Dennis Fisher

McAfee.com Corp. on Monday said a special committee of its board of directors rejected Network Associates Inc.s plans to buy back the McAfee.com shares it doesnt already own because the “offer would be financially inadequate.” The company, which was formerly a wholly owned division of Network Associates, said that its former parent companys proposal undervalues […]

Anti-virus experts are tracking a new worm that has the ability to delete files from infected machines. The worm, known as MyLife.B, arrives via e-mail and is a variant of the original MyLife virus, which has been in the wild for some time. The worm arrives in an e-mail with the subject line of “bill […]

The Federal Governments top information security officials are finalizing a strategy that they hope will provide immediate and long-term solutions to the security problems plaguing the nations networks. The multifaceted plan would require cooperation from private industry and academia but would not involve any real government oversight. The combination of public-private partnerships and market pressure […]

Continuing his effort to refocus Network Associates Inc. and do away with any unnecessary management layers, CEO George Samenuk announced late Sunday that NAI will make a formal offer to buy back the 25 percent of McAfee.com shares that it doesnt already own. McAfee.com shareholders will be entitled to 0.675 shares of NAI stock for […]

After a week on the scene, the Fbound worm is continuing to infect machines across the Internet, but still hasnt made much progress in the U.S. The worm, first spotted March 13, apparently originated in Japan and has done most of its damage there and in other Asian countries. The virus is most prevalent in […]

ARLINGTON, Va.–A critical shortage of experienced security personnel—and not a lack of technological advancement—is hindering the effort to secure the nations public and private networks, government officials and security experts said Tuesday. Speaking to a room full of security officers, CIOs and CTOs at the Defending Against Information Warfare Conference here, a succession of high-profile […]

WASHINGTON–The governments second highest-ranking information security official said the nations critical network infrastructure is clearly vulnerable to a concerted attack, but legislation or other forms of government intervention are not the answer to the problem. Howard Schmidt, the vice chairman of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, said Monday that he believes a combination of public-private […]

There are two newly discovered flaws in widely deployed software products that present serious security problems for both users and network administrators. The more serious of the two vulnerabilities is a buffer overflow in the OpenSSH protocol that gives a user the ability to gain root privileges on a vulnerable machine. There is also a […]

A group that works to establish open interoperability standards on Thursday announced that it has formed a committee to define an XML schema for biometrics. The XML Common Biometric Format Technical Committee, under the aegis of OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), will work to create a standard that can be used […]

Despite dire predictions from some anti-virus companies of widespread file deletions and other damage, the supposed activation of the payload carried by the Klez.E Internet worm turned into a major non-event Wednesday. The worm, discovered in January, is a typical mass mailer, and most anti-virus vendors have it listed as either a low or medium […]

There are two remotely exploitable security vulnerabilities in numerous implementations of the RADIUS protocol that enable attackers to launch denial-of-service attacks against both clients and servers. RADIUS (remote authentication dial-in user service) is used for authentication and authorization in many different network settings, including 802.11b wireless LANs. Affected versions include FreeRADIUS, Cistron RADIUS, GnuRADIUS and […]

A proposal for a new process for disclosing security vulnerabilities has reignited the old debate over how flaws should be published and whether theres any way to regulate the process. The document, titled “Responsible Disclosure Process,” outlines a detailed, step-by-step process for everyone involved in the discovery and reporting of vulnerabilities—including researchers, vendors and third-party […]