VeriSign has announced plans to sell some of its business units and focus efforts on its internet infrastructure services. The Mountain View, Calif. company announced Wednesday at its annual Analyst Day that it will concentrate on its core business, compromised of domain naming services, SSL certificates and identity protection and authentication solutions. VeriSign will divest other parts of its portfolio, including communications, billing and commerce.
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A Swedish teenager who is suspected of hacking into the computer network of Cisco Systems Inc. in the U.S. was convicted Monday of intruding on the networks of three Swedish universities. Overturning an acquittal by a lower court, the Svea Court of Appeal gave the 19-year-old man a conditional sentence and ordered him to pay 160,000 kronor (US$25,000; euro17,000) in damages to the universities. The man, who could not be named under Swedish privacy rules, said he would appeal.
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Hacker bust for virtual theft. Dutch police arrested a 17-year-old who stole ÂŁ2 500 worth of virtual furniture from an online hotel. The teenager was arrested after playing Habbo Hotel, an international online community with an estimated seven million members and an annual turnover of ÂŁ3 million, states The Times. The game allows players to create virtual characters, or Habbos. These characters can take their own rooms in the hotel, which they can then decorate with their own furniture. The furniture is purchased with special Habbo credits, but the credits are paid for with real money.
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The Chinese state is behind almost daily internet espionage attacks on German companies and government bodies, a top German intelligence official said on Monday. “In our view, state Chinese interests stand behind these digital attacks,” said Hans Elmar Remberg, vice president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country’s domestic intelligence agency.
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Microsoft has made the second generation of its desktop anti-virus suite available for download today; CD-issued copies of the program will be available next week. Windows Live OneCare 2.0 will feature improved anti-virus, backup and management capabilities, Larry Brennan, lead product manager for Windows Live OneCare, told SCMagazineUS.com on Wednesday. Amidst internet speculation as to the official release date, web retailer Amazon.com set the product’s release date for Nov. 15.
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Legitimate sites and their users have been dealing with a rash of malware being spread by banner ads, from Monster to MLB (Major League Baseball) NHL (National Hockey League) and other sites that are delivering malware. While the Monster dot com exploit is well known news, the MLB and NHL sites are not well known, but used a similar way of purchasing advertising on a web site, and then using that advertising to deliver malware to customers as shown in the video below.
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October was a scary month for IT administrators in charge of filtering spam, according to a pair of reports from messaging security firms. Research from St. Bernard Software showed a 33 percent hike in spam and virus activity compared to September. The San Diego-based company, citing its October Threat Center results, attributed the rise to the beginning of the school year and an increase in the victimization of college students’ computers.
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Google’s long-anticipated mobile plans finally emerged this week in the form of Android, the company’s mobile Linux platform. However, despite the short time that has elapsed since the platform’s announcement, a debate has already been sparked around the security of its development. Can the open-source model produce secure code? Will phones based on Android, dubbed “Gphones” by many, be more or less secure than Apple’s iPhone, which has been developed using proprietary software? What will Android’s developers be able to do to stop authors of malicious code for mobile devices capitalising on its openness?
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A hacker faces 60 years in prison and a $1.75m fine after pleading guilty to infecting hundreds of thousands of computers with malware in order to steal money from Paypal accounts. John Schiefer, 26, admitted that he and some associates developed malware that allowed them to create botnet armies of as many as 250,000 computers. Schiefer was able to collect information sent from the infected computers, including usernames and passwords for Paypal accounts. He and his associates were then able to make purchases using the Paypal accounts. They also shared the password information with others.
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Antivirus specialist Symantec has joined a security organisation alongside Microsoft, despite having previously come to very public blows with the software giant over its willingness to share security information on Vista. Announced at the RSA Conference Europe 2007 on Tuesday, Symantec and Microsoft will join the Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code (SafeCode), which claims to be a not-for-profit organisation aimed at increasing trust around IT. Other members include EMC, SAP and Juniper Networks.
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