Phishers turn malicious

Phishers are becoming more sophisticated in their attacks. The new techniques no longer require users to enter their own information but instead use keyboard loggers to acquire personal data. The latest report from the AntiPhishing Working Group says that there have been in the past few months a steep rise in incidents where code is designed to log keystrokes when a connection is made to a target website. ...more

OFT shuts down domain scam

The Office of Fair Trading has forced a company to stop its practise of calling businesses to warn them that someone was about to register a domain name similar to that of their business, and then offering to sell them that same domain. Swansea-based Internet Registrations Bureau Limited (IRBL) trading as Euro Web Designs, was unable to show the OFT any evidence that these third parties, which the IRBL was alleging were about to buy these names, existed. John Vickers, OFT Chairman, said: 'We will continue to crack down on advertisers who make misleading claims about their services. ...more

Microsoft previews security-hardened XP Service Pack 2 with new release candidate

Microsoft has unexpectedly released the new Release Candidate 2 of its Windows XP Service Pack 2. At present, RC2 is only available to those registered with Microsoft's Windows beta programme. However, it is expected that RC2 will be opened up to a wider range of testers in the near future. ...more

The Linux year in brief

Things augured well for the adoption of the Linux operating system even before the year had begun, with Red Hat moving into profit for the first time, fuelled by strong demand from the enterprise. But while the corporate world was beginning to rally round the platform, MandrakeSoft, vendor of one of the most user-friendly distributions, filed for the French equivalent of Chapter 11-style bankruptcy protection. Even worse followed shortly, when speculation that a company called SCO had hired a high profile lawyer to look into revenue opportunities from its Unix IP turned out to be entirely true. ...more

Handspring turns Visor into a cell phone

PDA manufacturer Handspring demonstrated a GSM cell-phone module for the Visor at the Personal Communications Show in Chicago yesterday. The VisorPhone clicks into the Visor's expansion port, with the module's speaker acting as an earpiece and the Visor's built-in microphone becoming a mouthpiece. The software keyboard acts as the number pad and the Visor can store up to five pages of single-tap quick-dial numbers. ...more