chief executive John Chambers said that budgets of large customers as well as governments were better than expected.

The world's biggest networking equipment maker projected a seven to eight per cent rise in fiscal second-quarter sales, translating to $11.13 billion (7 billion) to $11.2 billion in revenue - matching or slightly ahead of the $11.14 billion expected, on average.

Excluding items, Cisco predicted earnings per share of 42 to 44 cents in the quarter, beating the average forecast of 42 cents, signalling its months-long turnaround was bearing fruit.

But Chambers, who kicked off a months-long overhaul of the company to save $1 billion through layoffs and asset sales, warned that global uncertainty persists and it remains tough to predict market conditions.

"There will always be challenges," Chambers said. "We are watching very closely the developments in Europe and the global economy, public sector spending, India business, and the fallout from the flooding in Thailand."

Cisco competes with Juniper Networks, Brocade Communications, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei, many of which have grabbed market share from the erstwhile high-growth Silicon Valley darling and chipped away at its margins.

Chambers vowed to make life difficult for rivals, in particular China-based Huawei. "In the past we have been a little too gentle," he said.

For the time being, unlike most of the competition, Cisco looks to be on track to revive growth and return to its old glory after it slashed its long-term targets and laid off thousands of employees.

Juniper Networks forecast disappointing fourth-quarter results, while Alcatel-Lucent scaled back its profitability goal for the year as telecom operators hold back spending in response to mounting economic uncertainty.

"The key takeaway is that Cisco executed well in a tough environment," Edward Jones analyst Bill Kreher said.

"Overall, the print looks clean with margin and operating profit upside relative to our estimates that are above the Street," Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities said.

Cisco beat its own margin expectations in the first quarter with non-GAAP gross margins at 62.4 per cent, above its target of 61 to 61.5 per cent.

"Gross margins appear to be stabilising. We view that as an important step in the Cisco turnaround story," Kreher said.

Cisco's shares extended gains after Chambers' comments, rising four per cent to $18.30 in extended trade, after closing down 3.8 per cent.

On Wednesday, Cisco reported quarterly earnings per share that beat estimates, signalling that efforts to revive growth are beginning to pay off.

The company reported adjusted earnings of 43 cents per share for the fiscal first quarter ended 29 October, compared with the average analyst forecast of 39 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose to $11.3 billion from $10.75 billion a year earlier, versus the average forecast of $11.03 billion.

"We weren't expecting fireworks for this quarter. I knew the company would control costs efficiently and there's a little bit of revenue upside," said BGC analyst Colin Gillis.

London's City University has created a dedicated research centre to help experts better tackle the growing threats of cyber terrorism and cyber crime.

The Centre for Cyber and Security Sciences will unite experts from around the university, who can collaborate to share expertise and insight on areas such as cryptography, software reliability, network security and more.

"As the world moves rapidly and irreversibly towards web-based government, infrastructure, commerce, retail, banking and social activity, we have inadvertently introduced more effective, easier and low cost paths through which societies can be attacked," said Dr Muttukrishnan Rajarajan, a Reader in Information Security Systems at the university.

"The university has many specialists in this area with experience of both advising governments and industry and researching the latest trends. The new Centre will coordinate these efforts for the first time and enable us to address a wider range of cyber security threats."

At the same time as announcing the launch of the research centre, the university also unveiled a new research project called 'The Uncertainty of Identity'. It has been funded by money from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and will explore the connection between our real identities and our online personas.

The university will work with others on the project including the Home Office, University College London and the University of St Andrews.

The network access control (NAC) market has seen a modest growth over the past few years, but the added pressures of compliance with data protection regulations has sparked increased interest. Established in 2000, ForeScout Technologies has been in this game longer than most and its latest CounterACT 6.3.4 is now available as a virtual appliance.

CounterACT is designed to provide full visibility of all network devices, users and applications, use baselines to determine their security posture and permit appropriate network access based on these findings. ForeScout offers it preinstalled on a range of hardware appliances, but now supports VMware ESX and ESXi

One of the biggest drawbacks of many NAC solutions is their inability to work within existing network infrastructures but CounterACT avoids these problems with two methods of network scanning. An OOB (out-of-band) mode uses a switch span port to see all network traffic and also allows CounterACT to provide intrusion prevention and apply virtual firewall policies. It can also query devices such as firewalls and routers about connected devices. This uses SNMP or CLI access and requires a plug-in for the device which ForeScout provides for all major vendors.

Virtual appliance installation is straightforward and CounterACT requires a dedicated virtual switch for its span port.

CounterACT uses a response port to enforce NAC policies with actions such as HTTP redirection, VLAN quarantining and virtual firewall blocking. If it spots potentially malicious traffic it also uses the response port to redirect the traffic to a virtual host it creates on the fly so it can examine it.

