Dennis Fisher

The Palyh worm was showing some signs of running out of steam late Wednesday, as security vendors reported seeing fewer copies than they had earlier in the week. At its peak on Monday, nearly one in every 200 e-mails contained a copy of Palyh, according to statistics compiled by MessageLabs Inc., an e-mail security vendor […]

Qualys Inc. on Monday unveiled a new free network-mapping tool that can deliver detailed information about any device connected to a given network. FreeMap is a Web-based graphical tool that essentially functions like a souped-up version of Nmap or any of the other network-discovery tools available on the Internet. Anyone with an Internet connection and […]

Network Associates Inc., which has spent more than $200 million on acquisitions this spring, laid off about 150 employees this week, sources close to the company say. An NAI spokesperson said the layoffs, which totaled about 3 percent of the companys workforce, were done for a combination of reasons, including employee performance and strategic engineering […]

SafeNet Inc. on Tuesday will announce its new SafeEnterprise Security System, a centrally managed set of products that helps securely tie together disparate networks and devices. The system is made up mainly of existing products. But the heart of the new offering is the Security Management Center, a console designed to handle all of the […]

A small security startup on Monday will announce a software solution that puts a new spin on the concept of application security. Permeo Technologies Application Security suite 4.2 includes a clientless option that enables users to launch programs from a typical application portal. Permeos solution uses a unique architecture that creates a virtual network above […]

In the latest deal in the security industrys ongoing consolidation, Symantec Corp. has agreed to acquire Nexland Inc., a small appliance vendor, for $19.6 million in cash, according to a release published by Nexland Wednesday. Nexland, based in Miami, has had a relationship with Symantec for two years, under which Symantec has been licensing the […]

Customers of another bank are being targeted by e-mail scammers attempting to steal account information and other personal data. The e-mail appears to come from the Bank of America customer support department, but there are several misspellings and grammatical errors that make it easy to identify the message as a fake. The message arrives from […]

A new vulnerability in Windows Media Player could enable an attacker to execute code on the machine of a user who downloads a skin for the player. When users download skins, or interfaces, for WMP, the files are automatically saved to the players Skins folder. As protection against some attacks, WMP puts a random element […]

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is making a major move into the application security and intrusion prevention markets with a new set of capabilities for its widely deployed FireWall-1 and VPN-1 boxes. The features contained in the new Next Generation with Application Intelligence software build on the core functionality of the platform and add the […]

The Fizzer worm continued to spread rapidly late Monday afternoon as anti-virus experts raced to analyze the code of what they called one of the more complex worms in recent memory. First seen late last week, Fizzer began spreading in Asia initially but then hit Europe and North American hard Monday as office workers started […]