McAfee conflicts with Zonealarm
by Brian TurnerWindows users with multiple security programs installed may be in for a rude awakening this morning – the latest update to McAfee Security Suite 9 won’t allow the software to work in conjunction with the free Zonealarm firewall.
According to McAfee technical advisor Bill Chapman, this is due to a software conflict between McAfee Security Security [...]
March 1, 2007
New Storm Worm inserts links in user messages
by Brian TurnerA new variant of the Storm Worm has been detected, which inserts unsolicited links into blogs and forums which can infect other users if clicked on.
The original Storm Worm was rand was mass emailed to hundreds of thousands of people in January this year. It was embedded in an attachment claiming to provide dramatic information [...]
Seriosity launches e-mail management system
by Jan HarrisSeriosity, a California-based software company, has developed a system to help companies manage e-mail overload.
Unwanted e-mail can take up a lot of employee’s time and Seriosity’s solution, known as Attent, aims to help workers prioritise the e-mails they send and receive.
The system is based on the virtual economies and currencies used in the [...]
February 22, 2007
Google Unveils Apps Premier Edition
by Brian TurnerGoogle is launching a business version of its application suite, with 24-hour telephone support and 10GB of storage, at a cost to companies of $50 per user. Additional storage capacity is available at an extra cost.
Google Apps Premier Edition provides email, calendars, instant messaging word processor and spreadsheet applications and also features APIs (application [...]
UK Government refuses to ban DRM
by Jan HarrisAlthough the UK Government has rejected a call for digital rights management (DRM) to be banned in the UK, it also acknowledged that consumer rights could be undermined through the use of the technology.
Blogger Neil Holmes posted an online petition, calling for DRM to be outlawed, on the government’s e-petitions Web site. The petition, [...]
February 14, 2007
Greenzap claims it’s not a scam
by Brian TurnerGreenzap has unleashed a $57 million lawsuit against webhosting company LiquidWeb, claiming that it is hosting defamatory content.
Greenzap is a company that claimed itself to be a Paypal killer – offering incentives of $25 per sign-up – apparently for payment processing.
However, according to a Yahoo! News report, users would not be able to withdraw [...]
February 9, 2007
Hackers targeted ICANN
by Brian TurnerIt has emerged that a concerted DDoS attack by cyberhackers attemped to disrupt the heart of the internet earlier this week.
A Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) attack can involve tens of thousands of PCs – usually hacked PC’s networked together – which then try to flood a target server network with useless information, until the [...]
February 5, 2007
Microsoft pushes IE7 browser safety
by Brian TurnerMicrosoft has upgraded its computer systems, allowing Web sites fitted with a new type of security certificate to display a green-filled address bar in IE7. The green bar is meant to indicate that the site can be trusted.
Microsoft plans to promote the green bar at next week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco – an [...]
February 1, 2007
Skype To Improve Workplace Security
by Jan HarrisSkype is planning to enter into a partnership with a security company in an effort to help organisations gain control over usage of its Internet telephony service at work.
The partnership is with FaceTime Communications, a California-based security company which manufactures software and appliances to monitor and secure the use of instant message tools on [...]
January 26, 2007
IBM Privacy Tool Now Open-source
by Jan HarrisIBM has donated its “Identity Mixer” software to the Higgins open-source project in a move that could help make Internet business transactions safer for all.
The software allows an individual to provide encrypted digital credentials issued by trusted organisations such as banks when making an online transaction, instead of giving credit card or other details in [...]
Concerns over Google & Mozilla anti-phishing
by Brian TurnerConcerns have been raised about the Google & Firefox anti-phishing drive, after it was revealed that the publishing of raw data online contained usernames and passwords of phishing victims.
Reports that personal data was being published was raised as far back as September 2006, but so far changes have not apparently been made to address the [...]
January 22, 2007
Experts Meet To Combat Cybercrime
by Jan HarrisMicrosoft is hosting a meeting of Internet security experts, to discuss strategies to fight against Internet crime with a particular focus on botnets and related topics. Members will share information and develop strategies for the future.
The meeting will be held on Thursday and Friday at Microsoft’s Redmond, headquarters and will be attended [...]
December 19, 2006
HMRC new target in phishing scams
by Brian TurnerThe HMRC – Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs – has become the latest target in internet phishing scams.
Phishing scams involve sending emails to random users, usually claiming to be from a bank, asking them to log in via a link.
However, the link is to a fake website, which aims to capture confidential information for use [...]
December 14, 2006
Phishing scams up 8000% – FSA
by Brian TurnerA report by the FSA to the government states phishing scams have increased over 8000%.
The figures relate to phishing scams recorded between January and June for 2005 and 2006 – which were tallied as 312 and 5,059.
However, while the banking trade body Apacs has tried to put the increase down the increased detection, the likelihood [...]
December 13, 2006
Microsoft forces BIOS changes
by Brian TurnerMicrosoft has secured an agreement with PC manufacturers to add a change at the BIOS level to improve security in Windows Vista.
Microsoft’s Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) feature could make automated, large-scale attacks significantly more difficult.
ASLR relies on Data Execution Prevention (DEP), another new Vista security feature, in order to function fully. DEP [...]
MIME encoding could exploit anti-virus
by Brian TurnerSecurity researcher, Hendrik Weimer, has reported that anti-virus software could be bypassed by exploiting MIME encoding.
MIME – Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions – is used to code mail so that it can be read by SMTP – Simple Mail Transport Protocol.
According to Hendrik, malware could exploit the way MIME is encoded in such a way that [...]
December 12, 2006
US uni hacked for a year
by Brian TurnerThe University of California, Los Angeles, has sent out warnings to nearly 1 million students and staff that their personal details may be in the hands of criminal gangs.
It comes after the discovery that the UCLA’s central database had been hacked into since October 2005 – and the intrusion wasn’t discovered until the end of [...]
Laptop security increased via Gatekeeper
by Brian TurnerIsraeli start-up, Yoggie Security Systems, is releasing a device to to provide corporate level security protection for laptops.
The Gatekeeper is a credit card-sized device that can easily interface with any laptop, without the apparent need for updates, software installs or similar.
Configued for Windows XP users at present, it promises to provide the following security protections:
firewall
VPN [...]
Google says clickfraud less than 2%
by Brian TurnerIn an interview with Google business product manager, Shuman Ghosemajumder, finds that invalid clicks detected by Google were less than 2% of total..
This means that Google currently detects that on average, around 2% of clicks purchased by Adwords advertisers as potentially fraudulent, and therefore invalidated before the advertiser even sees them.
The interview also showed that [...]
December 4, 2006
UN warns on internet privacy
by Brian TurnerThe UN has issued a warning about internet privacy.
The warning focuses on two key issues:
1. The trend for internet companies to gather as much user data as possible
2. The trend for internet users to re-use the same login information
Combined, it means that a security breach in one ISP could have bigger repurcussions, with user [...]