For installation, we created a new virtual machine on one of the lab's VMware ESX Server 4 systems. ForeScout provides an ISO image rather than an OVF template so you need to upload the file into the VM's datastore and set it as the boot media.

For OOB operations you create a new virtual switch with a dedicated physical network port on the VMware host. This is assigned to the CounterACT VM and must be set to promiscuous mode so it can see all traffic.

The CounterACT Console is well designed and provides high levels of information about monitored systems and policy status.

The appliance then starts identifying all devices on the network and automatically populating the console with their details. The scanning process uses the open source Nmap utility and is swift as after only a few minutes CounterACT had listed all our Windows Server 2003 and 2008 systems, Windows XP, Vista and 7 clients and other network devices including firewalls, printers and even NAS appliances.

The interface is well designed with a left pane showing all discovered devices plus policies and their status. The pane below allows views to be filtered where you place hosts with common attributes in groups and apply NAC policies to them.

Predefined policies are provided to get you out of the starting blocks, but it's easy enough to create your own. A classification policy places all new systems in the correct group so, for example, any that haven't authenticated to a recognized server can be classed as guests where they will have the appropriate policy applied.

Rather than block access completely, the policies can provide self-service and remediation services to guest users. You can present them with a web login page and the details they enter will be checked against selected authentication servers.

Guest network access can be configured automatically by using an ACL (access control list) or by placing the user in a separate VLAN. If a system pops up that you really don't want on the network, the policy can interact with a network switch and disable the port the system was seen on. Alternatively, you can apply the virtual firewall and use rules in the policy that determine what it can communicate with.

Compliancy policies check systems to ensure they have required components such as specific anti-virus software products. These can also check for apps such as IM and P2P and the policy can be set to terminate the program if the user tries loading them.

Mobile devices are on CounterACT's radar as it can manage products such as iPhones and iPads as well as Blackberry, Android and Windows Mobile smartphones. It can query the device and use policies to manage usage. For greater control ForeScout is now developing agents for them with an Android agent already available.

Policy creation is wizard driven and these can be used to check on required software products and apply a range of actions to non-compliant systems.

Although Windows clients that are part of an AD domain can have network access controlled without an agent, there are a number of circumstances where it is required. CounterACT can restrict access to external devices such as USB storage but needs the SecureConnector agent loaded which can be easily downloaded from a self-service portal or pushed out via a policy.

With this agent installed on a Windows 7 test client we created a policy to block all access to USB storage devices. When we inserted a flash drive the agent promptly blocked access. We also created policies that terminated IM and P2P apps - when we loaded Windows Live Messenger and a BitTorrent client, the SecureConnector agent closed them both down immediately.

ForeScout's CounterACT is a good choice for businesses that don't want to make any major changes to their networks to accommodate a NAC solution. CounterACT is comparatively good value and we found the new virtual appliance version easy to deploy and capable of providing strong policy-based network security and access controls.

So what's our verdict?

Verdict

Compared with many NAC products, we found CounterACT easy to deploy and, apart from setting up switch span ports, requires no major changes to the existing network infrastructure. Its policy-based security makes it very versatile allowing administrators to provide controlled, secure network access to managed, unmanaged and guest systems as they attempt to join the network.

Operating System: VMware ESX/ESXi 3.5 and above Memory: 1.5GB Hard disk: 80GB free space

Imagine a corporate world that doesn't ban Facebook and actually actively encourages the use of social networking and social media during work time.

Take a look at this video, sponsored by Xerox, to find out how some organisations are embracing sites like Facebook to aid productivity and working relationships.

More than half of critical infrastructure providers believe their networks have been targeted by politically motivated cyber attacks, research has suggested.

Of those who claimed to have been attacked, the average company said they had been hit 10 times in the last five years, a Symantec poll of more than 1,500 providers spanning 15 countries and six industries.

On average, amongst the organisations who said they were targeted, the estimated cost to their business had totalled $850,000 (536,000).

The results may indicate Stuxnet-like attacks are more widespread and effective than initially thought.

"The Stuxnet worm that is targeting energy companies around the world represents the advanced kind of threats that require security, storage and back-up solutions, along with authentication and access control processes to be in place for true network resilience," said Justin Somaini, chief information security officer at Symantec.

Symantec has called on governments to make resources available to establish critical infrastructure protection (CIP) programs.

Governments should partner with industry associations to develop and disseminate information to raise awareness of CIP organisations and plans, it said.

Some 90 per cent of respondents said they have engaged with their government's CIP programme and two-thirds expressed positive views about such initiatives, claiming there are at least somewhat happy to cooperate with their government on CIP.

It appears organisations need government help with threats such as Stuxnet, as only a third of critical infrastructure providers said they felt truly prepared to deal with all kinds of attacks and 31 per cent were less than somewhat capable to fend off cyber threats.

