Macintosh man is dead
by brian_turnerIf you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting!Jef Raskin, the man behind the development of the Macintosh computer and “drag n’ drop” has died peacefully, aged 61, from pancreatic cancer.
Details of his death - and life - were released on the web in Jef Raskin, […]
The Zombies Are Among Us!
by royThey could be anywhere - your home, your office, your ISP. They stand awaiting your orders. They are the zombies of the Internet!
Zombies are computers - servers, workstations or laptops - that have been compromised by hackers and have had Trojan horse software deposited on their hard drives, which are awaiting the time […]
February 26, 2005
Google AdSense problems
by brian_turnerA planned update to the Google AdWords/AdSense publishing system did not apparently go to plan, with the AdSense arm of the publishing giant offline an extra 4 hours than expected.
It was reported that Google would be updating it’s AdWords interface, as reported at SEW in Google Changing AdWords Interface. It was indicated that Google’s AdWords […]
February 25, 2005
Trendmicro security flawed
by brian_turnerTrendmicro has become the third security vendor to be warned by Internet Security Systems that its code could execute malicious programs, rather than remove them.
As reported in Take three: Antivirus apps could spread infection, this follows on earlier discoveries that Symantec and F-Secure software was also vulernable to the same issue, as reported here in […]
IBM powers PHP
by brian_turnerIn a move expected to accelerate the development of PHP, IBM will now be putting its corporate wight behind the open source programming language.
In an statement expected later today, IBM will announce that they’ve teamed up with Zend Technologies to create a bundle called ZendCore, which will support IBM’s Cloudscape database as wel as Zend’s […]
Firefox 1.0.1 released
by brian_turnerThe Mozilla Foundation have released Firefox 1.0.1.
As reported by CNet in Mozilla releases Firefox security update, this is especially to fix:
a vulnerability in the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), a standard for handling special character sets in domain names that could let an attacker spoof Web sites on non-Microsoft browsers. The standard allows companies to register […]
phpmyadmin security vulnerability
by brian_turnerSecunia has issued a moderately critical security advisory on popular database managment tool phpmyadmin.
The advisory phpMyAdmin Local File Inclusion and Cross-Site Scripting warns that the most serious flaws could lead to arbitrary program execution if PHP safe mode is off and external transformations are activated.
Users of phpmyadmin are advised to update to 2.6.1-pl2, available here […]
Dell to keep Intel over AMD
by brian_turnerChief executive Kevin Rollins has denied speculation that Dell will be offering PC’s based on the AMD chipset anytime soon.
Intel has suffered various problems over the last year, including delays, cancellations, and recall of products after design and manufacturing glitches. Added to this is the fact that AMD is now offering technologies ahead of Intel.
However, […]
UK Internet Virus Alert Service launched
by brian_turnerThe UK government has launched a new security service intended to allow wide access of security alerts for the UK general public.
IT Security Awareness for Everyone declares that ITsafe will provide:
1. A website that gives advice on keeping your computer safe, including a glossary in plain English to help you understand the […]
Honeypots and The Cybernetic Sting
by royHoneypots can be described as entrapment or “sting” methods to snare the would-be attackers of your network. (Remember the movie in which Newman and Redford ensnared the rival gangster?) Honeypots are servers or workstations that are deliberately exposed to attackers and just waiting for the attackers to expose themselves. The attacker thinks that he is […]
February 24, 2005
Hackers’ Methods - Part Two
by royThe Trojan Horse
The name of this hacking technique comes from a Greek legend describing a covert operation in which an army of Greeks delivered the gift of a giant wooden horse to the citizens of Troy. The unsuspecting Trojans then hauled the huge monument to a position inside their city walls. When night came, however, […]
February 23, 2005
Hackers’ Methods, Part One
by royGood morning, everyone! Today we’re going to talk about hackers’ methods - some of the devious ways that unscrupulous surfers can break into your PC or network. This is the first of two articles on the subject. (You might also read yesterday’s piece on Social Engineering.)
The Hacker/Cracker Mentality
We’re not talking about script-kiddies here. You know, […]
February 22, 2005
phpbb: new exploit
by brian_turnerA new exploit has been found on the phpbb 2.x software, which has been rated as “moderately critical”.
As reported in the Secunia security advisory phpBB Avatar Functions Information Disclosure and Deletion:
The vulnerabilities are caused due to some unspecified errors in the avatar handling functions and may be exploited to disclose and delete arbitrary files.
Some issues […]
SEO Organisations form up
by brian_turnerA range of organisatons aiming to represent the SEO industry are currently in the process of becoming official bodies.
SMA-UK - the Search Marketing Association of the United Kingdom, set up by industry names such as Mike Grehan, Barry Lloyd, and Ammon Johns, has announced in SMA-UK countdown to lift-off begins that they are now becoming […]
Rackspace and Yahoo! resolve spider blocking
by brian_turnerA Rackspace representative today confirmed that a prior reported issue of Yahoo! being unable to index sites on certain Rackspace servers had now been resolved.
The problem was first reported in Rackspace hates Yahoo? Or Vice Versa? in which it was discovered that Yahoo! spiders were unable to index sites across the IP range 72.3.128.0 to […]
February 21, 2005
Beware the Buffer-Stack Overflow!
by royThe what?
The buffer-stack overflow attack is an ingenious, if complex, method for hackers to seize control of your server.
So, what is a buffer stack overflow? Let’s say you’re working on a large document in an application that requires a lot of memory, and your PC freezes, and you get the “blue screen of death.” […]
February 20, 2005
Red Hat: red face
by brian_turnerRed Hat have acknowledged that in its push for mainstream markets, it has likely left behind crucial developer support - an issue it is now trying to correct.
Its problems center specifically on the restrictive development of the Fedora core for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and how developers were left with little else to do but […]
Post regulator announces market liberalisation date
by brian_turnerThe date for the liberalisation of the postal market has been brought forward to 1st January 2006.
This is 15 months earlier than expected, and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) is especially concerned that the earlier date will force the Royal Mail to rush to cut jobs to increase apparent efficiency.
After liberalisation, different companies will be […]
Government’s foot in mouth over unpaid bills.
by brian_turnerAccording to the Forum of Private Business (FPB), the UK government still owes around 40 companies ’40 million in unpaid bills from the foot and mouth clean up four years ago.
However, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has claimed that all bills are paid, and that any outstanding claims are due to […]
vBulletin 3.0.7 released
by brian_turnerJelsoft have released an updated version of their popular vBulletin 3 software, after a security flaw was discovered in the settings.
The security risk is only an issue on a somewhat obscure setting is used in versions prior to 3.0.7, which most users are likely to have disabled by default anyway.
This is the update e-mail Jelsoft:
The […]