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News

• After holiday lull, spam plague returns

  After a holiday hiatus, spammers have returned to ply their trade boosting bogus products, security researchers said today.

• Spam volumes drop as Rustock, other botnets go quiet

  The infamous Rustock botnet, responsible for almost half of all spam sent last year through its command-and-control system exploiting over a million compromised PCs, has suddenly slowed to a crawl, Symantec said today, noting the unexplained event has led to a substantial drop in spam.

• Norton Utilities adds defragmenter tool, other features

  Symantec's Norton unit today announced an updated version of its Norton Utilities software, adding a way to defragment and organize files and data that's become scattered across a hard drive, enabling quicker startup, file access and more free disk space.

• Former Microsoft CTO's firm files patent lawsuits

  Intellectual Ventures, a patent portfolio developer and broker started by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, has filed patent lawsuits against nine tech companies, including Symantec, McAfee and Hynix Semiconductor.

• New Stuxnet clues suggest sabotage of Iranian nuclear programme

  Researchers have uncovered new clues that the Stuxnet worm may have been created to sabotage Iranian attempts to turn uranium into atomic bomb-grade fuel.

• Danger to IE users climbs as hacker kit adds exploit

  An exploit of an unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability has been added to a popular crimeware kit, a move that will probably push Microsoft to fix the flaw with an emergency update, a security researcher said Sunday.

• Update: Antivirus software didn't help in zero-day malware attack on power plant

  When the zero-day attack known as the "Here You Have" virus not long ago hit about 500 PCs at the Salt River Project, a large public power utility and water supplier for Arizona, it turned out that the antivirus software in use provided no defense.

• Koobface worm targets Mac users on Facebook, Twitter

  A new variant of the Koobface worm that targets Mac OS X and Linux as well as Windows is spreading through Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, security researchers warned today.

• Targeted attacks rise, retail sector under siege

  Targeted attacks via fraudulent and dangerous e-mail are on the rise, according to a Symantec report published today. These attacks are typically aimed at corporative executives, to fool them into opening malicious attachments or links so the perpetrators can take control of desktop computers.

• Top 12 Green-IT vendors 2010

  Technology vendors and data center suppliers were also invited to participate in Computerworld's search for the Top Green-IT Organizations. These companies completed the same survey as the end-user organizations and were judged on the same criteria -- most notably, on their IT departments' efforts to reduce energy consumption in their IT equipment, and to use technology to conserve energy and lower carbon emissions. Here are the top 12, in ranked order:

• Symantec now manages Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones

  Symantec today announced that its mobile device management software now supports Apple iOS and Google Android, via Microsoft's Enterprise ActiveSync protocol, which both platforms support. The release is part of an expanded push by the security vendor to eventually deal with the wide range of mobility threats.

• Stuxnet code hints at possible Israeli origin, researchers say

  Security researchers today offered another tantalizing clue about the possible origins of the notorious Stuxnet worm, but cautioned against reading too much from the obscure tea leaves.

• Symantec lays out encryption roadmap

  Symantec is laying down a strategy for integrating the two encryption-software companies it acquired, PGP Corp and GuardianEdge Technologies.

• Hackers exploit latest Microsoft zero-day bug

  Microsoft has warned users that hackers are exploiting the unpatched bug in ASP.Net to hijack encrypted Web sessions.

• Microsoft confirms it missed Stuxnet print spooler 'zero-day'

  Contrary to reports, a bug that Microsoft patched last week had been publicly discussed a year and a half ago, security researchers said this week.