"Critical infrastructure protection is not just a government issue. In countries where the majority of a nation's critical infrastructure is owned by private corporations - in addition to large enterprises - there is also the significant presence of small and medium-sized businesses," Somaini added.

The Stuxnet departure

Talking more widely about Stuxnet, David Emm, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab UK told IT PRO that the worm "marks a departure" from the old security landscape.

"For the last five years or so the threat landscape has been dominated by malware written to make money illegally," he explained.

"Stuxnet is different in that it is not designed to make money, it has been targeted at specific systems and the intelligence required to target these systems and the sophistication of the threat suggest knowledge and resources beyond regular cyber criminal groups."

Zeus, aptly named after the King of the Gods in Greek mythology, is one of the most prevalent forms of malware found on the web.

This year in particular has seen various Trojan machinations causing chaos for companies across the globe, namely financial institutions.

So where did it all start and who has been hit by Zeus during its three-year reign of pain?

July 2007: The Zeus Trojan is widely believed to have been first spotted in July 2007, in an attack on the US Department of Transportation.

May 2008: Zeus abuse really ramped up in 2008. RSA Security found it was actually becoming easier for hackers to get hold of the malware, after Trojan infection kits had been made available to rent or purchase.

May 2009: A Zeus botnet managed to take out operating systems on 100,000 computers, in what was being called a "nuclear" attack. Swiss IT expert Roman Hussy reported on a Zeus command and control server sending out Kill Operating System commands designed to prevent an OS from loading.

November 2009: Finally some success was seen in taking down the hackers. The Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit made the first arrests in Europe around the use of Zeus, taking down a man and woman both 20 years old at the time.

April 2010: An RSA Security study showed that nine in ten Fortune 500 companies in the US had been potentially hit by Zeus-based attacks. By this point, Zeus was known to have compromised computers in 196 countries.

A Zeus 1.4 Trojan was identified in April as well, supporting two techniques one being HTML injection, the other something called transaction tampering. These allowed the malware to get round even tough authentication and transaction signing solutions.

It was also the first time Zeus had been seen exploiting the Firefox browser something it had been unable to do previously.

July 2010: At the start of the month two new Zeus botnets aimed at UK consumers were uncovered by Trusteer. They were only found on UK machines and were targeting UK-based banks solely. It was part of a worrying trend of Zeus-based attacks targeting the nation.

Trusteer was on the case later in July, revealing how a Zeus Trojan had been used in an attack, which produced replicas of the Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode protection features in order to dupe US customers.

August 2010: August saw new versions of the infamous malware hitting the UK hard.

Firstly, Zeus was being used as part of the Mumba botnet, which had infected 55,000 computers and illicitly obtained more than 60GB of personal data.

Then Trusteer uncovered a Zeus v2 botnet, controlling more than 100,000 computers. Almost all of these systems were based in the UK and stolen data included online banking details and social network logins.

Later in the month hackers were revealed to be using Zeus v3 to steal 675,000 from a single UK bank. M86 Security discovered this version of Zeus was able to initiate transfers from within user accounts, handing funds directly to the cyber criminals.

A database containing contact details of 170,000 workers of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has been emailed to campaigning groups opposed to the company's activities.

Seven non-governmental groups including human rights groups and environmental campaigners such as Greenpeace plus anti-Shell campaigning website royaldutchshellplc.com received the database details, which is thought to have been sent by a disaffected former employee of the company.

Many of those groups are upset at the way Shell is purported to be operating in some countries, particularly Nigeria.

The database is thought to contain names, telephone numbers and further details on permanent and contract employees. A lengthy covering letter was attached to the database, purporting to be from more than 100 Shell staff.

Shell has demanded that the activists delete the database. Furthermore, it said it has already launched an investigation, and argues that the breach does not pose a security risk. However, it could provide no further comment at the time of publication.

If it is found that Shell is guilty of an offence under the Data Protection Act, it could be fined.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) the UK's data watchdog said it takes breaches affecting individuals' personal data "very seriously".

A spokesperson for the ICO said: "Shell has notified us of a security breach regarding a significant amount of people's personal details. We are looking into how this data breach occurred and will decide what, if any regulatory action, is required."

Shell if it is found guilty may escape lightly. Fines levied by the ICO for failing to protect against the loss of personal data tend to be under 5,000.

While the data breach may prove costly both financially and in terms of reputation, its timing is ironic. In two months' time, new rules are set to be introduced that may mean companies could be fined up to 500,000 if they are found to be reckless with personal information.

The leaked database is about six months old, implying that ex-employees may have been involved.

Shell cut 5,000 jobs last year.

Some Cisco LAN (Local Area Network) devices have a vulnerability that could allow a hacker to hit them with a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

According to a Cisco alert, the flaw is due to the devices not having enough security for wireless access point association sequences.

