Toshiba starts verification testing of its "theoretically completely secure" quantum cryptography technology in a series of transmissions from the company's Life Science Analysis Centre to the Tohoku University.

The test will run for 2 years, and involves the transmission of genome data over 7km of custom-made dedicated fibre optic cable. Should it be successful it will pave the way for longer-term commercial use of the technology.

Quantum cryptographic communications make use of individual photons carrying the encrypted data together with a one-time decoding key. According to quantum mechanics one cannot observe the data without altering it (together with the cryptographic key), meaning receiving untampered data is a guarantee of security.

According to IDC global security appliance revenues and shipments are on the up in Q1 2015, as revenues reach $2.3 billion with 7.5% Y-o-Y growth and shipments grow by 9.4% Y-o-Y to 526767 units.

However IDC points out sequential declines-- Q1 2015 revenues and shipments drop by -12.8% and -12.6% Q-o-Q respectively.

"Today's threat environment is extremely dynamic and continues to change exponentially," the analyst says. "The growing volume and sophistication of cyber attacks has created an environment where integrating disparate security solutions is required to protect sensitive business and personal information, as well as to safeguard national security."

CrowdStrike discovers a security vulnerability that is possibly even greater than last year's Heartbleed-- Venom, a bug providing hackers with access to datacentre hypervisors and network-connected devices.

An acronym for "Virtualised Environment Neglected Operations Manipulation", Venom (aka CVE-2015-3456) affects one of the most widely ignored pieces of virtualisation platform components, the virtual floppy drive. It has been part of the open-source computer emulator QEMU since 2004, and is found in many modern hypervisors, including XEN, KVM and VirtualBox.

VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Bochs hypervisors are not affected.

The Apple Watch might appear to some as little more than a wearable gimmick, but enterprise security vendor MicroStrategy has an interesting application for the device-- as wearable password replacement.

The MicroStrategy Usher Watch application acts as a secure digital key, allowing wearers to log into enterprise business systems, unlock devices, validate personal identity and even open doors with a simple gesture or tap. The app uses all Watch features (such as Glances, Notifications and Force Touch) and and detects a "vast range" of business systems, hardware and physical entryways.

For example, a user gets a push notification on the Watch when required to unlock a nearby system.