Symantec outgrows underground nuclear bunker
683398
(InfoWorld) - Symantec has emerged from its bunker in the British countryside, moving its malware-fighting operations from a former U.K. military nuclear shelter to a more conventional office in Reading. The nuclear bunker, with concrete walls and an obscure entrance on a hillside near Twyford, England, was used for one of the company's Special Operations Center (SOC). The regional centers are used by security analysts who are part of the company's Managed Security Services. Companies hire Symantec to help with part or all of their IT security operations. The nuclear shelter may have been good public relations for a security company, but it wasn't comfortable: It lacked windows and had "sanitation" problems, company officials said. On Wednesday, Symantec offered a tour of its new facility in Reading to journalists, analysts, and customers. The facility, formerly used by storage company Veritas, which Symantec acquired in 2005, has twice as much space as the bunker and was needed to accommodate Symantec's growth. Symantec now has under one roof its consultancy, moved from Maidenhead, England, to the new facility, and its SOC, a move that will help dealing with customers, said Arthur Wong, senior vice president of Symantec Managed Security Services. Symantec only allowed visitors a brief peak at the SOC analysts working on Wednesday through a glass window with parted blinds. Those analysts sift through reports that note suspicious events on different companies' networks. Although much analysis of the log reports is automated, humans are still needed to look at data, said Alan Osborne, senior manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa operations. Symantec's service-level agreements mandate that they notify a client within 10 minutes of a critical problem, Osborne said. About 30 analysts work in the U.K. SOC. Symantec operates four other SOCs in the U.S., Australia, and Japan, which can be called on during emergencies. On Tuesday, a fire alarm went off, and the U.K. SOC's operations were rolled over to a U.S. SOC within minutes, Osborne said. Symantec officials said they are seeing rapid growth in managed security services due in part to companies trying to keep IT costs down while dealing with complex threats and government regulation. The oil company BPÂ started using Symantec's managed services about five years ago when it wanted to separate networks used to control oil production, such as those that turn on and off values, and its corporate network, said Robert W. Martin, DCT Digital Security. Access to one network from the other could be catastrophic, Martin said. BP usually gets between three to 10 security alerts a month from Symantec, which performs such functions as firewall monitoring, Martin said. For example, Symantec notified BP when it detected peer-to-peer traffic on their network, Martin said, which can be a sign of malicious activity. Other companies, such as Imperial Chemical Industries, are looking to managed services to outsource capabilities they don't have in-house. Paul Simmonds, the chemical company's chief information security officer, said they are considering Symantec services since they offer greater depth and research on threats. Now, hackers have typically focused on other industries, but "we know one day someone will work down the food chain and hit on ICI," Simmonds said.
447150
When solution providers look back on Symantec&#39;s acquisition of Veritas Software, they will likely remember it as the moment security and storage officially became joined at the hip.
581752
Symantec on Tuesday introduced versions of its consumer and small business security software with updates that protect against network-scanning worms such as Sasser, and keep phishing attacks at bay.
592206
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO  - Symantec Corp. SYMC.O,  a maker of security software, on Thursday said it would buy  storage software maker Veritas Software Corp. VRTS.O for  $13.5 billion, creating the world's fourth-largest software  company.
376640
A worm was released recently designed to break into corporate computers running Symantec Corp's security software and make them part of its botnet.
153139
Security company Symantec Corp. on Tuesday announced the availability of new versions of its LiveState data recovery software.
188099
A Swiss computer services firm is offering to stock sensitive business data for companies in secure servers located in ex-army bunkers deep beneath the Alps.
383169
Grid architecture aims to protect corporate networks from interior security threats.
562395
Serious security vulnerabilities in Veritas NetBackup software could let cyberattackers get into corporate networks.
698538
On Wednesday, Symantec released a beta of its new enterprise security product, Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0, formerly codenamed Hamlet. The beta marks the company&#39;s most significant update to its enterprise security software in years.
262461
NetBackup 6.5 leads new initiative Symantec fleshed out its storage software portfolio today, and wheeled in CEO John Thompson to big up the launch during his keynote at the Symantec Vision conference in Las Vegas.â¦
64340
Security firm Symantec and the Indiana University School of Informatics have discovered a new type of security threat that could leave up to 50 percent of home broadband users susceptible to attack.
334284
Symantec has announced Veritas Backup Reporter 6.0, which will provide IT administrators with a single corporate view of backup and recovery operations, and Enterprise Vault 7.0 for backup and classification of e-mail and instant messaging traffic.
164248
Symantec Corp. will kick off its annual Symantec Vision conference next week with the first public release of its next-generation corporate antivirus software, called Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0.
650079
The product formerly known as "Hamlet" is about to be made publicly available. Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 will be relased to public beta during next week's Symantec Vision conference in Las Vegas.
299016
In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the nation's most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.
575171
TechWeb - Symantec announced it is working on a Web-based console for IT administrators to manage Norton AntiVirus for the Macintosh clients -- the software is expected in two months.