Security Breaking News

Facebook, states agree to boost efforts to protect children
Social networking site Facebook Thursday announced that it is boosting its privacy protections as part of an ongoing effort to work with 49 state attorneys general to protect children online. More..

Spy bots that share information being built for military
A group of U.S. Marines hunker down beside a building, enemy fire coming at them from somewhere up ahead. One soldier reaches into his pack and pulls out a few robots that look like large bugs. The bots fly down the street, sending back images that show where the enemy troops are hiding, how many there are and what weapons they're using. More..

HSBC lost server with customer data
HSBC has admitted losing a server containing data on 159,000 customers. More..

Vista as insecure as Windows 2000
Good news for users of Windows Vista. According to figures compiled by PC Tools, the OS has experienced only slightly more vulnerabilities than Windows 2000, which appeared eight years ago when malware was far less common. More..

Google takes Street View snaps in Paris; lawsuits may follow
Google has begun scanning the streets of Paris, gathering data for its Street View service, which adds street-level photography to the satellite views offered by Google Maps. The search company will gather a wealth of data from the project but, thanks to France's strict privacy laws, it may also pick up a few lawsuits on the way if it chooses to publish the photos unedited. More..

Google adds Web security, remote worker protection to Google Apps
Google is adding security for Web surfing and remote workers to its Google Apps set of office tools. More..

Parasitic botnet spams 60 billion a day
The Srizbi botnet has stormed over its competition to become the Internet's biggest spammer. More..

AT&T demos disaster preparedness
AT&T was in Chicago recently, demonstrating to hundreds of its corporate customers how it responds to natural disasters. More..

Belgium accuses China of cyberattacks
It's not just the U.S. and U.K. who are crying foul over China's behavior in cyberspace - now the government of tiny Belgium has accused hackers from the country of targeting its systems. More..

Facebook partners with AGs for kids' safety
Facebook is following in the footsteps of its rival MySpace by reaching an online safety agreement with the attorneys general of 49 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. More..

Software error stalls validation of winning lottery tickets
A mysterious software bug in 17 lottery machines used by the D.C. Lottery and Charitable Games Control Board in Washington left several dozen winning instant ticket holders unable to immediately cash their prize tickets last week. More..

Identity Finder helps prevent identity theft
I recently received a well-crafted press release from Identity Finder. CEO Todd Feinman prepared these tips, which you may find useful for your own internal security newsletters.  More..

New leadership, new heights for PacketFence
Leadership of an open source NAC platform has been transferred to a private firm in Canada that charges customers for installing and maintaining the software. More..

If only reducing costs was as easy as security, say CIOs
Conquering IT security is a breeze for CIOs, according to an IDC report. More..

McAfee, Yahoo team on Web security
McAfee and Yahoo today announced a partnership on Web security in which Yahoo's search engine is making freely available to users the warnings about unwanted or malicious code on Web sites as determined through McAfee's security technology. More..

Cisco Q3 report card: Lots of A's and B's
Report card on Cisco's Q3 financial results.  More..

Malware vs. anti-malware, 20 years into the fray
As I recall, Nov. 2, 1988, started as an ordinary day at Goddard Space Flight Center where I was working in the data communications branch. By the end of the day ... well, actually, that day never ended. We just kept fighting to bring our servers and networks back to life. Our SunOS and VAX/BSD systems, which were connected to the Internet, had slowed to a stop. More..

0day treasure hunt: researcher hides IE attack on Web
Security researcher Aviv Raff has published code that would allow someone to take control of a computer running Internet Explorer, but there's a catch. He's not saying exactly where he's hidden the attack. More..

Internet Archive challenges FBI's secret records demand
The FBI has withdrawn a secret demand that the Internet Archive, an online library, provide the agency with a user's personal information after the Web site challenged the records request in court. More..

Web attack worm infecting hapless sites
The Internet Storm Center, which tracks online threats, warns Wednesday that a worm is infecting vulnerable Web sites with a database attack. Though relatively small by Web attack standards with about 4,000 reported infected sites, the assault adds invisible code to a site that can force visitors to download malware onto their PC. Bad PR, to say the least. More..

Making sure everything works at the Beijing Olympics
The first of the two technical rehearsals has been completed by the system integrator behind the 2008 Beijing Olympics. More..

Mail and its hidden headers
Like many people, reader S. B. is concerned about spam. He writes: More..

Mozilla: Firefox plugin shipped with malicious code
Mozilla warned Wednesday that a malicious program inserted adware code into a Firefox plugin that has been downloaded thousands of times over the past three months. More..

Building an Identity Bus, Part 2
Last time out I told you about an informal discussion I had with Microsoft's Kim Cameron, Novell's Dale Olds, Quest's Jackson Shaw hosted by Kuppinger-Cole's Felix Gaehtgens all about the so-called "Identity Bus." I said that we reached a conclusion about the best way to move forward, but perhaps it's better to say we identified a couple of paths that might be worth taking. More..

Google backs open-source CERT group
Google has thrown its weight behind a fledgling security reporting group for the open-source community. More..