Security

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)

Microsoft has reportedly warned that users updating to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) won't be able to downgrade from Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) to IE6 without uninstalling Windows XP SP3. A post on Microsoft's IE Blog warns "If you choose to ... install XP SP3, Internet Explorer 7 will remain on your system after the install is complete. Your preferences will be retained. However, you will no longer be able to uninstall IE7. If you go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, the Remove option will be grayed out." The inability to downgrade to IE6 after installing Windows XP SP3 was by design, ... (view more)

Yahoo is to follow Google's leads in highlight potential security risks in sites which show up in its search results. There are several differences between the two systems. Google highlights the most serious cases -- sites which exploit flaws in ... browser software and automatically download viruses -- with a warning. In Yahoo's case, the sites will automatically be deleted from the list of results. Yahoo will also highlight pages which appear to include downloads which are likely to include viruses, spyware (programmes which collect information from a user's computer without their knowledge) ... (view more)

The latest major update for Windows XP was due for release this week, though a last-minute hitch appears to have caused some problems. XP Service Pack 3 was originally scheduled for download through Microsoft's update service on Tuesday. However, ... the firm temporarily halted the updates after finding compatibility problems with Microsoft Dynamics RMS. That's a software package that helps small and medium businesses manage their supply chains. Microsoft is now putting a filter on the download service to identify which computers are running the Dynamics software. They'll then re-release the ... (view more)