An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by injecting malicious packets into the wireless network, where newly added access points are seeking controllers.

With the exploit the attacker could make the LAN device associate with a rogue' controller, preventing the device from servicing network clients and resulting in a DoS.

Security firm AirMagnet originally found the vulnerability, calling it SkyJacking'. It said that if the Cisco access point connected to the rogue' controller, it could lead outside an enterprise and therefore be under outside control.

"This same mechanism could be done intentionally by a hacker to purposely SkyJack access points and take control of an enterprise's access point," said the company.

However, Cisco replied that there was no risk of data loss or interception at the rogue access point or wireless LAN controller, and that a DoS would be the only problem.

The Cisco Lightweight Wireless Access Point 1100 and 1200 series devices are affected. Cisco said that software updates were not yet available.

Mobile phones are becoming more advanced, with features that can almost match a computer in functionality. This theoretically means that a smartphone is susceptible to the same security threats, yet they're continuously left unprotected.

The number of people using smartphones as a work tool has increased hugely in the last three years, and analyst group IDC has predicted that more than 70 per cent of workers will be using their mobile phone to connect to corporate networks within four years.

However, mobile phones are not secured in the same ways as a computer.

David Emm, a member of the Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab says that at a recent IT security event, only 30 per cent of visitors admitted that the security features put in place on their computers covered mobile phones and PDAs.

Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos agreed that people don't secure mobile phones as much as they should.

"Many people don't have a secure password on their mobile phones or their companies have not implemented encryption to ensure that the sensitive data remains secure," he explained.

The risks

To Cluley, the biggest risk presented by mobile phones is when they are lost and end up in the wrong hands, with sensitive data unprotected.

Solutions do exist to protect data from being extracted from a lost or stolen mobile phone. A number of companies, including BlackBerry, have created software which enables the owner to secure all data and prevent access to it until the device is recovered and, in the case of theft, automatically wipes all information remotely.

"Although some mobile phone viruses exist they are very small in number compared to viruses infecting regular Windows computers. The mobile viruses we have seen appear to have largely been written by teenagers showing off rather than with the financial motivation which drives most malware today," explained Cluley.

Most of the threats we have seen so far have been designed for the Symbian platform, but Windows Mobile threats have also been detected, with one security risk for iPhone discovered last year, in the form of a trojan.

However, Emm has seen evidence of an attack that could become more of a concern.

"In January of this year we detected a Crimeware program (a trojan known as SMS.Python.Flocker Trojan) for Symbian, one of the most common mobile phone operating systems worldwide, that targeted customers of an Indonesian mobile phone operator, which offers a money transfer service," he wrote in a report.

The trojan virus sent SMS messages to customers with instructions to transfer money to the cybercriminal's account.

Viruses can infect mobile phones in a number of ways, although to date most have been transferred via Blutooth and MMS messaging. However, in theory, they could also be sent via email and web downloads as more people use smartphones as communication and web devices, said Cluley.

Time for phone antivirus

Despite the risk being fairly low in comparison to PC infections, Cluley explained that installing security software is still beneficial to some.

"You may wish to run anti-malware protection on your mobile phones to ensure a consistent security policy across all of your computing devices. Mobile phones can carry and forward malware which would run on a Windows desktop computer, even if it can't infect the phone itself."

Inevitably, we would expect to see more mobile malware in the future, but it doesn't look as though it's going to be anything like as big a problem as PC problems for some years.

If you are concerned about mobile phone security, here are our top five security downloads for your mobile:

Sophos Mobile Security

Sophos Mobile Security is currently available to download for Windows Mobile devices, and protects against malware attacks transferred via MMS, SMS, e-mail, instant messaging, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The software allows you to scan your device on on-access, on-demand or scheduled scanning. If it finds a virus or spyware, Sophos Mobile Security quarantines the file in question and an alert is sent to the network administrator.

F-Secure Mobile Security

F-Secure Mobile security features a firewall in addition to a virus detection system, and protects Windows Mobile and Symbian smartphones against viruses, worms, trojans, and other mobile malware attacks.

It runs in the background so there's little disruption to a working day, although when it detects an attack, you have to decide what to do with the infected file.

Software updates are performed over the air through Wi-Fi, GPRS and 3G, and again runs in the background so you can be sure your antivirus software will always be up to date.

Kaspersky Mobile Security

Like F-Secure's solution, Kaspersky's Mobile Security software is a firewall in addition to antivirus. It also features anti-spam and anti-theft protection too.

If Kaspersky finds an infection during or after scanning, you can decide whether to quarantine the infection, leave it alone or delete it.

Unlike other mobile phone security solutions, Kaspersky also offers a device protection service called SIM Watch that will alert you when another SIM card is put into your device after being stolen. The phone automatically sends you the new telephone number so you can track down the thief and your phone

Trend Micro

Trend Micro is available in two versions Enterprise for businesses and a standalone solution for personal mobile protection.

