Lisa Vaas

Not surprising: In the first half of 2007, Microsoft was the top vendor when it came to publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. Likely surprising to some: Apple got second place. IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force R&D team released its 2007 report on cyber attacks on Sept. 17, revealing that the top five vulnerable vendors accounted for 12.6 […]

Widgets—those fun, graphic little applications that bring things like clocks and calculators to your desktop—are all plagued with lousy security and stand ready to unleash the next wave of malware onto users systems, according to new research. The security holes in these applications already have opened up: Microsofts MS07-048 advisory, put out on Augusts Patch […]

Brokerage powerhouse TD Ameritrade revealed on Sept. 14 that cyber-crooks have infiltrated its database of 6.3 million customers and have been sending targeted spam to stolen e-mail addresses. The companys voice mail is featuring a message from CEO Joe Moglia reassuring callers that no Social Security numbers have been accessed, although a spokeswoman told eWEEK […]

The Web site for the U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg, Russia, was broken into and was serving up malicious iFrames earlier the week of Sept. 10, according to security researchers. After trying to load a malicious iFrame onto victims systems from a remote server, the iFrame then attempted to silently load even more malware, […]

A researcher has shown that a low-risk, year-old QuickTime bug can easily be turned into a high-risk attack on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Skype and other programs. The researcher, Petko D. Petkov—aka pdp—on Sept. 12 posted proof-of-concept code showing how QuickTime media formats can be used to get into Firefox, leading to full browser compromise and […]

An exploit that attacks a critical Microsoft Agent vulnerability was published less than 24 hours after Microsoft released a relevant security advisory in its Sept. 11 Patch Tuesday set of releases. The security advisory for Microsoft Agent, MS07-051, was the only critical release out of four security advisories. It addresses a vulnerability whereby the Microsoft […]

The Great Firewall of China is no firewall after all. The Peoples Republic of China has no firewall perched on its routers to enable censors to block Internet sites. Rather, the authoritarian regime relies on a far more sophisticated censorship system that uses a keyword blacklist and routers that reach deep into Internet traffic to […]

Program to Aid Registry of First Responders”> An unknown number of first responders were lost in the Marriott Hotel concourse when the South Tower collapsed at 9:58:59 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001. Scores of first responders died in the North Tower when it collapsed at 10:28:25 a.m. More than 300 first responders were lost in […]

Microsoft is throttling a potentially evil paperclip this Patch Tuesday: Namely, a critical vulnerability in its Microsoft Agent—aka “Clippy”—that can open a system up to hijacking. The security advisory for Microsoft Agent, MS07-051, is the only critical release out of four security advisories the company put out on Sept. 11. It addresses a vulnerability whereby […]

A Swedish security researcher who publicly posted 100 embassy, government and Fortune 500 e-mail passwords in late August has revealed that he used The Onion Router, or ToR, exit nodes outfitted with a packet sniffer to catch the unencrypted e-mail messages and passwords. Ironically enough, ToR is a free tool distributed by the Electronic Frontier […]

Yet another worm is sticking it to Skype. The VOIP (voice over IP) companys security team as of Sept. 11 was working with domain owners to shut down malicious sites that are infecting Skype for Windows users with a virus being spread via cleverly composed instant messages. Initially, Skype was calling the virus w32/Ramex.A, but […]

Burglars broke into Mitt Romneys Boston presidential campaign headquarters over the weekend, making off with multiple laptops and a television. Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the campaign, told eWEEK that the burglary happened sometime during the evening of Sept. 9. The forced entry into the building, a harbor side location on Commercial Street in Bostons […]