Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Big Blue purchase sparks rumours of more mergers. When massive cross-sector IT giant IBM bought Internet Security Systems for a rumoured $1.3 billion last week, it joined the list of monster corporations looking to embed themselves further in the security sphere. Following on from EMC ‘s purchase of RSA a few months ago, the move…

Security firm reports 88% of new malware linked to cyber crime. The labs of Spanish firm Panda Software have released a quarterly report, stating that criminal activity is behind 88% of all new malware detected in the last three months. The document states that 54% of new discoveries were Trojan horses, up from 47% the…

As phishing nets spread wider, Yahoo! announces defensive ‘seal’. Web giant Yahoo! has announced plans to introduce a new anti-phishing system to help protect its customers. The seal is a customizable personal logo, which will be included in login screens to help identify genuine Yahoo! sites. The seal system, currently available to a limited user…

Sophos joins anti-rootkit market, others expected to follow soon. Sophos has released a free anti-rootkit tool, available for download from its website. The UK-based company joins F-Secure , whose BlackLight has been around for some time and will soon be integrated into the company’s mainstream product line. Also in the field are, among others, Grisoft…

Spoof mail claims to come from anti-child porn site. A spam campaign claiming to come from child porn activists ASACP accuses recipients of visiting child porn sites, suggesting a donation to the organisation will persuade them to take no further action. Although the tone of the mail is mild, the implied threat is clearly intended…

PowerPoint zero-day hype just hype after all. After an announcement from Trend Micro sparked numerous reports of a zero-day PowerPoint exploit, taking advantage of an as-yet-unreleased vulnerability in the Microsoft product, the Redmond giant has cried foul and denied any new bug exists. The initial announcement stated the threat used an unknown vulnerability, wording which…

Pump-and-dump couple face fines, as do many others worldwide. A Connecticut couple have been indicted over claims they used a spam campaign to artificially inflate stock prices. In a fairly typical example of the pump-and-dump scam, the pair allegedly bought a swathe of cheap stocks in a small startup company, spread rumours of major deals…

Christian Aid warns supporters of bogus emails, while Katrina phishmaster is indicted. Church charity organisation Christian Aid has released a statement warning supporters to be wary of a series of phishing emails, purporting to come from the accounts departments of various church-related charities and aid agencies. Many of the spammed mails request bank details and…

Free product offered by AOL accused of potentially unwanted tactics. Recently released Active Virus Shield , the Kaspersky -based anti-virus product from web giant AOL , is coming under criticism, with allegations ranging from harbouring adware to actually being spyware. According to a report from PC World , small print in the EULA attached to…

With books under scrutiny, McAfee is sued over property rights. As McAfee faces up to the likelihood of its financial results for the last five years being overturned following revelations of stock option discrepancies, a lawsuit alleging patent violations is pending. The rights issue involves unified threat management technology, a patent for which was originally…