Security Web Digest: Symantec Reports Increases In Security Threats … and More

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Symantec this week released its semiannual Internet Security Threat Report, and the results were not pretty. In the past six months, Web application vulnerabilities increased 12 percent, malicious codes were up 20 percent, and worms and viruses increased 19 percent, according to the report. The report also noted an increase in the number of malicious codes that install “back doors” into a companys network. “This is a gradual increase, but it may become more common as attackers realize how successful it can be,” said Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager for development at Symantec Security Response.

The Homeland Security Department needs to keep a closer eye on the high-tech workers admitted to the United States under a special visa program, congressional investigators said Thursday. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the new department should keep track of when foreign workers admitted with what are known as H-1B visas enter and leave the country, and develop rules for how long workers who lose their jobs are allowed to remain in the country. The Homeland Security Department agreed with the recommendations.

The GPRS world this week revealed that it has a security vulnerability which has seen an undisclosed number of its customers ripped off. Customers have been trapped into connecting to malicious content servers, by hackers penetrating the billing system. The first international phone company to admit that they have installed a solution–one offered by Check Point–will be the German phone provider, E-Plus.

Soflinx Corp. this week announced the availability of Soflinx Defender, a wireless monitoring and control system that provides perimeter security for commercial, industrial, and government locations. The system is capable of integrating thousands of wireless nodes and can instantly respond to data with automated corrective actions, the company said.

Frustrated by the lack of a copy protection standard that might help the digital content business reach the mainstream, a high-profile digital media group is taking matters into its own hands. MPEG LA (MPEG Licensing Association), a group of companies that hold patent rights that are related to the MPEG 4 audio and video standard, has created its own description of what features it thinks that digital rights management (DRM) technology should include. The group isnt trying to recreate copy protection products such as those sold by Microsoft or IBM–but it hopes to simplify the legal, technological and licensing chaos that has helped keep an antipiracy standard from evolving.