Security

Cyber criminals beware! European police officers will soon receive corporate-sponsored university training in order to help fight cyber crime more effectively. Support for the new project will be provided by several leading IT companies. Online ... security magnate McAfee estimates that businesses lose over a billion dollars each year as a result of online crime. Just recently Ebay suffered a security breach where attackers were able to exploit a browser vulnerability. Since international police are not always trained to tackle the crimes directly, companies like Microsoft, Ebay, and AOL ... (view more)

Microsoft has made good on its promise to fix eight security flaws with its most recent Patch Tuesday offering. The download helps prevent at least one issue marked "critical," but as rumored last week. still fails to address another flaw. The fix ... that will garner the most attention with this latest patch is one meant to prevent hackers from taking control of a user's computer by launching malicious code through specially engineered EMF or WMF images. "That is the most important one," remarked Wolfgang Kandek, security company Qualys' CTO. "Your machine can be controlled by the attacker," ... (view more)

The frightening Conficker worm is just getting bigger and meaner all the time. W32.Downadup.C, a third variant of the Conficker/Downadup worm , is reportedly being pushed out to systems that are already infected. Analysis of the third variant of the ... worm by Symantec is still in the early stages, but their initial research found a couple of new attributes -- one of which includes targeting antivirus software and security tools with the intention of disabling them. (Source: symantec.com ) New Variant Protects itself from AntiVirus Software The Conficker/Downadup authors moved from a 250-a-day ... (view more)

eBay buyers are being asked to take extra precautions when conducting their online shopping after security specialists warned that a string of hackers had infiltrated the popular auction site. The hackers exploited several unpatched vulnerabilities ... in Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers to create false listings and entice people to bid on fraudulent items. Details of the Stealth Attack Analysts believe that it was an XSS (cross-site scripting) attack that implemented unauthorized java script elements stored on third-party websites. This allowed eBay pages to contain outside email links and ... (view more)

Sophos Security is warning that the Conficker/Downadup worm ("Conficker worm") is targeting multiple domains -- including Southwest airlines -- that could end up causing Denial of Service ( DoS ) attacks and temporary disruptions. The Conficker worm ... has been kicking around since last year and usually spreads via a) removable storage devices such as USB drives and b) network sharing. It exploits a Windows vulnerability that was patched by Microsoft last year. According to a blog entry by Mike Wood of SophosLabs Canada, those computers infected with the Conficker worm are programmed ... (view more)

Microsoft is currently readying another slew of fixes for Windows operating systems dating all the way back to 2000. Unfortunately, the software giant has still not yet addressed an Excel security hole that raised eyebrows over a week ago. Although ... Microsoft is remaining quiet about the fixes for its upcoming patch, the company has revealed that at least one issue is considered "critical" and two more have been classified as "important." In other words, most business and home users will want to pay attention this coming Tuesday, March 10, when more details regarding the three Security ... (view more)

Is it a 'good' thing that Britain, the United States, and several other countries are developing more sophisticated surveillance technology ? The premise that individuals have nothing to hide and nothing to fear in a 'big brother' society is nothing ... more than a myth riddled with false assumptions. A multitude of problems can arise from continuously gathering too much data. Trusting the government and private companies -- entities full of people, some of which will inevitably have an immoral few -- make it easier for data to be misused and error prone. That said, people who have nothing to ... (view more)

As his administration continues to work on an stimulus plan that can save America's economy, Obama's latest course of action will see millions of dollars being allocated to heighten cyber security. The move will assist government officials in ... preventing future attacks on the United States. Although his term in office has only just begun, U.S. President Barack Obama has immediately been forced to into action against a crippling recession. In response to this, Obama has come up with an " economic stimulus plan " that will invest billions of dollars to stimulate the American economy. $355 ... (view more)

Microsoft has warned users that yet another critical vulnerability has been found in its popular Office spreadsheet program Excel. The flaw could allow remote hackers to open and run malicious code on an unsuspecting user's computer through an ... infected spreadsheet file. The attack effects users of Microsoft Office Excel 2007 but also those using any of the older binary .XLS files. A user opening a file, probably through an email, will be asked to open a malicious spreadsheet. They'll then begin downloading at least two files onto their system, one valid, the other the malicious binary. Once ... (view more)

A new variant of the Conficker/Downadup worm has been detected. The worm opens a backdoor on an infected machine and allows hackers remote control of infected PCs. Dubbed Conficker B++ (and not to be confused with Conficker B), the new variant of ... the worm opens a backdoor with auto-update functionality, allowing a hacker to distribute malware to infected machines. It's difficult to know exactly how long Conficker B++ has been circulating, but researchers first noticed it on February 6 of this year. (Source: pcadvisor.co.uk ) 10.5 Million Computers Infected Machines infected by the Conficker/ ... (view more)