It is an enterprise data backup and recovery suite that assures your company's critical backup data sets are automatically protected, moved offsite, and archived at a remote location.

A major benefit of the Secure Data Solution is that it consolidates the backup media and makes managing and protecting the media easy. It connects to midrange systems by Fibre Channel or SCSI. Once connected, the Secure Data Solution emulates one or more SCSI-attached tape drives for each midrange systems.

Once a backup is completed and the data is on the Secure Data Solution, it is compressed and encrypted so that it can be moved to a remote location over a Fibre Channel network or an Ethernet network using standard TCP/IP.

At the remote location, the data is likewise stored on disk as virtual tape images. Each data set is stored in four locations, on mirrored disks at both the originating and remote locations. This assures that the data is always available at both locations and can be restored at either location at any time.

Secure Data Solution offers significant advantages over traditional tape operations, including the elimination of tape cartridges and drives (and their associated costs), reduction of mount and dismount times, and personnel costs.

For more information, visit our web site at www.secureagent.com.

Advance-fee frauds are also known as Nigerian or 419 scams, because typically they begin with a message saying there is a chance to make some big money by helping someone move large sums of money from Nigeria. It's one of the oldest fraud schemes on the Internet -- and actually pre-dates the Web with the first such scams many years ago using telephone or mailed messages.

Generally victims are told that the message-sender has access to big sums of money, but first must have a few hundred -- or thousand -- dollars. Anyone who sends money, of course, has lost.

Ultrascan reviewed 8,503 fraud complaints from 152 countries and called 2009 "the worst year yet" for such frauds. In 2008, it calculated losses at $6.3 billion. It said the top losers were the United States, $2.1 billion, United Kingdom, $1.2 billion, and China, $936 million.

Scans of nearly23 million computers found 48.35 percent had some form of malware. The total number of infected computers was slightly down, although the percent remained high. And even though the number of banking Trojans declined, there still were over a million and a half computers with these thieving programs.

The scans were done by Panda Labs.

Included is a problem in the kernel of 32-bit Windows programs. Not included are a newly-disclosed vulnerability in the Internet Explorer Web browser and a problem with the Server Message Block file-sharing protocol disclosed last November. Microsoft said it was not aware of any exploits for those two problems and it has issued workarounds for both.

Five bulletins are rated critical and affect Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, Server 2003 and 2008, Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2004 for Mac.

Blair outlined for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence a wide range of threats to America and predicted the nation would come under attack in the future.

While much of his presentation dealt with more conventional threats, he offered a list of adversaries with the ability to attack U.S. computer systems and networks. He said network convergence, where a common link melds voice, video and data, has increased vulnerability. And channel consolidation -- the ability to seize data through e-mail, search engines or social networks -- has increased the risk to personal data.

He noted cybercriminals have become more sophisticated and more organized worldwide.

But he said the government is working to better track and counter cyberattacks and is working to unify key plays in government and business.

The bill passed by the House, with only five dissenting votes, calls on the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop plans for education, training and coordination programs to strengthen security for government and business. It also calls for development of identity management systems to control access to buildings, computer networks and data.

Concerns have been raised about the security of power grids, which increasingly are controlled by computers and linked by networks. Pike Research said utilities around the world will invest $21 billion in five years to develop new security technologies which can work across geographic boundaries.

All federal agencies were supposed to have installed new authentication and other security features by Dec. 31, 2009. But Secure64 said it found only 20 percent now require digital signatures, a key element of the added security mandated by the Office of Management and Budget.

Some experts and officials say the Dec. 31 date was too aggressive for the agencies and many may still be working on such efforts.

Enisa -- the European Network and Information Security Agency -- looked at security measures by European Internet security providers in 2009. It said junk e-mail is a major problem for those firms and takes up a large part of the operating budget.

Blacklists caught much spam -- nearly 80 percent of all SMTP connections were aborted because they were blacklisted. Of those accepted, about 80 percent were then filtered out as spam.

Twitter's security boss, Del Harvey, said for years a malicious programmer has been setting up torrent sites that look legitimate but are filled with malicious content and re-entry devices. They are sold to people who want their own download site, but the originator uses them to harvest data.

Twitter investigated after it noted suspicious activity in some accounts. It then notified account-holders involved they should change their passwords -- and not use the same password for all Internet accounts.

That's according to a study by British security company Cendant Technologies. But Cendant says the good news is that that number represents a 50 percent drop from a year ago.

Flash drives are not the only mobile devices to be lost. Cendant said a check of New York and London taxi companies found more than 12,500 devices -- memory sticks to iPods and laptop computers -- are left in cabs every six months.

No wonder then that a survey by the Ponemon Institute found 83 percent of security practitioners felt their organization had been subjected to a data breach in the past two years.

All are some form of overflow problem with various elements of RealPlayer. They all create situations where some unexpected code could be executed on an attacked computer.

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) called the patches important, but RealNetworks said it had no reports of any computers being compromised because of the flaws.

Here, from USA Today columnist Kim Komando, are six threats and tips:

Flash drives -- These portable storage devices offer an easy entry into a computer. Never use a flash drive that you don't know and trust. In some cases, crooks will load a flash drive with malicious programs and drop it in a driveway. An unsuspecting user who picks it up and loads it exposes himself and his company.

Facebook "friends" -- This social networking site is loaded with potential dangers. Beware of new "friends" you don't recognize. Be careful about what you post. And try to limit access to your account.

Clickjacking -- This primarily affects Facebook and Twitter. A user is lured to a malicious page, which can sign in to his account without his knowledge. Beware of unknown links or pages.

Smartphones -- These mobile devices are handy and are being loaded with dozens of new applications. But not every application is secure or trustworthy. Be careful about installing new applications -- make sure they are legitimate and do not open entry into your phone and its contacts and material.

E-mail -- An old route for malice, but the bad guys are getting smarter. Attacks are targeted and more clever. Beware of any link or attachment you don't know and trust. Keep Windows and anti-virus protection updated. If you're not sure of a message, ask the sender (via a separate e-mail) about it. Or just reply -- if it's a fake site it won't work.

Pornography -- Long used to trick people into opening malicious material but now adapted to cell phones. Be careful about dialing or texting any numbers sent to your phone with supposed pornographic links or material. Don't download from unknown sources.

And above all, just be suspicious -- and careful.