Security

Security experts are warning that a major Domain Name Service (DNS) hole could have catastrophic results for the web in the near future. DNS, which is responsible for converting readable names into IP addresses for individuals and major firms alike, ... is nothing less than the Internet's phonebook. Without it, imagine the Information Superhighway littered with the overturned, flaming vehicles of visitors. What's wrong? So that names indexed by DNS are not repeated with every network connection, systems store the results in a cache for a temporary period. If a hacker could slip false addresses ... (view more)

Microsoft recently released another whack of updates to its software, and many will want to take notice. Of the ten listed vulnerabilities within this June offering are three deemed "critical", another three considered "important" and one ... "moderate". The patch released Tuesday includes three major fixes, including: A vulnerability in Bluetooth Stack that could allow a hacker to make a remote code execution A Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer Like the Bluetooth issue, there's also a fix that patches holes in DirectX which could allow someone to make a remote code execution A ... (view more)

A security firm claims Hong Kong is home to the Internet's biggest security holes, with 19% of sites using the .hk domain posing a security risk. The country has rocketed up (or down, depending on your perspective) the charts, having been ranked ... just 28th-most-risky last year. Second place in this year's study, which looks at 74 domains, went to China, which was 12th last year. Other countries which performed poorly included Romania, Russia, and the Philippines. Finland was ranked the safest, followed by Japan and Norway. The survey also looked at the generic domains (such as .com) which aren ... (view more)

When Vista experienced problems on takeoff, it resulted in a huge media debate that continues to this day. However, when Apple launches an update that experiences growing pains of its own, the media jabber is at an all time low. What gives? ... Proponents of the infallibility of Macs might be surprised to know that the new Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard update has a host of problems to combat. From simple issues like USB devises not showing up in the finder (Mac's version of My Computer) to ensuring that the airport wireless detector is reliable, the upgrade has a long list of small to large problems to ... (view more)

Unknown hackers recently targeted the website of the second largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the US, which resulted in the temporary shutdown of Comcast.net. The attack took place around 11pm on May 28, and prevented customers from ... accessing their Comcast web mail as well as other services provided on the website. Instead of the website, visitors were greeted by a message reading "KRYOGENIKS EBK and DEFIANT RoXed COMCAST sHouTz To VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven." (Source: cnet.com ) A spokesperson from the company has confirmed that an unauthorized change was made in Comcast's ... (view more)

In a market where software developers are always looking for the cutting edge, a recent survey revealed that newer is not always better. It turns out that developers prefer writing programs for older Windows operating systems, such as XP, to the ... newer Vista. (Source: zdnet.com ) U.S. research group Evans Data Corp recently released the results of a poll of 380 North American software developers. The study asked which integrated development environment (IDE) they preferred, as well as which operating system they wrote programs for. In the first section, respondents were asked to evaluate IDEs ... (view more)

More than three dozen people around the world have been charged with stealing personal information from Internet users through a 'phishing' scam. That's where criminals trick people into revealing information by posing as staff from online banks or ... other organisations, usually sending emails asking customers to confirm details for 'security reasons'. The arrests come following a Justice Department investigation that wound up in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Of the 38 people busted, more than half were Romanian, with the rest hailing from the United States, Canada, Portugal and Pakistan. ... (view more)

Jesper Johansson, a former program manager for security policy at Microsoft and current MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional), has reportedly published a tool designed to detect and fix PCs that may be susceptible to "endless reboots" if they ... are updated to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have yet to issue a fix or a patch for the endless reboots that, as previously reported by our own Brandon Dimmel, primarily affects HP machines running Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) processors. Johansson posted a link to the tool (a small, 16K Visual Basic Script file ... (view more)

Security researchers have reportedly developed a new type of malicious rootkit software capable of hiding itself in an obscure part of a computer's microprocessor, hidden from current antivirus products. Dubbed a System Management Mode (SMM) ... rootkit, the software runs in a protected part of a computer's memory that can be locked and rendered invisible to the operating system, but it can give attackers details of what's happening in a computer's memory. The SMM rootkit, built by Shawn Embleton and Sherri Sparks, operators of security company Clear Hat Consulting, comes with keylogging and ... (view more)

Yesterday, our own Bill Lindner reported on rumored difficulties with Microsoft's most recent update to its Windows XP operating system. According to reports, the most fiendish of these problems has affected AMD chipsets. What Bill Lindner reported ... yesterday was devastating enough. According to his article , updates through Windows XP Service Pack 3 barred users from reverting back to Internet Explorer 6 from Internet Explorer 7. That has annoyed many users already, especially businesses. Many are also reporting that those affected machines are predominantly Hewlett-Packard computers. (Source ... (view more)