Spyware bill passes House of Representatives   22 May 2007 13:00 GMT
The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed an antispyware bill that would make it illegal to access a computer without authorization to commit another federal crime. The bill now proceeds to the Senate.
Source: Computerworld

Companies open wallets for secure data   22 May 2007 13:00 GMT
An Amplitude Research survey of IT network and systems administrators finds that businesses have significantly increased their spending on secure data communications tech, and that many have undertaken significant work, including Vista upgrades, to improve their internal processes to benefit security.
Source: Computerworld

McCartney no-show on iTunes   22 May 2007 13:00 GMT
Less than two weeks after Apple's announcement that Paul McCartney's album catalog would be made available on iTunes, a number of other services have debuted the collection.
Source: Computerworld

New smartphone Trojan has a profit motive   22 May 2007 13:00 GMT
Smartphones running the Symbian OS are under new attack from a Trojan horse variant designed to steal users' money. This time, the malware needs no user interaction beyond the initial download -- and it can work all around the world.
Source: Computerworld

Linux users say 'Sue me first, Microsoft'   22 May 2007 12:45 GMT
Over 250 users of Linux and other open-source software are inviting Microsoft to put its money where its litigators' mouths are, signing a public wiki that includes an invitation for the company to deliver on its threatened lawsuits.
Source: Computerworld

Microsoft announces tools to keep bad Office files at bay   22 May 2007 12:45 GMT
The tools are designed to help defend against Office "zero-day" attacks, which take advantage of vulnerabilities before a patch is released by Microsoft.
Source: Computerworld

Networking trouble caused nuke plant to shut down   22 May 2007 10:43 GMT
A serious situation at a Tennessee nuclear power plant last summer proves that even devices such as water pumps can benefit from the use of a firewall, if the hardware is networked.
Source: Computerworld

Japan military data leak wider than previously thought   22 May 2007 10:43 GMT
Information on the Aegis missile defense system found in the home of a Japanese officer was, he claims, accidentally copied while swapping porn with another JMSDF officer. The compromised data includes information relating to sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors and the Link 16 system, which is used to exchange reconnaissance satellite data between Japan and the U.S.
Source: Computerworld

Expert: IT industry has failed in desktop security   21 May 2007 14:57 GMT
Software shipped with the major operating systems runs unencumbered on most machines--and not all of that software should be trusted, he says.
Source: ZDNet

Opensource project to do cheap data storage across the Web   21 May 2007 13:00 GMT
Cleversafe's Dispersed Storage Project will use commodity servers in disparate locations to store information that is broken up into pieces that are useless on their own. That makes the system inherently secure, private, and reliable, because if individual slices are lost, stolen, or corrupted, they don't reveal useful information.
Source: Computerworld