Ryan Naraine

Microsoft on Wednesday issued a prepatch advisory to counter the publication of exploit code for a newly discovered vulnerability in its implementation of TCP/IP. The Redmond, Wash., companys confirmation of the flaw is the first public test of the software giants new security advisories pilot project, which is meant to provide instant feedback, guidance and […]

The nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology wants blue-chip advertisers join the fight against shady practices by adware and spyware vendors. The public policy group plans to start contacting about two dozen mainstream advertisers to discuss their direct funding of an industry that thrives on deception and borderline illegal activity. The campaign is the brainchild […]

Debby Fry Wilson has more than a few reasons—and sleepless nights—to remember Sasser, the last major network worm to clog Windows systems around the world. It was on her birthday, a year ago this month, when the first Sasser reports started filtering in and, for Wilson and her colleagues at the MSRC (Microsoft Security Response […]

A new variant of the Sober mass-mailing worm is being blamed for the deluge of German spam messages flooding inboxes this weekend, anti-virus experts warned on Sunday. The spam barrage arrives with politically themed messages in German and contains only links to news articles on German Web sites. Finnish anti-virus vendor F-Secure Corp. said the […]

For Microsoft, delivering high-quality security patches in a timely manner has always been a lose-lose predicament. If patches for major software vulnerabilities take too long, customers are at the mercy of zero-day threats. When patches are rushed out without proper quality assurance testing, they invariably become a system administrators worst nightmare. Earlier this week, when […]

For the second time in as many months, a private security research company has discovered high-risk vulnerabilities in two of Microsofts most widely used software programs. Security consultants at eEye Digital Security privately reported the newly discovered flaws to the software giant on May 5 and warned that users of the dominant Internet Explorer browser […]

Moving to keep pace in the red-hot software market for detecting and removing spyware, anti-virus vendor Trend Micro on Tuesday announced plans to shell out $15 million to acquire desktop-security startup InterMute. The deal allows Cupertino, Calif.-based Trend Micro Inc. to target the consumer and SMB (small and midsized business) markets with InterMute Inc.s SpySubtract […]

Microsoft shipped its 24th security bulletin for 2005 on Tuesday with a fix for a well-known—and potentially dangerous—flaw in the Windows 2000 operating system. The patch arrives three weeks after the public release of a proof-of-concept exploit by Israels GreyMagic Software and carries a maximum severity rating of “important.” According to Microsoft Corp.s MS05-024 bulletin, […]

An easy-to-exploit vulnerability in certain configurations of a widely used VPN protocol suite could allow malicious hackers to intercept network communications believed to be secure, according to a warning from a British security research outfit. A high-risk alert from the U.K.-based NISCC (National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre) pinpointed the flaw in IP Security, the set […]

For the fourth time in three months, major security flaws in the upstart Firefox Web browser have pushed volunteers at the Mozilla Foundation into damage-control mode. The open-source group late Sunday rushed out a partial fix for a pair of “extremely critical” Firefox vulnerabilities after zero-day exploit code leaked onto the Internet and promised a […]

An undisclosed “DNS-related issue” late Saturday knocked several Google services offline, prompting widespread speculation that the Web search giant fell victim to the recent wave of DNS cache-poisoning attacks. The outage lasted for several hours and affected the Google.com home page, Gmail, Google News, Froogle, Google Images, Google Groups and Google Local. The outage also […]

Microsoft plans to unveil a new security advisories service next Tuesday as part of an aggressive long-term effort to revamp the way it reacts to publicly reported software vulnerabilities. The pilot project, which is independent of the scheduled monthly security bulletins, represents a major shift in the way the Redmond, Wash.-based software maker communicates with […]