Mention PKI or ‘Client Certificates’ to many people and it may well conjure up images of businesses busily protecting and completing their customers’ online transactions, yet such certificates are to be found throughout our daily lives, in any number of flavours; when we sign into a VPN; use a bank card at an ATM, or a card to gain access to a building; within Oyster public transport smart cards, used in central London. These digital certificates are even to be found in petrol pumps, the robots on car assembly lines and even in our passports.

In Continental Europe and many so-called ‘emerging countries’, the use of client certificates  is particularly widespread, with governments issuing ID cards that have multiple uses, such as to pay local taxes, electricity bills and for drivers’ licenses. And the reason to see why is simple – client...

The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) has news today, June 5. The OTA conducts an annual audit of a range of businesses, government agencies, and vendors. This audit looks at how each organization deals with the key points of importance to the OTA; domain, brand and consumer protection; site, server, and infrastructure security (including SSL certificate implementation); data protection, privacy, and transparency. They look at over 750 websites, including the 2013 Internet Retailer Top 500, leading financial institutions (certified FDIC), social networking sites, and OTA member companies like Symantec. The public can go to the OTA's website, look at their criteria, and see who the OTA recommends for practicing safe online activity in their Honor Roll.

Inclusion isn't guaranteed, even for partner Certificate Authorities. Symantec Website Security Solutions works with...

HTTP session hijacking, better known as “sidejacking”, poses a major threat to all internet users. This is due to the common use of Wi-Fi networks, which are inherently unsecure, but also because of the wide-spread misplaced trust in the safety of internet use on phones and perceived secure connections. It has been demonstrated that wired networks are also not necessarily safe from sidejacking attempts and even your interactions in an App store can be at risk as well.

If you are logging into Facebook using the open Wi-Fi network at your local watering hole, an individual with a simple tool such as Firesheep can gain access to your account, change your password, and then potentially take advantage of other programs linked to that account. These sidejacking attacks can be done without any programming knowledge and the problem isn’t simply limited to the unencrypted Wi-Fi networks we are...

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,...