The software features antivirus protection, antispyware firewall tools and antispam in a complete package.

A black list feature allows you to blacklist sources that you don't trust so you won't get any dangerous messages from them, while those on the white list are deemed safe.

Trend Micro also monitors inbound and outbound network traffic, so your colleagues won't get viruses on their phones passed on from you.

Updates occur whenever the phone can make a connection to the network, whether that be wirelessly or via a computer.

Norton Smartphone Security

Symantec's smartphone protection software, called Mobile Security Suite 5.0 is based on Symantec's computer solutions. It features a number of different security measures to prevent anyone accessing your files in addition to protecting against viruses.

Features include anti-virus and firewall with an on-device folder encryption, device lock, tamper protection and network access control capabilities.

Norton Smartphone Security requires a device lock from administrators to access the device interface. When a phone using the software wakes from a period of inactivity, you must enter a PIN to resume access.

Visit Know Your Mobile for the latest mobile phone news and reviews.

Christmas is going to a busy time for online shoppers and retailers - which means that the cybercriminals are coming out to play.

Email lures - malcode-carrying spam

These are malicious emails that manage to by-pass end-user security and compromise the targeted computer causing no end of trouble. This could be an email with a jolly Santa Claus, which may contain malware below the surface. Beneath the images could be links to malware or exploit code.

This could also be done using animated files which could attract the attention of users, such as snowflakes falling, while a backdoor Trojan is installing.

Credit crunch emails

Expect to continue seeing phishing attacks exploiting shaky consumer confidence in these difficult economic times, as banks struggle and merge.

These are designed to fool customers into receiving personal information such as bank account numbers and passwords.

Spoofed online portals

IBM expects to see phishing gangs launching a generation of fake online portals which pretend to be well-know brands are steal credit card information.

Other social engineering techniques could be used such as pop-ups which claims that a computer is infected, and whether you want to perform a free anti-virus scan. Once you've clicked you'll be informed that virus is present.

This is all in aid in getting you to download the latest anti-virus software, allowing a Trojan to be downloaded which could allow hackers to takeover your computer.

Dangerous web browsing

Cybercriminals can infect a user without their knowledge simply by browsing a Christmas themed website. This is because code could be executed which exploits vulnerabilities in software already installed on the computer.

Vulnerable software includes the browser, the operating system or even third party plug-ins. Once the computer is compromised than malicious software can secretly be installed.

Toxic toys

Christmas sees a new wave of electronic gadgets such as smartphones and DVDs which could contain malware which cybercriminals could use as a backdoor for entry into business networks.

People should not be connecting unauthorised devices using USB ports, as this is an evolving threat which is becoming a serious problem.

IBM advised companies to disable USB port access for corporate networks, but in the end it's the end-user's responsibility to get clearance before installing a toy' on the corporate network.

The London hospitals affected by the Mytob computer virus have still not fully recovered, with engineers continuing to roll out a recovery plan.

Computer and network access was progressively being restored in key areas of Barts, The Royal London and the London Chest Hospital. An NHS spokesperson said that it was looking at next week for a possible full recovery.

The Trust said in a statement that people with appointments should attend as planned, and that anyone with enquiries should call as normal, although people should be aware that there could be delays.

Julian Nettel, chief executive of Barts and the London NHS Trust, said in a statement: "I would particularly like to thank all our staff, patients and other NHS colleagues for their hard work, help and support."

Ash Patel, UK country manager at enterprise security company Stonesoft, said that the viruses highlighted the need to businesses to roll out the most up-to-date patches for PCs and servers as possible.

He also said: "Another preventative measure would be to have a recognised IPS device that will prevent such malware from entering an organisation by scanning all the traffic that passes through the device.

"By working with a Network Access Control (NAC) you also help such infected machines from connecting and ultimately paralysing the network."

The next few years will see businesses struggling to maintain control of threats as network security tries to evolve to protect data in "the cloud," according to Gartner.

John Pescatore, Gartner's vice president and distinguished analyst, was talking at the Garner IT Security Summit in London today about the move from on-premises to off-premises computing over the internet, which businesses are increasingly struggling to control.

He said it is set to become an inevitable reality for all organisations. As such, security must evolve and protect any network that an employee might use, such as social networks or Web 2.0 mash-ups. The increasing consumerisation of IT is further compounding the issue, with tools like Google Apps tipped to become much more popular in the corporate space in the next few years, according to Pescatore.

"[This consumerisation] is increasing pressure to allow business to be done from unmanaged PCs and laptops, allowing contractors and business partners onto our networks," he said.

