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According to Good Technology's final report on new enterprise smart phone activations in 2010, Android is holding steady. Good sells a popular device management solution for non-BlackBerry devices. It reports rapid adoption of the iPhone and iPad in the enterprise. But Android is holding its own as well, with nearly 30% of overall new activations and 40% of new smartphone (ie, non-tablet) activations.

It's important to stress, however, that Good does not support BlackBerry devices so this is in no way an indication of how these devices are being adopted relative to RIM's products. Also, this data only tracks new activations.

What makes a great password may not be its complexity but how many words you want to string in a row.

Passwords get hacked in five basic ways, writes Thomas Baekdal in a blog post on the topic:

Cisco released its 2010 Annual Security Report yesterday. The report covers criminals' slow shift from targeting Windows PCs to targeting other operating systems and devices, the importance of exploiting users' trust in their social network friends and the rise of Java exploits, and more.

Whether you call it "enterprise 2.0" or "social business," one thing is for certain: you're going to need at least some tools to implement it. SaaS delivery models are all the rage for enterprise social media companies, but not every organization is ready to store its data in the public cloud. Several vendors offer its products as on-premise, installable software or virtual appliances. Others take a different route: a managed appliance. Blogtronix, Socialtext and Yakabod all offer on-premise, physical appliances that can be dropped into a rack and used right away. The goal is to combine the convenience of SaaS with the security of an on-premise solution.

Last week we reported on accusations that FBI contractors had planted backdoors in the open source operating system OpenBSD. OpenBSD developers have been auditing code since the accusations surfaced last Tuesday. Some bugs have been found and patched, but no evidence of backdoors has been discovered. OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt believes believes that if said backdoors were ever authored they never made it into OpenBSD.

Gregory Perry, a former employee of the now defunct security firm NETSEC, sent de Raadt an e-mail last week accusing Jason Wright of planting backdoors in OpenBSD on behalf of the FBI. Wright has firmly denied the charge.

These thee Microsoft stories weren't the biggest news of the week, but they are worth knowing about if you missed them. One of the stories is merely a clue into an ongoing mystery surrounding Microsoft's acquisition of some patents from Novell that have analysts speculating and open source advocates worrying. Each story sheds a little light on Microsoft's strategy and where the company is headed. For example, the release of Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 indicates how Microsoft is consolidating various enterprise management tools into a single interface.

The FBI is being accused of planting backdoors in the security-focused open source operating system OpenBSD. OpenBSD is used in commercial security products such as firewalls from Calyptix and .vantronix. Thus far, a code audit has not revealed any backdoors in OpenBSD but some bugs have been found.

Earlier this week, OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt forwarded an e-mail from Gregory Perry, former CTO of the defunct security company NETSEC, to the OpenBSD mailing list. NETSEC paid developers to contribute to OpenBSD during the 90s. Perry claims that former NETSEC developer Jason Wright and his development team inserted backdoors into the OpenBSD Crypto Framework under the direction of the FBI - a claim Wright firmly denies. Perry claims to be coming forward now because his 10 year nondisclosure agreement with the FBI has expired.

Internet Explorer 8 and 9 both block more socially engineered malware than Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari. At least, that's what the Web Browser Group Test Socially-Engineered Malware Q3 2010 report from NSS Labs says. The results are similar to NSS Labs' previous reports on the subject. Past browser testing reports from NSS Labs were reported to have been commissioned by Microsoft. I'm no longer able to find any disclosure about this in these reports.

So, should you scrap those plans to deploy Chrome in the enterprise you made earlier this evening? Not necessarily. These results are focused on the browsers' native ability to block malware downloads - not the overall security of each browser.

We all know the problems inherent in passwords. Make your password requirements too simple, and passwords can be too easily cracked. Make them too difficult, and users will write their passwords down next to their computers. Not to mention users using the same password for everything. PowerCloud, a startup spun-off of Xerox's noted Palo Alto Research Center, is pushing what it calls "usable security" - an approach to making reality converge with security. Its first project is a partnership with D-Link to improve wireless networking security.

Gartner today announced eight predictions for IT in 2015. Last week, we looked at the broad trends Gartner and two other analyst firms expect to shape the future of IT. This latest announcement makes some more specific predictions about changes the firm's analysts expect to see by 2015 or earlier. For example, the firm predicts that 80% of enterprises will support tablets by 2013 and by 2014 90% of organizations will support enterprise applications on personal devices.