2010 in security: Apple iPhone vs BlackBerry, cyber attacks and cloud threats

The security arms race continues...

As we prepare to say goodbye to 2010, silicon.com looks back at the biggest security stories of the year.

Cyber security was at the forefront of the coalition government's mind this year, with an additional £650m pledged to fight online attacks on the UK - see Britain in "sustained cyber attack" warning.

So seriously was Whitehall taking threats to government information that ministers and civil servants were banned from using Apple iPhones for official business, Apple iPhone banned for ministers.

Some thought the iPhone was not secure enough for their organisation, as debate raged in iPhone vs BlackBerry: Is RIM still winning the security battle?.

Elsewhere in the world of business the prospect of IT services being delivered from the cloud was causing a headache for IT managers, with warnings about cloud security risks in Dark side of the cloud: What's stopping more firms making the move? and Cloud computing: The new security battlefront.

And with cloud seemingly booming in 2010, silicon.com featured advice on how to avoid the risks in Cloud computing security: How the IT department lost the battle for control.

Another workplace trend - staff using their own laptops and smartphones at work - was also giving IT security managers sleepless nights. silicon.com was on hand with How to secure consumer gadgets in the workplace.

Helping to focus organisations' mind on security was privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner's Office, which in 2010 gained new powers to enforce the Data Protection Act - see £500,000 data loss fines now in force.

In the consumer sphere, a backlash among Facebook users over the privacy of the information they gave to the social network prompted a security overhaul, see Photos: A tour of Facebook's privacy revamp.

Finally there was a photo tour of a company dedicated to keeping PCs malware free, with Photos: Inside Kaspersky Lab's antivirus HQ.