Ryan Naraine

Operating under the theory that if you kill the head, the body will follow, a group of high-profile security researchers is ramping up efforts to find and disable the command-and-control infrastructure that powers millions of zombie drone machines, or bots, hijacked by malicious hackers. The idea is to open up a new reporting mechanism for […]

After years of jealously guarding access to its AOL Instant Messenger network, America Online is openly flirting with third-party developers looking to connect to its AIM service. The Dulles, Va., company has launched Open AIM, a free developer kit that allows the creation of plug-ins, mashups and third-party applications that connect to AOLs 63 million […]

The Microsoft Passport universal-login service is undergoing a major upgrade under the Windows Live umbrella. The plan is to rebrand the Passport Network as Windows Live ID to serve as the authentication system for Windows Live, Office Live, Xbox Live, MSN and other Microsoft online services. According to a blog entry by Trevin Chow, program […]

An Internet security startup with roots at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has slapped a red “X” warning label on approximately 5 percent of all Web traffic and warned that there are one billion monthly visits to Web pages that arent safe for surfing. With an ambitious mission to use automated crawlers to test every […]

Operating under the theory that if you kill the head, the body will follow, a group of high-profile security researchers is ramping up efforts to find and disable the command-and-control infrastructure that powers millions of zombie drone machines, or bots, hijacked by malicious hackers. The idea is to open up a new reporting mechanism for […]

With the security of its flagship Mac OS X operating system facing intense scrutiny, Apple Computer on March 1 released a software update with patches for more than a dozen security vulnerabilities. The first security update from Apple for 2006 comes less than a week after the release of exploit code for Safari browser flaw […]

Database server giant Oracle has released an out-of-band security update with fixes for several high-risk vulnerabilities affecting enterprise customers. The patches were included in an upgrade to Oracle Diagnostics, a troubleshooting feature that ships with the Oracle E-Business Suite 11i and comes more than six weeks ahead of the next scheduled quarterly updates from the […]

Russian anti-virus specialist Kaspersky Lab has discovered evidence of the first mobile phone Trojan targeting J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition) devices. The sample Trojan, identified as Redbrowser.A, works on most phones with J2ME support, raising fears that malware writers are expanding the target beyond just Symbian-based smart phones. Redbrowser.A is a J2ME-based Java Midlet […]

Microsoft has shipped a new version of its Internet Explorer browser to permanently change the way multimedia content is rendered on Web pages. The cumulative non-security IE update was released Feb. 28 as an optional download for IE6 on Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and is a direct result of the multimillion-dollar patent […]

A security flaw in Adobe Systems Macromedia Shockwave Installer could put millions of PC users at risk of code execution attacks, the company warned in an advisory. The flaw, which carries a “critical” rating, affects Shockwave Player 10.1.0.11 and earlier versions. According to Adobes advisory, the vulnerability occurs only during the installation process, and current […]

Looking to streamline the collection of malware samples, two of the biggest honeypot projects—mwcollect and nepenthes—have merged operations. The two projects, which passively trap viruses, spyware and other forms of malicious software by emulating known vulnerabilities, will combine operations to develop a single malware collection tool, according to an announcement my mwcollect head developer Georg […]

The Washington Posts online arm has apparently been caught in a metadata gaffe that exposed the whereabouts of a 21-year-old hacker who confessed to controlling thousands of compromised PCs for malicious use. The hacker agreed be interviewed by Washington Post reporter Brian Krebs on the condition that he not be identified by name or home […]