Ryan Naraine

Microsoft Corp. has quietly released a redaction tool for Office Word 2003 to let users black out sections of confidential data from documents. The security tool, available as a free download, plugs into Microsoft Office Word 2003 to offer a simple interface for marking sections of a document for redaction. The tool runs on Windows […]

With its flagship Firefox emerging as a legitimate alternative to Microsoft Corp.s dominant Internet Explorer Web browser, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation wants to cash in on the revenue-generation possibilities. The open-source group on Wednesday announced a major reorganization that includes the creation of the Mozilla Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary to ride the Firefox gravy train. […]

A security flaw in a search tool used on the Cisco Web portal could potentially compromise registered users passwords, the routing and switching giant warned Wednesday. A Cisco Systems Inc. spokesperson told Ziff Davis Internet News the bug, discovered and reported by a third-party research firm, is not the result of any flaws in Cisco […]

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday confirmed it was investigating a new “high risk” vulnerability in the widely used Internet Explorer Web browser. The software giants acknowledgement follows the release of a brief advisory from Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based eEye Digital Security that the flaw could put millions of users at risk of code execution attacks. “A vulnerability […]

A new beta of the popular Greasemonkey browser extension has been released to fix a well-known—and potentially dangerous—security vulnerability. The security upgrade comes less than two weeks after the discovery of the flaw which prompted a major uninstall warning because of the risk of file hijack attacks. The flaw is so serious that developers have […]

LAS VEGAS—Cisco Systems Inc. on Friday confirmed that a security hole in its Internetwork Operating System could be exploited by remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. The routing and switching giants confirmation comes just days after details on the extent of the flaw were released at the Black Hat Briefings here by former Internet Security […]

Opera Software on Thursday shipped an updated version of its Opera for Windows Web browser to fix a trio of potentially serious security vulnerabilities. The Norwegian company recommends that Windows users upgrade to Opera 8.0.2 to protect against malicious hacker attacks. The most serious of the three flaws is due to an error in the […]

LAS VEGAS—Phil Zimmermann, the celebrated cryptographer who created PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) for e-mail encryption, is taking a shot at securing VOIP communications. Zimmermann took the stage at the Black Hat Briefings here to show off Zfone, a prototype application that encrypts voice-over-IP calls to thwart man-in-the-middle eavesdroppers. Using the open-source, cross-platform softphone Shtoom and […]

LAS VEGAS—The decision by 3Com Corp.s TippingPoint division to pay for the rights to information on software vulnerabilities has triggered an immediate response from iDefense Inc., the company that previously held a monopoly on the flaw bounty business. Effective immediately, iDefense is doubling its pricing structure for vulnerability submissions and hiking the value of the […]

LAS VEGAS—Just when anti-virus vendors think they have a bead on the threat from stealth rootkits, along comes word that a pair of researchers have discovered a new way to hide malicious programs. Jamie Butler, director of engineering at HBGary Inc., and Sherri Sparks, a PhD student at the University of Central Florida, demonstrated the […]

LAS VEGAS—Rootkits. Zero-day exploits. Social engineering. Encryption cracking. Cryptography. File format fuzzing. Kernel exploitation. These are just some of the buzzwords making the rounds at the Black Hat USA 2005 security conference here, where some of the sharpest minds in the research community will congregate to share information on computer and Internet security threats. The […]

Microsoft Corp. is working on a patch for a potentially serious security hole in fully patched versions of Windows XP Service Pack 2. The software makers confirmation follows public disclosure of the vulnerability by a private security researcher who goes by the moniker “badpack3t.” The researcher posted an advisory describing the issue as a remote […]