Research and Analysis firm Gartner claims that MacIntel Windows XP users should be safe from virus attacks.
“All users should ignore any hype about the possibility of exposing the Mac OS to more viruses or worms. The Mac software will be located on another partition within a different file system; thus, running Windows on a Mac […]

A Microsoft security officer advises that the best way to solve malware problems is starting from scratch–or from a recent clean backup, at least.
The latest types of malware are so potent that organisations should forget about trying to cleanse infected systems, a top Microsoft security officer has advised. Mike Danseglio, a program manager in Microsoft’s […]

We recently wrote on Microsoft and Nokia applying for patents for various hardware-based digital rights and copyright management. Want more? Well, Microsoft has apparently applied for another patent, the Hardware-based software authenticator, and they seem to have a bias against emerging markets!
Upon authentication via a required multi-function hardware component, coupled to a computer system with […]

Microsoft has applied for a patent for a CPU-based software licensing system that opens up software only upon receipt of a CPU-based activation from a distribution service. Entitled Licensing the use of software on a particular CPU, the proposed technology would in effect lock a particular copy of software (say, Windows, Office, or a console-based […]

Searching through the US Patent office applications, I came up with this one on an IMEI-based digital rights management scheme proposed by Nokia, entitled System and method for using a graphic and/or audio license with digital rights management systems.
License files that include graphic and/or sound files no longer simply take up space in a device’s […]

If you pay any attention to computer security, you have probably already heard about the WMF Exploit that can affect a fully patched Windows system. It has also been referred to as the 0-day Exploit. Here is a brief explanation of the exploit:
The WMF vulnerability uses images (WMF images) to execute arbitrary code. It will […]

When you go to Grokster.com now, a message from the government appears stating the following:

The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed
that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal.
Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files
using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is
prosecuted by copyright owners.
There are legal services for downloading music and movies.
This service […]

Talk about a sense of humor, it appears some Middle Eastern root-kit writers have given their Christmas present to the world; “Mr. Bean”. This new attack on Windows computers downloads a copy onto the victim’s computer, and proceeds to download Mr. Bean, and Disney cartoons. Gee, thanks virus writers. Vital Security believes that this was […]

Trend Micro has gone on record saying that RSS feeds will be the “next big thing” in worm attacks, especially after Internet Explorer 7 is released with its embedded RSS capabilities.
“The easy way of taking advantage of the popularity [of RSS] is to hijack the existing configured feed clients to automatically download new copies of […]

Wow, things just get better and better for Sony and their big mistake. If you have not already heard, Sony has taken it upon themselves to install software on your computer when you insert certain CD’s into your computer. This software is for Digital Rights Management. One of the things the software does is make […]

EFF has confirmed the presence of XCP on the following titles (each has a data session, easily read on a Macintosh, that includes a file called “VERSION.DAT” that announces what version of XCP it is using). If you have one of these CDs, and you have a Windows PC (Macs are totally immune, as usual), […]

So some scary news for those using Internet2, the RIAA and MPAA have joined the Internet2 project, so University students better watch out.
The experimental high speed internet project Internet2 has two new members today: a pair of acronyms guaranteed to have researchers rifling anxiously through their “Stuff” directories. Both the Recording Industry Ass. of America, […]

Its good to see Mozilla fixing things up pretty fast. Hopefully 1.5 will fully be out soon, and everything will be fixed up for a little while.
Responding to the disclosure of a serious Web browser flaw, the Mozilla Foundation offered on Friday a temporary fix to protect Firefox and Mozilla users.
The downloadable fix protects against […]

Worms were an unwanted addition to some of almost 4,000 products shipped from Creative Techology Ltd. lately, and I don’t mean the ones that live in the ground.
Creative Technology Ltd. has accidentally shipped almost 4,000 digital music players in Japan that contain a Windows worm, according to an advisory from Finnish security company F-Secure […]

Basically like many other content boxes, the Xbox 360 will have locking controls over content viewed and played on the Xbox 360. This means that parents can lock-down the system to only play Mature and under rated games.
According to an article on Japanese website Mainichi, parents will be able to set up the console so […]

It looks like Firefox is not perfect. As it gains in popularity, so do the list of problems, exploits and now a flawed release.
“Just days after the release of Firefox 1.0.5, Mozilla engineers were busy working to complete version 1.0.6 after API changes were found to have broken third-party extensions. Localized versions of the browser […]