Ryan Naraine

A buffer overflow vulnerability in the widely used Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader programs could put millions of computer users at risk of code execution attacks. According to an advisory from Adobe Systems Inc., a malicious hacker could exploit the flaw to crash the application or launch executable code on a vulnerable system. “The identified […]

Enterprise anti-virus vendor Sophos Plc. on Tuesday rolled out a new early-warning system for businesses struggling to cope with the sharp rise in phishing attacks. With Sophos PhishAlert, the U.K.-based company is offering a service that proactively informs organizations of new phishing scams that target their customers. PhishAlert comes just one month after Sophos rolled […]

Apple has shipped a monster security patch for Mac OS X to fix 34 flaws in the operating system and bundled third-party utilities. The 17MB security update, available through Software Update and Apple Downloads, corrects a wide range of flaws in Mac OS X 10.3.9 (client and server). Security alerts aggregator Secunia Inc. rated the […]

A design error in Symantecs Veritas Backup Exec and NetBackup data storage products could put businesses at risk of system access and file download attacks, the company said in an advisory. Immediately after releasing patches to correct the vulnerability, the Cupertino, Calif.-based network security vendor warned that a public exploit had been posted to the […]

Windows 2000 users, patch now or else… Thats the blunt warning from Microsoft Corp.s security response center after “detailed exploit code” for a wormable flaw started circulating on underground security Web sites. The software maker rushed out an advisory late Thursday night to warn that unpatched Windows 2000 users are at the biggest risk of […]

Anti-spyware vendor Sunbelt plans to release a free tool to zap a sophisticated keystroke logger being used by an organized ring of identity thieves. The spyware keylogger, named Srv.SSA-KeyLogger, was being used to hijack confidential data from millions of infected computers and send the information back to a remote server controlled by an identity theft […]

Less than 24 hours after pushing out patches for three critical Internet Explorer vulnerabilities, Microsoft has re-released the bulletin to correct a glitch that blocked some users from downloading the patches. Microsoft Corp. did not say how the corrupted files ended up on the Microsoft Download Center. A brief note appended to the re-released MS05-038 […]

Microsoft late Tuesday confirmed that its “critical” Internet Explorer patches had to be pulled after a hiccup caused some of the downloads to be corrupted. The glitch was detected by users attempting to install the IE patch from the Microsoft Download center. “Shortly after we released the updates this morning we found that several of […]

For the third successive month, Microsofts Internet Explorer browser has been updated to correct security holes that could put millions of Web surfers at risk of code execution attacks. The cumulative IE update headlines the August release of six security bulletins from the software maker to cover eight vulnerabilities in its flagship Windows operating system. […]

Spyware researchers picking apart one of the more notorious spyware programs have stumbled upon what appears to be a massive identity theft ring hijacking confidential data from millions of infected computers. Sunbelt Software Inc., makers of the enterprise-grade CounterSpy spyware protection product, made the discovery during an audit of “CoolWebSearch,” a program that routinely hijacks […]

Microsoft has officially lifted the wraps off its Strider HoneyMonkey research project, designed to trawl the dark side of the Internet looking for Web sites hosting malicious code. Microsoft Corp. released a technical report, available here as a PDF, to introduce the concept of an Automated Web Patrol that uses multiple Windows XP machines, some […]

Microsoft plans to release six security bulletins on Aug. 9 to fix a range of potentially serious Windows vulnerabilities. Some of the vulnerabilities carry a maximum severity rating of “critical,” meaning they could put Windows machines at risk of an Internet worm, even without any user action. As is customary, the software maker isnt providing […]