Miles Associates LLC

Palo Alto Networks surveyed Web application usage at 347 organizations and found Facebook, Twitter and other programs for communications and collaboration are all being used in enterprises to a great degree. Some 22 Google applications, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Wave, showed particularly strong usage, according to research from the network security firm. Of course, the widespread use of social network and other Web apps used in enterprises can wreak havoc on network security and regulations for financial services and health care industries.

Palo Alto Networks surveyed use of 750 applications across 347 organizations for its fifth Application Usage and Risk Report, released March 30. The company’s firewall appliances and software monitored the use of Web apps for the volunteering companies from September 2009 through March 2010.

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Some of the stats are eye-popping. The bandwidth consumed per organization by social networking applications doubled from 18 months ago to 9GB in this new report, with Facebook consuming an amazing 5GB of these companies’ bandwidth counts.

via eWeek.  (Emphasis added by me — jm)

A new zero-day bug affecting Adobe Reader and Acrobat is being exploited in the wild. Though the vulnerability affects the products on Unix, Mac and Windows systems, the exploit observed in the wild is focused on Microsoft Windows for the moment.

Adobe is warning users about a critical vulnerability in versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat that is being exploited in targeted attacks.

via eWeek.

Microsoft confirms it is releasing Microsoft Security Essentials, its free anti-malware product, on Sept. 29.

A friend of mine participated through the beta and gave a positive review of Security Essentials.

via eWeek.

eWeek:  ”Apple has reportedly armed Snow Leopard, the newest version of its Mac OS X operating system, with a new feature to scan downloads for malware.

Two security researchers open-source code that can be used to take control of versions of the Microsoft Windows 7 x64 operating system. The team decided to release the code despite initial reservations over security.

“All we are trying [to do] is help more people understand the real enemy, malware … So, this might trigger up new ideas in [the] security industry to help solve the problem,” Kumar wrote. “We are still using age-old methods … to detect malware.”

via eWeek.

eWEEK Labs’ Tests of Microsoft IE 8 Show Web Browser Is a Must-Upgrade

Nearly three years after shipping Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft has updated its flagship Web browser with the release of IE 8. Based on tests of this final release and the previous RC and beta code, it’s clear that IE 8 is possibly the best Web browser that Microsoft has released since IE 5. For anyone currently using IE 7, IE 8 is a must-upgrade, as it improves greatly on that version and includes many features that improve the usability and the security of the Web browser. However, while IE 8 is a big improvement over previous versions of IE, it may not be enough to pull over users of other browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari.