Flaw could unleash another Slammer

<font size="3">Flaw could unleash another Slammer</font>

A research company warned Tuesday that an attacker could use a recently patched Microsoft flaw to create a fast-moving worm similar to SQL Slammer, which spread rapidly across the Internet a year ago.

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Virus hits Windows-based cashpoints

<font size="3">Virus hits Windows-based cashpoints</font>

Cashpoints at two US banks have been infected by viruses, with similar breaches tipped to become more common. Automatic teller machines at two banks running Microsoft's popular Windows software were infected by a computer virus in August, the maker of the machines said on Monday. The ATM infections, first reported by SecurityFocus.com, are believed to be the first of a computer virus wiggling directly onto cash machines.

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Hackers steal from pirates, to no good end

<font size="3">Hackers steal from pirates, to no good end</font>

The people who design rogue programs that take over computers from afar are now applying the tactic that made music pirating programs so effective--and the Internet may never be the same.

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EBay removes ad for sale of human kidney

<font size="3">EBay removes ad for sale of human kidney</font>

Auction Web site eBay removed a listing Thursday from a British man who was attempting to sell one of his kidneys to finance medical treatment for his sick daughter.

Peter Randall had put a reserve price of 50,000 pounds (U.S. $85,000) for the kidney on an advertisement on eBay which described him as a "49-year-old non-smoking male who drinks only socially and who is in good health," and said that the organ could be posted to a buyer in Britain, the Middle East, Asia, Europe or North America.

Randall told The Sun newspaper that he was trying to raise money for special therapy for his 6-year-old daughter Alice, who suffers from cerebral palsy. Randall and his partner, Jennifer Stanbury, 44, say the treatment had given them hope their daughter might walk.

A spokeswoman for eBay said the advertisement, which had been running for a week with no bids,...

Accenture to double India staff to 10,000

<font size="3">Accenture to double India staff to 10,000</font>

The company, based in Bermuda, currently employs 4,300 professionals in India for services such as consulting, system integration and business process outsourcing (BPO) for functions such as human resources management and financial accounting.

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Hacked Gentoo Linux server taken offline

<font size="3">Hacked Gentoo Linux server taken offline</font>
Hackers have forced the Gentoo Linux project to take a server offline.

The attack and subsequent compromise comes after several machines belonging to the Debian Linux project were breached by attackers last month. A forensic analysis of the Debian machines revealed that no software packages or source code offered for download were affected--a claim now being made by Gentoo. The maintainers of the Gentoo Linux distribution released a statement that describes the incident: "One of the servers that makes up the rsync.gentoo.org rotation was compromised via a remote exploit," it reads. "The compromised system had both an IDS and a file integrity checker installed and...we are reasonably confident that the portage tree stored on that box was unaffected."

The Gentoo team claimed that the breach was detected within approximately 1 hour....

Microsoft Finds Flaw in Server Software

<font size="3">Microsoft Finds Flaw in Server Software</font>

The problem affects all customers who installed SharePoint Services after Nov. 24. SharePoint, which is used to create a company intranet, is included as part of the standard and premium editions of the recently launched Small Business Server 2003 package, which also includes the Windows Server 2003 operating system and Microsoft Exchange e-mail software. The problem prevents SharePoint from installing properly.

Read full article: zdnet.com

Microsoft December Security Update & Webcast Week Previe

<font size="3">Microsoft December Security Update &amp; Webcast Week Preview</font>

On December 9, Microsoft will release its new monthly security bulletins scheme. Each month, after a security patch release, Microsoft's Product Support Services core team will conduct a technical chat to explain the patch and vulnerability and help users understand the impact of the patch in their environments. The next chat will be December 12, 2003. Join [MS] in this webcast for a live discussion of the technical details of the December security bulletins and steps you can take to protect your environment.

December is also TechNet Security Webcast Week. The TechNet Security Webcast Week, the first week of December 2003, spotlights TechNet’s continuing webcast coverage of one of the hottest topics for IT professionals today. The webcasts listed are live webcasts. After each webcast occurs, this page will be updated with...

Flaw in Linux kernel allows attack

<font size="3">Flaw in Linux kernel allows attack</font>

The Debian Project warned on Monday that a flaw in the Linux kernel helped attackers compromise four of the open-source software project's development servers. During several intrusions Nov. 19, the flaw enabled an attacker who already had access to a server to remove the limitations that protected the system from everyday users. The technique is known as a privilege escalation.

Members of the development team found the flaw in September and fixed the latest version of the core Linux software, or kernel. The fix came a bit late, however. The latest version of the kernel, 2.4.23, was released Friday, eight days after the Debian breach. The Debian Project, which uses only truly open-source software in its make-up, stressed that the breaches hadn't affected the project's code base.

"Fortunately, we require developers to sign the upload (software)...

Plastic promises dense data store

<font size="3">Plastic promises dense data store</font>


A common plastic used to keep monitor screens clear of fluff could soon be used as a high-density computer memory.
In the journal Nature, the US researchers behind the discovery say it could let them pack a gigabyte of data into a sugar cube-sized device.

The material is also very cheap to manufacture and data can be written down and read back from it quickly.

The researchers predict that it could take only a few years to turn their discovery into working devices.

Rest of Story : BBC News