Brian Prince

Attacks on Java reached “unprecedented” levels during the third quarter of the year, a Microsoft researcher reported. For the most part, attackers have been targeting three vulnerabilities that have all been patched, noted Holly Stewart, senior program manager at Microsoft, in a blog post. Still, attacks on Java number better than 6 million and have […]

Brand protection vendor MarkMonitor has acquired DtecNet to bolster its ability to fight fraud and piracy. MarkMonitor, based in San Francisco, offers products and services to prevent brandjacking and online fraud. The acquisition, made for an undisclosed sum, builds on the existing relationship between the two companies. According to MarkMonitor, the addition of DtecNet’s development […]

Adobe Systems is making good on its promise to bring sandboxing to bear in Adobe Reader in the name of security. The technology will be built into Adobe Reader X, which is scheduled to be released within 30 days. Known as “Protected Mode,” the technology is aimed at protecting Windows PCs, which are often the […]

It was a week of patches that are sure to create some extra work for administrators. Microsoft broke its record for the most patches ever Oct. 12, releasing a total of 16 security bulletins to fix 49 vulnerabilities across its products. One of the fixes patched a zero-day issue exploited by the Stuxnet worm. According […]

The U.S. government is reviewing plans by Australia to allow Internet service providers to keep compromised computers off the Internet and alert customers if their computers are hijacked by attackers, according to media reports. White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt reportedly told the Associated Press that the United States is studying a number of ways […]

Zeus is down off malware’s Mount Olympus and infecting PCs yet again, this time using a tax scam being spammed out by attackers as bait. Using the Oct. 15 tax filing extension deadline as a ruse, the malware has been up to its old tricks, targeting banking and other user information. The spam typically comes […]

Google has added a new alarm for phishing URLs to a service designed to alert administrators if their networks have been compromised. The new phishing alert is part of Google Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators, a service launched in September. The idea behind Safe Browsing Alerts is to notify AS (autonomous system) owners about […]

The subject of federal surveillance of social networks has come up again, this time prompted by new government documents unearthed by privacy watchdogs. The documents, which were revealed due to a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request filed by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) with the help of UC Berkeley’s Samuelson Clinic. According to the […]

The Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security have agreed to work closer to fight threats to military and civilian computer systems and networks. The new memorandum of agreement was reached to coordinate and improve efforts to secure the country’s cyber-infrastructure, according to the document (PDF). “With this memorandum of agreement, effective immediately, […]

As if being the leading home for botnets wasn’t enough, a new report from Sophos named the United States as the top spam-relaying country for the third quarter of the year. According to Sophos, between July and September, the United States was responsible for relaying 18.6 percent of all spam, up from 15.2 percent during […]