computers

Decentralized computing is a trend in modern day business environments. This is the opposite of centralized computing, which was prevalent during the early days of computers. Decentralized computing is the allocation of resources, both hardware and ... software, to each individual workstation, or office location. In contrast, centralized computing exists when the majority of functions are carried out, or obtained from a remote centralized location. Benefits of Decentralized Computing A decentralized computer system has many benefits over a conventional centralized network. For example, desktop ... (view more)

Spanish police have arrested three individuals for what is believed to be one of the biggest computer crimes in history. At a news conference delivered this past Wednesday, police revealed that malicious programs created by the accused were used to ... steal bank details from computers all over the world, and that these programs had the potential to cripple the computer systems of an entire country. The accused men are said to be between the ages of 25 and 31, each from a small town in Spain. 13 Million Infected PCs in Control Their transition into hacking came after the acquisition of a virus ... (view more)

A sketchy firm based out of Miami Florida which falsely claimed it could sell cloned Macintosh machines has already suffered the wrath of Apple in the courtroom. Now it's suffering embarrassment as the truth emerges about its poor sales record. ... Psystar has been in long-running legal battles with Apple after selling computers which were made with PC parts but ran the Mac "Leopard" operating system. As Apple doesn't license its software to other manufacturers -- and you'd think that would made for a clear-cut court ruling, but the process was somewhat extended by Psystar (unsuccessfully) ... (view more)

There is some fear circulating among industry insiders over a domain name on sale right now. While wpad.cn might be of little significance to the average end-user, cybercriminals would rejoice over its acquisition. Duane Wessels, the president of ... Measurement Factory, knows how important the wpad namesake is. Wessels is the owner of five wpad domains: wpad.com, wpad.net, wpad.org, wpad.biz and wpad.us. While not a popular domain for Google searches, the sites are frequented by Windows computers erroneously searching for network configuration information, due to a decade-old Windows bug that ... (view more)

A recently released security report from Microsoft warns that cyber crooks are digging deeper into computers in order to steal and control data. The Security Intelligence Report reveals that rogue security software ("scareware") was the biggest ... threat during the first half of this year. Worm Activity on the Rise In a recent report, Jeff Williams, Microsoft's Malware Protection Center principal architect noted that rogue security software is no longer the primary tool for hackers and that worm activity, particularly the Conficker and Taterf worm, are on the rise. Scareware usually ... (view more)

Just in time for the announcement that the National Security Agency (NSA) will be pervasively monitoring private networks comes news that cyber attacks attributed to North Korea paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government web sites. Eleven ... South Korean organizations, including the presidential Blue House, the Defense Ministry, the National Assembly, Shinhan Bank, Korea Exchange Bank and top Internet portal Naver, and coincidentally, eleven U.S. sites including the U.S. Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department, went down or experienced ... (view more)

A government audit has found more than 3,800 vulnerabilities were reportedly found in the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) web-based air traffic control system applications. 763 of the vulnerabilities are high-risk and some could put air ... travelers at risk. Congress requested the audit of air traffic control (ATC) computer systems in order to ensure air travelers were safe. (Source: cgisecurity.com ) The FAA has been using commercial software and Internet Protocol-based technologies in order to modernize ATC systems, moving away from the proprietary software the systems were ... (view more)

Botnet is a jargon term for a collection of software robots, or "bots," that run autonomously and automatically. The term is often associated with malicious software but it can also refer to the network of computers using distributed computing ... software. Zombie Computers and Botnets While the term "botnet" can be used to refer to any group of bots, the word is generally used to refer to a collection of compromised computers (called Zombie computers) running software, usually installed via worms, Trojan horses, or backdoors, under a common command-and-control infrastructure. How it ... (view more)

Cybercrime (or "computer crime") consists of specific crimes dealing with computers and networks (such as hacking) and the facilitation of traditional crime through the use of computers and technology infrastructure. (Source: gc.ca ) Although the ... terms computer crime and cybercrime are more properly restricted to describing criminal activity in which the computer or network is a necessary part of the crime, these terms are also sometimes used to include traditional crimes, such as fraud, theft, blackmail, forgery, and embezzlement, in which computers or networks are used. Types of ... (view more)

Security experts have put together some intriguing statistics about the Conficker virus, including the total spread of the worm and the worst-hit country. It seems Vietnam has seen the most serious invasion, while four per cent of all computer ... infections are related to Conficker. The figures come from OpenDNS, a firm which offers DNS (Domain Name System) resolution services. This is the process of mapping a website name (such as www.infopackets.com ) to the actual IP address where the website physically exists. Because Conficker interferes with this process, the firm has plenty of data to ... (view more)