He added: "It is also the use of services that we never thought to use years ago. Things like Salesforce.com, which is totally out of our control and allowing data to live off the network [Businesses are] increasingly [interested in] things like Google Apps, the iPhone, MySpace and Facebook. There's a lot more business being done on servers and servers on networks that are not under a business' control."

Pescatore said it is now the responsibility of businesses to make sure that the security focus shifts from platform security to security that directly protects corporate data wherever it may reside.

To do this, Gartner said that the future will see all services having to go through a "security cloud" before they can be used. This defensive perimeter would then protect anywhere data was accessed.

McAfee has announced that it is buying rival Secure Computing, a move that will create one of the biggest network security vendors in the market.

The two companies have claimed that the merger was driven by customers demanding complete solutions rather than a mass of point products from multiple vendors.

With the acquisition of Secure Computing, McAfee said that it will be able to offer the industry's most complete network security product line. Secure Computing's brand will eventually disappear from its products, to be replaced with the McAfee brand name.

McAfee claimed it would be the only company to offer firewalls, IPS, web security technologies, email security, network access control, and data protection as part of its portfolio.

Atri Chatterjee, a senior vice president at Secure Computing said: "Together we will have a range and reach that Secure on its own did not have. The McAfee brand is also synonymous with security while we were not so strong."

Chatterjee said that although Secure Computing took time in making its decision, the fact that the agreement was made meant that the all of the main issues were accounted for with lots of positives to go forward.

"The benefits far outweigh any concerns," he said. "We've got largely complimentary products which do not compete with each other"

Vimal Solanki, vice president of worldwide solutions at McAfee, said that the number of security vendors in the market now was becoming unmanageable. The current and future trend was now for customers to buy larger combined solutions from a more select band of vendors.

The merger will see McAfee acquire Secure Computing for a total of approximately $465 million (258 million).

The majority of organisations see employee misuse of the corporate network as the biggest security threat they face, a new survey has revealed.

The threat from within an organisation led in the league table of potential sources of a data breach for 41 per cent of the 250 IT directors and board-level decision makers questioned by LSI, a storage and networking technology provider.

Traditional hacking attacks from outside an organisation's firewall were considered the second biggest threat, with 21 per cent of respondents.

And the widening of network perimeters was seen as the third biggest threat (15 per cent), followed by terrorist threats and a lack of encryption in data centres.

With internal network security firmly the focus of the survey respondents, it also emerged that cost was the most common reason why organisations were not investing in this critical area of their IT defences.

But recent events have shown the disgruntled or careless employee is in the best position to breach data security.

Earlier this month, a system administrator working for the city of San Francisco was arrested for allegedly locking the authority out of its brand new fibre (wide area network) WAN, which stores around 60 per cent of its data after a run-in with the city's head of security. He reportedly set a master password giving him exclusive access to the network, preventing administrators from accessing routers and switches.

A statement issued at the time by San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris also said the administrator, Terry Childs had "set up devices to gain unauthorised access to the system".

Whether malicious or unintentional John Bromhead, LSI product marketing manager said the survey figures showed that staff education and IT investment are key when it comes to security.

And the effects of lax internal security have been felt in the UK too. The data breach that lost data on 25 million UK citizens on an unencrypted Department of Work and Pensions disk late last year was just one of a catalogue of public and private sector breaches that have highlighted the dangers of lax internal IT security practices. As a result, civil servants are now being given special data security training.

Amongst all the fanfare from the release of the 3G iPhone, business users were particularly interested in the fact that it was much better positioned to be used for enterprise, thanks to new business tools and capabilities such as the push email.

This has focused more attention on the incorporation of smartphones into business networks, which in the future looks to be a necessity thanks to modern day workers needing to perform many tasks on the move.

RIM's Blackberry has been the business smartphone of choice for a while, with its ability to perform corporate tasks and its functionality.

However, a new generation of smartphones such as the iPhone but also devices like the Nokia N71 and the new series of Blackberrys are capable of doing much more. These phones have features such as the ability to access the net using 3G, watching videos and downloading third party applications which have its own inherent risks.

It is also clear that smartphones will carry more important and confidential corporate information than ever before such as internal communications, customer contacts, financial information as well as intranet systems and networks.

In the wrong hands it could cause huge damage to business, and IT departments around the world are going to have to deal with new problems and a bigger strain on networks.

In response, IBM Internet Security Systems released a five point plan which IT administrators need to keep in mind when attempting to incorporate the technology into their enterprises.

1 - Enforce strong password policies

If the smartphone was lost or stolen, strong passwords could mean the difference between the loss of a phone and the loss of sensitive data which could cost business financially and destroy reputations. It was advised that business smartphones needed to be configured to lock screens after a period of inactivity, and passwords be complicated and changed on regular basis.

