ITIL cert is born; social network sites double as malware hotbeds |
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By Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director
29 May 2009 | SearchITChannel.com |
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IT channel news in brief for May 29, 2009
ITIL cert could ease IT service management
The United Kingdom's Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which owns the IT Infrastructure Library intellectual property, has launched a certification program for IT service management software. Products carrying the OGC's seal would be deemed ITIL-process compliant, meaning they are using the appropriate terminology and best practices outlined by ITIL v3, according to SearchDataCenter.com. The hope is that this will sort the wheat from the chaff of the many tools claiming ITIL compliance.
Social net sites double as hotbeds for malware
Malware threats to social networking sites might make business users think twice before diving into tweets and Facebook postings. Threats in such sights continue to soar, according to Kaspersky Lab. Researchers there tracked more than 25,000 examples of malware spreading through popular social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, and they think that number could surpass 100,000 by the end of the year, according to SearchSecurity.com.
Symantec's MessageLabs Intelligence Report for May also reports huge threats to social nets, saying that active profiles on these sites are "goldmines" for spammers to lure unsuspecting users. Spammers often use a subject line and a valid link to active profiles as well as legitimate-seeming return addresses to dupe message recipients into opening dangerous messages. More than half (57.6%) of spam came from known botnets -- many of which are located in Asia. Donbot is the most active, sending 18.2% of spam, but Rustock and Bagle, which together generate more than 20% of spam, are based in the Americas, according to Symantec.
Overall, spam level has risen 5.1% from April, according to the MessageLabs' report.
Mickos joins RightScale board
Marten Mickos, former CEO of MySQL, has been named to RightScale Inc.'s board of directors. RightScale makes tools for cloud computing management.
In a statement, RightScale CEO Michael Crandell cited Mickos' knowledge and experience in high-growth startups. While at MySQL from 2001 to 2008, he helped guide MySQL's commercial open source business through its acquisition last year by Sun Microsystems.
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