Larry Seltzer

While it came out of the oven hot on Sunday, the Bagle.A worm, also known as Beagle.A, has gone mostly stale in the days since. Security firms that monitor the presence of such worms on the Internet, such as MessageLabs,reported a downward trajectory in its spread. MessageLabs reported that it intercepted over 120,000 instances worldwide […]

A new Windows worm discovered Sunday is spreading rapidly, according to security experts and anti-virus firms. According to Ken Dunham, Director of Malicious Code for iDEFENSE Inc., more than 50,000 interceptions of the worm—known both as Bagle.A and Beagle.A—have already been noted by security firms. “Bagle started gaining significant ground in the wild as the […]

The sources of our computer security problems these days are diverse. But theres general agreement (even I agree to some extent) that one of the major sources is the overwhelming market share of the Windows platform and the single target it creates for attackers as well as legitimate software developers. This is the famous “monoculture” […]

Some people just have to be right and their critics wrong. Such looks to be the case with much of the current criticism surrounding CAN-SPAM, the federal anti-spam law that went into effect recently. We recently reported on such criticism of the law. Youd definitely get the impression, to listen to critics such as Vincent […]

When it comes to proposed technical solutions to spam, Im a pessimist in general and confirmed skeptic at heart. Such proposals, in their attempts to make spamming impossible, invariably force everyone to change all their mailing software, dooming any practical prospects of the plan. However, “invariably” could be too strong a word. For example, Yahoo, […]

If youre an Internet consumer, you need to be aware of and concerned about “phishing” and other attempts at fraud. Typically, such fraud impersonates an e-mail or Web page from a real, respectable company, in an attempt to get you to provide account information that they can use to steal money from you. If youre […]

Internet services firm Netcraft, most famous for its survey of Web server software usage, has announced a service mainly for banks and other financial organizations to track use of their name, brands, trademarks and slogans on the Internet. The service is intended to detect and facilitate quick removal of attempts at fraud, identity theft and […]

The consensus among security professionals is solid: 2003 was a lousy year for computer security. And the news wont be much better in the year ahead; things are trending for the worse. While its easy to focus on the security screw-ups of 2003—since there are so many more of them—Ill also try to dredge up […]

A good number of Internet Service Providers offer decent security features, still many still dont. If your ISP doesnt block viruses or filter spam, or if your unhappy with their services, you have more options than you might think. Changing ISPs to one with better service isnt necessarily an easy thing for many individuals and […]

One interesting e-mail that recently found its way into my inbox was from an organization calling itself the “National Anti Spam Registry.” The site is filled with American flags and the Statue of Liberty and references to the recently-signed and about to go into effect federal CAN-SPAM act. As I wrote in my recent analysis […]

As we reported recently, Microsoft just released a document going into more detail about the features expected in the upcoming Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. The company on Thursday released a beta of SP2 and will ship for real well into 2004. SP2 is basically about security enhancements to Windows, such as the improved […]

If youre a power e-mail user and want to gain fine-grained control over the mail that enters your in-box, ChoiceMail 2.0 ($39.95 direct) probably has the features you want. But you will need to overcome its complexity and possible awkward moments with some correspondents. Of the many solutions to the spam problem, ChoiceMail is perhaps […]