Ryan Naraine

The American Chemical Society has fired off a lawsuit against Google Inc., accusing the Web search powerhouse of “trademark infringement and unfair competition” with its Google Scholar search beta. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, accuses Google of violating the Societys trademarks used in a similar search tool […]

Four days after an internal error caused the accidental purging of legitimate IM accounts, America Online Inc. began recovering Monday to restore access to thousands of affected users. The companys technicians have successfully restored the majority of affected AIM accounts, including buddy lists, buddy icons, and other saved preferences. “As of today, all AIM screen […]

Anti-virus vendors have raised the alarm for a new mass-mailing worm with a dangerous backdoor component. The worm, called W32.Maslan.C@mm, arrives as an attachment promising naked photos of Playboy models but, if executed, drops an IRC (Inter Relay Chat) bot capable of transmitting passwords and sensitive information back to the virus writer. According to an […]

America Online Inc. has confirmed that it mistakenly deactivated a number of AOL Instant Messenger accounts this week as part of its regular cycle of opening unused screen names to new users. AOL, whose instant messaging service is among the most widely used worldwide, had begun releasing screen names that had gone unused when it […]

Microsofts monthly patch day for December will produce security updates for five vulnerabilities affecting Windows users, the company said Thursday. In an advance notice, the software giant said the maximum severity rating for the five updates is “important.” Some of the security updates may require a restart. The prerelease of basic information ahead of the […]

Buoyed by a recent FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ruling that its services are exempt from state and local regulation and tariffs, VOIP upstart Vonage plans to enter the video telephony market. In a partnership with broadband videophone maker Viseon, Edison, N.J.-based Vonage Holdings Corp. plans to add video calling services to its SIP (Session Initiation […]

NEW YORK—Spyware will replace the mass-mailing worm as the biggest nuisance—and security threat—facing businesses in 2005. Thats the chilling assessment from Roger Thompson, director of content research security management at Computer Associates International Inc. Thompson used the spotlight of the InfoSecurity 2004 conference here to highlight the growing threat from spyware and adware “pests” and […]

Amid reports of Trojans and worms squirming through mobile devices, Trend Micro Inc. says it will roll out anti-virus and anti-spam protection for users of data-centric smart phones. The companys Trend Micro Mobile Security suite, which is available for free through June 30, 2005, will provide automatic, real-time scanning to protect wireless devices against malicious […]

IMlogic Inc. on Tuesday announced plans to use so-called honey pots, or vulnerable machines, to track malicious virus activity on instant messaging and peer-to-peer networks. In partnership with a slew of big-name IM and anti-virus vendors, the Waltham, Mass.-based IMlogic is heading up the establishment of a Threat Center to gather intelligence and provide early […]

Microsofts decision to scrap plans for Windows 2000 Service Pack 5 has effectively killed all hopes that security enhancements built into Windows XP SP2 will be back-ported to Windows 2000. Following a spate of recent analyst reports warning of long-term security problems with the platform, some enterprise customers anticipated that Redmond would reconsider the Service […]

Just days after Lycos Europes launch of an anti-spam DDoS tool raised eyebrows in the security space, the company appears to have scrapped the campaign. Earlier this week, the company released a downloadable screensaver programmed to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks against known spam sites, but the move sparked a shooting war with spammers and attracted […]

Apple Computer Inc. late Thursday rolled out a monster update to correct 16 potentially serious vulnerabilities in the Mac OS X operating system. According to an advisory from Apple, the update corrects flaws that could lead to security bypass, spoofing, exposure of sensitive data, privilege escalation, DoS (denial of service) attacks and unauthorized system access. […]