Also: Micromuse buys Quallaby; ICSA Labs releases annual “Virus Prevalence Survey; U.S. patent policy “lousy, IBM VP says; more
Microsoft on Tuesday plans to issue eight security alerts with patches for Windows, Office, MSN Messenger and Exchange. Five of the bulletins apply to Windows and at least one of those is deemed critical, Microsoft said in a notice posted on its Web site. Office, MSN Messenger and Exchange will get one bulletin each, all deemed critical, the company says. In Microsoft’s rating system for security issues, vulnerabilities that could allow a malicious Internet worm to spread without any action required on the part of the user are rated critical. Microsoft gave no further information, other than that some of the patches for Windows (including the MSN Messenger patch) will require restarting patched computers.
Micromuse , a maker of fault management software, last week announced it was acquiring performance management software maker Quallaby for about $33 million. Best known for its Netcool suite of products, Micromuse said that Quallaby’s Proviso performance management software would augment its products with the capabilities to manage converged IP services. The acquisition, expected to close within six weeks, would merge fault and performance management in both vendors’ customer networks.
ICSA Labs has released its annual “Virus Prevalence Survey,” a look at computer viruses and malware in companies with more than 500 PCs, two or more LANs and at least two remote connections. Of the 300 survey respondents, 112 reported at least one “virus disaster event” last year, a 6% increase over 2003. Netsky was named most often as the virus that caused the most recent disaster, followed by Slammer, MyDoom, Sober, Mimail and Sobig. The average costs sharply rose to more than $130,000, up from $99,000 in 2003.
The U.S. should look to regions such as China and Europe for ways to improve intellectual property policy or it runs the risk of driving business out of the country, an IBM executive said last week during a keynote address at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco. Describing the U.S. patent policy as “lousy,” IBM Vice President of Technology and Strategy Irving Wladawsky-Berger said the U.S. Patent Office has been too lax in granting patents. “Any idiot can get a patent for something that should never be granted a patent,” he said, adding that the European Union and China give more scrutiny to patents than the U.S. “Maybe the U.S. has a thing or two to learn from how those governments are treating IP to enable innovation.” Frivolous patent lawsuits ultimately could prove to be such an impediment to business that they could drive companies out of the U.S., Wladawsky-Berger said after the speech.
Former employees of a call center in Pune, India, were arrested last week on charges of defrauding four Citibank account holders from New York to the tune of $300,000, according to police in Pune. The three former employees of Mphasis BPO, the business process outsourcing operation of Bangalore software and services company Mphasis BFL Group, are charged with collecting and misusing customer account information. After obtaining customers’ PINs, the former employees and their accomplices used the services of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication to transfer funds from these accounts into their own accounts and fake accounts that were created for this purpose. The police acted on a complaint from Citibank, which was alerted when account holders noticed suspicious transactions in their accounts.
A group of technology vendors, along with U.S. government technology leaders, last week launched an effort to encourage federal workers to explore telecommuting as an option. The Telework Exchange is focused on showing federal agencies and government workers the benefits of telecommuting, or teleworking. The organization, announced during a press conference at the FOSE government IT trade show in Washington, D.C., comes on the heels of a survey published in January that showed nearly two-thirds of government workers haven’t been given the chance to telecommute even though Congress has established penalties for agencies that don’t allow telework options.
