In his quest for a bigger share of the highly competitive computer-security market, Eugene Kaspersky treks to 20 to 30 countries a year, promoting the company bearing his name and warning the world about cybercrime.

Cybercrime “is everywhere, and the crooks are getting more organized,” says Kaspersky, co-founder and CEO of Moscow-based Kasperksy Lab. “It isn’t just in Russia.”

The 11-year-old computer-security company, which made its name in its native Russia and Germany, is now setting its sights on the U.S. and elsewhere after establishing a beachhead of retailers in North America the past few years.

Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President George W. Bush last week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia, posing unusual concern among commanders and potential implications for national security.

Defense officials would not describe the extent of damage inflicted on military networks. But they said the attack struck hard at networks within U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and affected computers in combat zones. The attack also penetrated at least one highly protected classified network.

Military computers are regularly beset by hackers, viruses and worms. But Defense Department officials said the most recent attack involves an intrusive piece of malicious software, or “malware,” apparently designed specifically to target military networks.

Network security software from a Chinese developer includes processes deliberately hidden from a user and, even worse, a hidden directory, Trend Micro reports (http://blog.trendmicro.com/suspicious-rootkit-lurks-in-eis-software/). Files in the hidden directory could exist below the radar of antivirus scanners, potentially creating a stealthy hiding place for computer viruses that their creators might seek to exploit.

Trend Micro has written to the software developers involved in what looks like a case of misguided software design, rather than anything worse. Pending a fix from software developers, Trend Micro has slapped a "hacking tool" warning on the rootkit-like component of the network security tool (called HKTL-BRUDEVIC (http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/grayware/ve_graywareDetails.asp?GNAME=HKTL_BRUDEVIC)).

It doesn’t name the developers except to say they are the same firm which bundles rootkit-like software with USB storage devices featuring fingerprint authentication.

Sony got a further black eye from issues with its MicroVault USM-F fingerprint reader software last year, which emerged a little over two years after its thorough mauling for including rootkit functionality on its music CDs. The feature, designed to stop fans ripping music tracks, created a security hole exploited by a number of Trojans.

Article Source(Continued)

Researchers have unearthed rootkit-like functionality in an enterprise security product.

Network security software from a Chinese developer includes processes deliberately hidden from a user and, even worse, a hidden directory, Trend Micro reports. Files in the hidden directory could exist below the radar of antivirus scanners, potentially creating a stealthy hiding place for computer viruses that their creators might seek to exploit.

Trend Micro has written to the software developers involved in what looks like a case of misguided software design, rather than anything worse. Pending a fix from software developers, Trend Micro has slapped a “hacking tool” warning on the rootkit-like component of the network security tool (called HKTL-BRUDEVIC).

If someone at the till is flashing their BMW car keys, they might just be showing off. Or they might be paying for their goods with that could be called the BMW car key credit card.

Yes, this pocket-sized device gets you into your luxury motor, but it also packs in a security chip that allows that same ‘key’ to be used as a credit card. And that’s not all - with a decent-sized bit of memory hidden away in there, you can also take your personal subscriptions, favourite radio stations and contact details with you from car to car. And any sales you make with your key can be monitored online via a secure site.

Clever stuff, although what happens when someone nicks your key doesn’t bear thinking about. We would guess some sort of block will be added to it before it shifts from concept to market - which could be as soon as next year.

The TechCrunch post on Joost for the iPhone came across my Twitter feed so I quickly launched iTunes and found the free Joost application. The application started up and looked promising on my WiFi connection, but I found the same issues that TechCrunch did with the application unable to play movies.

After launching Joost you will see a display with icons for Joost Picks (starts out here), Popular, Browse, Search and More along the bottom. I browsed through the films and tried to watch Starship Troopers, but received the Playback Error. I then took the advice of a TechCrunch commenter and restarted my device to play back the Men in Black Joost Pick, but again that video failed.

I then decided to try something shorter and launched one of the music videos. It started playing and then the audio cut out when I tried turning the volume down and the play/pause button flashed on and off. I paused it and then pushed play again and it ran for a while before then again cutting out the volume and seeing the video get very choppy.

REMEMBER your first kiss? Experiments in mice suggest that patterns of chemical “caps” on our DNA may be responsible for preserving such memories. To remember a particular event, a specific sequence of neurons must fire at just the right time. For this to happen, neurons must be connected in a certain way by chemical junctions called synapses. But how they last over decades, given that proteins in the brain, including those that form synapses, are destroyed and replaced constantly, is a mystery.

Now Courtney Miller and David Sweatt of the University of Alabama in Birmingham say that long-term memories may be preserved by a process called DNA methylation - the addition of chemical caps called methyl groups onto our DNA.

Many genes are already coated with methyl groups. When a cell divides, this “cellular memory” is passed on and tells the new cell what type it is - a kidney cell, for example. Miller and Sweatt argue that in neurons, methyl groups also help to control the exact pattern of protein expression needed to maintain the synapses that make up memories.

Even though FreeBSD 7.x is already out and updated, the FreeBSD team keeps working on the FreeBSD 6.x branch, now designated the legacy branch. They released FreeBSD 6.4 today, with lots of new features, fixes, and updates. They are expecting FreeBSD 6.4 to be the last release in the 6.x branch.

The highlights of the release are listed as follows:

* New and much-improved NFS Lock Manager (NLM) client
* Support for the Camellia cipher
* boot loader changes allow, among other things, booting from USB devices and booting from GPT-labeled devices with GPT-enabled BIOSes
* DVD install ISO images for amd64/i386
* KDE updated to 3.5.10, GNOME updated to 2.22.3
* Updates for BIND, sendmail, OpenPAM, and others

Could your computer become a hacker’s storage vault for child porn, unbeknownst to you? Some say it can happen, and has. One Plainfield man facing child pornography charges thinks it happened to him.

Kevin F. Plachta, 45, of 16125 Vintage Drive in Plainfield, said he may have inadvertently downloaded a computer virus, or was the victim of a hacker, but he didn’t knowingly download child porn.

About a year ago, the FBI seized his household computers, saying they had reason to believe there was child porn on one of them, Plachta said. They took three computers and eventually returned two, he said. The FBI refused to return the third because they said there were questionable images on it, Plachta said.

Finjan has warned internet users to be on their guard following an apparent compromised webpage on one of the sub-domains on the CBS.com portal.

The North American network revealed that etix.cbs.com was compromised as a result of malicious activity. Cybercriminals added a malicious obfuscated script to the infected page which added a malicious IFrame to the page.

The injected IFrame automatically loads another malicious script from a remote server controlled by criminals in Russia, causing a possible installation of malware on the unsuspecting client machine. Finjan reported that actions had already been taken to turn the particular Russian server offline.