2 - Protect smartphone VPN access

Attackers are capable of exploiting vulnerabilities in smartphones and infecting them with malware, which in turn can transfer through VPN connections through to intranet resources. IBM said that smartphone servers and VPN egress points should be placed on a network which is firewalled from the rest of the internet. Connections coming from the phones should be monitored with intrusion protection systems and access from smartphone VPNs restricted to servers that are really needed by users.

3 - Establish procedures for employees to follow

It is possible for sensitive data to be wiped from smartphones remotely from the enterprise server if they are lost or stolen. It was recommended that a contact point for employees who had lost their phone so data could be wiped and a replacement be sent.

4 - Control the installation of third-party applications

Smartphone users will be tempted in downloading productivity applications or other files which carry malware or a back door. Businesses needed to consider restrictions on these types of third party applications, especially if they are not digitally signed.

5 - Evaluate smartphone anti-virus solutions

Although there are few malware threats on smartphones at the moment, there are anti-virus solutions on offer. As the popularity of smartphones increase, so will the malware that targets them. Businesses needed to monitor constantly in determining which mobile phones needed to be included in host based security deployments.

Technology bosses, under pressure to make corporate networks more open, fear data leaks could result, according to a report.

Research from AEP said that 91 per cent of UK and North American IT executives think that factors such as remote working and outsourcing create a greater risk of sensitive data being accessed by prying eyes.

They also believed that wider network accessibility would also mean that there would be much wider risk from malicious content, with 89 per cent fearing a greater threat from malware. Similarly, 85 per cent felt there was more likelihood of hacking.

"On the one hand, IT managers are rightly under pressure to open the network door to partners, suppliers and customers, to improve efficiency, and enhance business processes," said Reginald Best, chief operating officer of AEP networks.

"On the flip-side, they're sweating over how to prevent unauthorised access, protect company information and deflect malicious attacks."

Although the vast majority of IT execs knew the risks, they also realised more open networks were inevitable, with 94 per cent either already or planning to allow access to remote workers.

Over half of them permit or plan to permit access to contract staff or external IT support, but interestingly for some this openness also spreads to customers and guests.

To deal with the security issues, IT departments are spending more on new technology. The report revealed that 48 per cent of execs would stretch their security budgets to secure remote access in the next year.

Other solutions mentioned were network access control (41 per cent), identity-based network security solutions (37 per cent) and encryption (35 per cent).

Best said that there were many questions that IT needed to ask itself about how to safeguard more open networks: "What systems should specific types of remote workers be allowed to access? What should you do about visitors who don't have the required antivirus software on their machines but need to work on your network?"

"And what about providing a safe access to users who want to log in from third party locations such as internet cafes? How does the organisation track and audit access? These are the types of issues for which organisations need to develop policies," Best added.

A form of malware employing pay-by-phone extortion has been identified as a new means for cyber criminals to literally hold users' PCs to ransom.

The new 'ransomware,' as it's being called, locks up a user's PC and demands $35 (17.67) to renew bogus "browser security and anti-adware software" licences before returning control back to the user, a US security research firm said earlier this week.

The backdoor Trojan, identified by Florida-based Sunbelt Software as "Delf.ctk" is typically installed through security exploits, giving an attacker unauthorised access to a PC and the means to remotely control it without the user's knowledge.

The resulting fake Microsoft alert screens which lock up the system direct users to the internet protocol (IP) address of a payment processor of pornographic websites, 'passwordtwoenter.com' and a number of other similar sites.

Sunbelt chief executive, Alex Eckleberry, said in a blog posting on Monday that "you're completely locked out of the system" after the Trojan is run and installed, and that the only way to regain control is to pay the fee being demanded via phone numbers it lists.

Both the telephone numbers and websites sharing the passwordtoenter.com IP address trace back to a Seychelles-based company called Global Voice. But the company has failed to respond to email enquiries about the reports.

"Apparently, this is a payment processor that's now being used for malware, whether they know it or not," added Eckleberry.

Although ransomware is not a completely new cybercrime tactic, the last outbreak was reported over six months ago, when the Trojan horse "Gpcoder," froze user access to PC files for a ransom of $300 (151.44) a time.

Security vendor Secerno has today released the latest version of its database monitoring product in anticipation of managing the complexity of growing consolidation in this part of enterprise IT infrastructure.

The new version of Secerno.SQL has been launched on the basis of the trend, identified by IT analyst Forrester, towards consolidating the many thousands of databases run by major corporations, which it estimates will be subject of a widespread consolidation move within the next two to three years.

Secerno.SQL v2.1 features patent-pending, machine-learning technology that observes how applications access the database, to allow IT managers to control and protect their data assets from known and unknown, external and internal threats

Steve Hurn, chief executive of the Oxford-based vendor, said that consolidation will result in a decreasing number of databases holding an ever-increasing volume of data, making them an "alluring one-stop-shop for hackers keen to steal as much customer data as possible."

