06-12-2004 • VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 46 • £2.60
WWW.ITWEEK.CO.UK
25 CLIENT Deployment tools
ease mobile management
30 NETWORK Ethernet
to power more kit
35 MANAGEMENT Lessons of
the government’s IT failures
CONTENTS
ENTERPRISEWEEK
HP boosts services and delivery 15
GPL licence changes push Linux 18
Agitator 2.0 suite tests Java code 19
INTERNETWEEK
Benefits and costs of using XML 21
Halo 2 shows way to beat piracy 22
How scammers exploit defences 23
CLIENTWEEK
Cells give computers super power 25
Will the PC sector consolidate? 25
Flash devices threaten firms’ data 26
NETWORKWEEK
Giants promote faster switches 29
Tools to protect wireless LANs 30
F5’s traffic-control kit reviewed 33
MANAGEMENTWEEK
How outsourcing affects IT jobs 35
Legal issues for IT chiefs in 2005 36
Cash crisis aids e-criminals
David Neal
atchy and inconsistent reporting of
IT crime means the police are unable to secure funding proportionate
to the problem, experts warned last week.
As part of a range of proposals to tackle
e-crime, IT lobby group Eurim called for a
standard web-based form for reporting
attacks. Eurim said such a mechanism would
encourage firms to work with the police.
“Reporting systems are likely to be
swamped unless material is received in a
form suitable for automatic collation, analysis and forwarding,” Eurim warned.
The lack of a standard reporting model
is a problem, agreed the head of IT security at a large investment bank. “It would be
beneficial to have standards for the data
being collected and processed,” he said.“But
it’s going to be very difficult to get agreement on what to put in those standards.”
Eurim said firms lack confidence in law
enforcement agencies’ ability to deal with
computer crime. Richard Starnes, security
evangelist with IT training firm ISC2, said
P
STEPS TO TACKLE IT CROOKS
Industry
Report crimes
as they occur
Government
Increase funding for
IT crime experts
Police
Earn recognised
IT credentials
the appointment of investigating officers
with recognised security credentials could
increase firms’ trust in the skills of the police.
Eurim also suggested the use of industry experts in “special constable” roles to
provide skills lacking in the public sector.
Under this system, staff could be asked to
participate in investigations on an ad hoc
basis while keeping their regular jobs.
Starnes welcomed this suggestion.“The
investigators would get someone with experience and knowledge, and once the inquiry
is over the employee is returned to the company with investigation experience,” he said.
The reluctance of many firms to report
security breaches hampers the ability of law
enforcement agencies to get more funding
for initiatives to deal with threats, according
to Robert Jones, chairman of the Interpol
European Working Party on Technology
Crime. “Problems start with under-reporting. A lot of companies do not want to
admit to being compromised so you get
non-representative crime figures,” he said.
Extra funding could also help to retain
IT experts in the public sector, which finds
it hard to compete with private-sector
salaries. Starnes noted that public-sector IT
security professionals with investigative
experience are often poached by the private
sector, making it hard for some government
bodies to retain expertise.
However, Jones said UK law enforcement
agencies must share some blame for the lack
of expertise. He said the policy of rotating
staff can create skills shortages. Police officers with years of experience in IT, who are
then asked to transfer to traffic control, for
example, might decide to take their skills
elsewhere, Jones added.
Malware moves, p4 Phishing, p10
Layers, p15 Policing, p22 Scams, p23
SonicWall, p29 WLAN security, p30
HP soups up
wireless iPaq
Oracle plots ECM push
HP’s iPaq hx2750 is a powerful
new handheld with 128MB
memory, Bluetooth and
802.11b wireless capability.
Other features include
built-in HP ProtectTools
security, a mobile print
Data
tool, and a utility to back
may be
encrypted up data to Flash cards.The
Pocket PC device also has
tools to manage wireless connections.
The iPaq hx2750 costs £365 + VAT.
Review, p26 www.tinyurl.com/4ruz7
O
Martin Veitch
racle will use its OpenWorld conference in San Francisco this week to
detail plans to move into enterprise content
management (ECM) and extend deeper
into business intelligence.
Information on the database giant’s
ECM software, codenamed Tsunami, was
first revealed in September. The product
will be packaged as part of Oracle’s Collaboration Suite and will offer a scalable alternative to Microsoft’s SharePoint, according
to Alan Pelz-Sharpe of analyst Ovum.
A Tsunami release is expected in the
first half of next year. Oracle’s ECM debut
is timely as many organisations are currently struggling to cope with the growth of
unstructured data, and new laws and rules
governing information management.
Firms that already rely on Oracle products are likely to be drawn to Tsunami,
although some questioned
its positioning. “We are
very, very interested [in
Tsunami] because content management was the
obvious missing lump in
Oracle’s range,” commented
Miles: release will fill
a gap in Oracle’s range
SP5 U-turn
hits Win2k
Microsoft has cancelled the longawaited Service Pack 5 for Windows
2000, which it had said would contain
important security updates.
Windows 2000 SP5 would have
brought the platform more in line
with features in Windows XP. However, the software giant now says customers will find it easier to install a
forthcoming security bundle instead.
The bundle is expected to include
many security-related updates touted
for SP5, but could require firms to
separately download and install some
updated Windows components.
Robert Horton of security research firm NGS said Microsoft is trying to move users to Windows XP
SP2.“From a security view [XP SP2] is
much stronger,” he said, citing its automated update mechanisms and firewall. Security holes in Windows 2000
will still be fixed when found, he added.
Suite tests Win fixes, p6 Leader, p12
Ronan Miles, chairman of the UK Oracle
User Group. “[But] there’s also a degree of
confusion: why put it in with email and
messaging? That’s not what content management is about.”
IT vendors already supplying content
management systems were keen to downplay the effect of Oracle entering the market. “[Oracle will] do a portal and it’s just
part and parcel of a trend to everyone entering content management,” said Tom Jenkins, chief executive of Open Text.
Also at OpenWorld this week, Oracle is
expected to detail its plans for querying,
reporting and analysis tools to be offered as
a separate product, likely to be called Business Intelligence 10g.
Oracle’s quarterly patching scheme, p36
www.oracle.com/openworld
NEWS INSIDE: MOBILITY Malware, p4 • BROWSERS Firefox, p4 • TABLET PC Plans, p5 • BT Hosting, p5 • HP Controls, p6 • 3G I-Mode, p9 • SUN Services, p10