The public sector has a somewhat mixed record when it comes to staving off security breaches within its walls. In the UK, for example, the hugely embarrassing data losses at HMRC (Inland Revenue/Taxation services) – when the personal details of 25 million people were heavily compromised, due to what were described as "serious institutional deficiencies" – still linger in the mind a few years down the line.

On the plus side, the UK government has been heavily engaged in getting its own house in order, identifying information security as a key priority for 2013 and beyond. In recent months, new initiatives to address growing cyber security threats have been announced, with a cyber security ‘fusion cell’ established for cross-sector threat information sharing. The intention is to put government, industry and information security analysts side-by-side for the first time. The analysts will be joined by members of intelligence agencies,...

Running an ecommerce site is a rewarding business. There are almost 2.5 billion people online, and the global consumer ecommerce market is worth around $1 trillion, which is nothing to be sneezed at.

But that opportunity also attracts criminals, which is why running any public-facing website is highly risky. The cost of cybercrime runs into the hundreds of billions each year, and in 2011, 403 million unique variants of malware were discovered, according to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report.

That's not just stolen money we're talking about – you also need to factor in compensation payments, the time and manpower it takes to clean up after a successful attack, and the massive impact that systems breaches...

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that 2013 will press the limits of the mobile infrastructure.  The sales of smart phones and tablets are through the roof, and apps are being written at a fast pace. This is a boon for many, bringing the internet and cloud applications to the hands of users all over the world, who may not own a computer or have ISP service, but do own a phone.

In the race to be part of the mobile rush however, fast app development is often more valued than a well thought out and secure application.  As a result, SSL/TLS app failures can result in broken, disabled or nonexistent validation behind the scenes of mobile applications.  SSL is the backbone technology for secure connections between the app and the cloud, but without proper certificate handling by the developers it’s still vulnerable to attacks by outsiders. This core vulnerability presents a real danger, and it’s imperative that the app developer learn how...

Apps it seems are everywhere now, and they continue to spread like wildfire. It’s a ‘technology on the go’ world we inhabit, where we are using apps for everything from social media, banking, gaming, making payments and a host of other things, at any time or day of the week. The convenience afforded by smart phones and other mobile devices have fast become the platform for serious business and consumer alike.

Global mobile app store downloads are forecast to surpass 45.6 billion in 2012, with free downloads accounting for 40.1 billion (89%) and paid-for downloads totalling 5 billion, according to research analysts Gartner.

So it’s alarming to hear that some Android developers are failing abysmally when it comes to...