He said this new version would enable organisations to define and enforce security policies that segment and discriminate between different types of business access to these increasingly widely shared databases.

It can not only determine who is allowed access to the database, at what time and from where, but can also control access according to individuals' behaviour without the system manager needing to develop and maintain complex policy configurations for every scenario.

The new version also introduces the direct console access monitoring (DCAM) feature to audit and control direct operator database access, as well as access through network applications. This is intended to help with increasing regulatory-driven compliance pressures to demonstrate transparency in database access and control management, without requiring any external software agent.

DCAM instead uses the core database capabilities themselves to produce analysis for regulatory reporting processes, irrespective of where and how a database is accessed and without degrading core database system management performance.

Over of UK workers have no clear guidance on how to respond to a network security breach, a new survey found.

A survey carried out by IT training company The Training Camp found that 53 per cent of employees had not received clear instructions on how to respond in the event of a network security breach.

The company said as a result of this ignorance, employees could allow a hacker to cover their tracks and make life for computer forensics investigators difficult.

The study of 1,400 people found that the actions of employee could mean that an investigator looking into a breach of an organisation would not be able to find out the extent of a breach, the level of data loss or pin down the identity of a suspect hacker.

"When cyber crime strikes the real issue is not the incident itself but how the organisation responds to an attack," said Robert Chapman, chief executive of The Training Camp.

"Computer forensics is fast becoming a leading form of defence against cyber crime. But, investigators often find their enquiries are being hampered when employees continue to access a breached network," he said.

Chapman added that false trails and misinformation combine to disguise the tracks of the hacker and "prevent companies learning from breaches in order to strengthen the weak links in their network security."

The company suggested that companies should adopt a code of conduct to ensure that employees know what action to take if a hacker gained entry to infrastructure.

Networking company Cisco has upgraded its lower-end Catalyst 6500 switches with new technology that will allow IT administrators optimisation of applications running over the network and deep packet inspection capabilities.

An upgraded version of the company's Supervisor Engine 32 module includes an integrated add-on technology called the Programmable Intelligent Services Accelerator (PISA), which integrates the ability to analyse stateful and stateless application traffic flows for security protection, compliance with corporate policies and managing network resource usage onto the switch itself.

This ability to prioritise traffic means that administrators could limit or block applications on the network in line with corporate policies. The company also said that the upgraded routers would provide protection against notable worms and viruses and zero-day exploits in the campus edge using its Flexible Packet Matching (FPM) technology.

Cisco has also expanded its 7200 Series line with the Cisco 7201, which is a smaller router with higher performance and low power consumption. It comes with four Gigabit Ethernet ports in a compact rack unit form factor.

Analysts said that collaboration tools, software as a service, security, mobility, and numerous other traffic types are changing application traffic flows and driving a need for more advanced services at the network edge.

"These changing flows are causing network managers to look beyond basic monitoring to find solutions that provide greater visibility and control as an integral part of the network," said Abner Germanow, Director of Enterprise Networks Research at IDC.

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 SeriesSupervisor Engine 32 with PISA Technology will be available in June and will cost $28,000 (14,000). The Cisco 7201 Series Router is available now and priced at $24,000 (12,000).

HP's networking arm ProCurve Networking launched new products aimed at securing infrastructure by integrating security software onto network switches themselves.

Aimed at providing customers with reliable network protection and comprehensive network access control, the company unveiled its ProCurve Network Immunity Manager security management application. The application is a plug-in to ProCurve Manager Plus 2.2 and automatically responds to detected threats to provide protection against zero day and known virus attacks in both wired and wireless networks.

It also launched a free upgrade to its ProCurve Identity Driven Manager (IDM) security application, which the company said provided enhanced policy management, greater information accessibility for better support and improved product scalability. The application offers dynamic integration with Microsoft Active Directory. The upgrade is expected to be available in the third quarter of this year.

The company also announced plans to introduce new NAC appliance. Called Network Access Controller 800, the device will work alongside Procurve's IDM product to prevent security breaches by controlling which users have access to systems and how they connect across both wired and wireless networks.

Paul Congdon, chief technology officer and security business director at ProCurve Networking said the new products offered companies a "pro-active defence" that would take action to secure networks before threats occurred.

"Before you get on the network, we check you for vulnerabilities, for your identity, location and time. The Identity Driven Manager is our tool that gives you the policy configuration interface to do that," said Congdon.

He added that once on the network the Network Immunity Manager provided anomaly detection.

Congdon said the biggest difference between what ProCurve offered with these products and what rival Cisco offered was that ProCurve used the network Lan edge, the closest point of attachment to the user, as the tool for enforcement.

"We go right to the Lan edge, whether it's wired or wireless, and do enforcement at the closest point of attachment. We have extended threat management all the way across the Lan to the network edge, not just at the Wan perimeter."