Ryan Naraine

With the clock ticking on a Feb. 3 D-Day for the activation of the destructive ‘Blackworm’ worm payload, anti-virus vendors are rushing to release free removal tools to help contain the damage. The worm, also known as Kama Sutra, MyWife.E or Nyxem.E, uses the lure of sexually explicit photographs to trick e-mail users into executing […]

Marc Maiffret is a worried man. The chief hacking officer and co-founder of eEye Digital Security looks at the rising popularity of hosted Web applications and sees a future where legitimate bug hunters are blocked from auditing popular product for security flaws. “How can you do an independent code audit when you have no access […]

Symantec Corp. has fessed up to using a rootkit-type feature in Norton SystemWorks that could provide the perfect hiding place for attackers to place malicious files on computers. The anti-virus vendor acknowledged that it was deliberately hiding a directory from Windows APIs as a feature to stop customers from accidentally deleting files but, prompted by […]

Anti-virus security vendor McAfee Inc. announced Tuesday the sudden departure of its president, Gene Hodges. Hodges, an 11-year McAfee veteran who was responsible for the company’s technology development, strategy and execution worldwide, has resigned to take the reins of access control vendor Websense Inc. McAfee did not identify a replacement for Hodges. In a brief […]

The legal battle against adware and spyware programs has taken a new turn with a pair of putative class action complaints against Direct Revenue and 180Solutions, two companies facing allegations of installing online tracking software through security holes and making it virtually impossible for computer users to remove the unwanted programs. Now that a judge […]

LAS VEGAS—Rootkits. Zero-day exploits. Social engineering. Encryption cracking. Cryptography. File format fuzzing. Kernel exploitation. These are just some of the buzzwords making the rounds at the Black Hat USA 2005 security conference here, where some of the sharpest minds in the research community will congregate to share information on computer and Internet security threats. The […]

Enterprise software giant Oracle has released a fix for an incomplete database server patch after a private security research outfit discovered that the underlying vulnerability was never addressed. Oracle Corp.’s patch fix comes almost a month to the day after David Litchfield, managing director at United Kingdom-based Next Generation Security Software Ltd., brought the faulty […]

As volunteer director of the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center, Marcus Sachs has an eagle-eyed view of Internet security, tracking cyber-threats in real time and raising awareness when malicious hackers launch attacks. Sachs also directs the Washington operations of the Cyber Security Research and Development Center, which is operated by SRI International’s Computer Science Laboratory […]

Microsoft on Tuesday released 10 advisories to cover a slew of security flaws in a range of products, including a “critical” cumulative update for the Internet Explorer browser. Three of the 10 bulletins are rated “critical,” the company’s highest severity rating. The IE fix, covered in MS MS05-025, corrects a remote code-execution vulnerability that exists […]

Apple has rolled out a security update to correct nine potentially serious vulnerabilities in the Mac OS X operating system. The update, which carries a “highly critical” rating from Secunia, comes with a modification to Apple Computer Inc.’s Safari browser to provide protection against an IDN (International Domain Names) URL-spoofing vulnerability. The IDN bug allows […]

If evidence were needed that the new browser war will be won or lost on the security message, along comes the Mozilla Foundation with public confirmation. Unfazed by Microsoft Corp.’s plan to roll out a security-centric Internet Explorer refresh later this year, the open-source Foundation says it will hire more staff to work full time […]

SAN FRANCISCO—After months of hemming and hawing on plans for a standalone Internet Explorer upgrade before Longhorn, Microsoft Corp. now plans to push out a browser refresh by July or August this year. But the news that IE 7.0 will be available only to Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) customers isn’t likely to sit […]