Symantec's Latest Buy; Mobile App Woes

In this edition of the ISMG Security Report, our editors analyze Symantec's pending purchase of Blue Coat; vulnerabilities in mobile banking apps; retailers' objections to a national data breach notification bill; and the relaunch of the troubled Internal Revenue Service Get Transcript tool.

You'll hear in this report (click on player beneath image to listen):

DataBreachToday Executive Editor Mathew J. Schwartz describe why Symantec hopes its $4.65 billion purchase of Blue Coat will revitalize the anti-virus software maker; ISMG Associate Editor Radhika Nallayam report that placing customer convenience before security explains why 85 percent of the mobile banking apps in the Asia-Pacific region fail basic security checks; BankInfoSecurity Executive Editor Tracy Kitten describe why retailers are battling against breach notification legislation before the U.S. Congress that would require them to follow some of the same rules imposed on banks; and How the Internal Revenue Service is employing two-factor authentication to help secure its newly relaunched Get Transcript service, which it shuttered last August after a breach that exposed the personal information of 724,000 taxpayer accounts.

The ISMG Security Report appears on this and other ISMG websites on Tuesdays and Fridays. Please check out our June 7 and June 10 reports, which respectively examine the backstory behind SWIFT-related thefts and concerns expressed by security practitioners at the Infosecurity Europe conference in London earlier this month. The next ISMG Security Report will be posted Friday, June 17.

Theme music for the ISMG Security Report is by Ithaca Audio under a Creative Commons license.