Cyber attacks growing more targeted

Anti-virus expert warns that hackers are turning to precise methods to steal company data There has been an increased amount of malware targeting specific companies, according to an anti-virus expert. Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of Finnish anti-virus company F-Secure said that targeted attacks where companies receive only a couple of malware-infected emails from criminals instead of thousands was "an interesting new phenomena". "Instead of the attacker sending out millions of emails with infected attachments to random recipients, the attack might send just five emails with infected attachments only to one single company," said Hypponen. ...more

Microsoft 'in talks' to buy stake in AOL

Microsoft and media giant Time Warner are in negotiations to merge the MSN and AOL portals according to reports in the New York Post. The Post says that according to its sources the two companies are in 'advanced discussions' to sell a stake in AOL to Microsoft. Under the proposed plan, Microsoft would pay cash upfront for AOL that would leave the two companies roughly equal partners. ...more

Amazon Unboxes video download service

Amazon has launched a video downloads service in the US, Amazon Unbox, selling 'DVD-quality' movies and TV shows. The service has begun selling movies from seven movie studios as well as TV shows from more than 20 broadcasters, including the BBC. Content is encoded at 2,500Kbps using the VC-1 Advanced Profile codec and downloads include a second file optimised for playback on any Windows Media-compatible portable device, but not an iPod. ...more

ASA provides new definition of 'unlimited' broadband

The Advertising Standards Authority appears to have established a new definition of 'unlimited', after it approved Vodafone's use of the word to describe an Internet access package with a fair usage capacity of just 1GB. The mobile phone network operator had claimed in a brochure advertising its Vodafone Data Unlimited service that the amount of data that could be downloaded each month was 'unlimited', before qualifying it by stating: 'fair usage of 1GB applies'. The service provides Internet access over its mobile network. ...more

Microsoft identifies flotilla of security holes

Microsoft has made patches available to cover critical vulnerabilities discovered in IE and Outlook Express. First up, for Outlook Express, there exists a flaw in the processes used to render HTML in emails. An email could be constructed that contained a URL which, if clicked on, would access a file stored on the local machine. ...more