Security
Wired, 3/13/03: Yaha Virus Uses Netizens as Pawns
By Michelle Delio
An e-mail worm that appears to be yet another salvo in a yearlong war between opposing groups of virus writers and hackers hits the Net Wednesday.
According to the Indian Snakes, authors of the worm known as Yaha, the latest worm was written to retaliate against Pakistani hackers who, the Snakes charge, are defacing websites based in India.
Security experts said the new worm isn't a huge threat, but rued the fact that ordinary PC users have become pawns in the hackers' power struggle.
[more]
Infoworld, 3/13/03: Windows broadband users targets for attack
Weakness relates to easily uncovered passwords
By David Legard
The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) security organization based at Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. has seen an increase in exploitation of weak administrator passwords on systems running Microsoft's Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating systems, the organization said Tuesday.
Attacks are being particularly -- though not exclusively -- targeted at home broadband users running those operating systems, according to CERT/CC
The weakness specifically refers to nonexistent or easily discovered passwords on SMB (Server Message Block) file shares, with thousands of systems being compromised in this way, CERT/CC said in an advisory.
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ZDNet, 3/13/03: Watered-down Code Red returns
By David Becker
Security experts said Wednesday there was little cause for alarm from a minor new variant of the destructive Code Red worm that began circulating this week.
Code Red.F, which differs from the original Code Red by only two bytes, began spreading Tuesday, according to reports from security software makers Symantec, McAfee and F-Secure. The new variant is detected by existing virus signatures for Code Red, according to the companies, and is blocked by patches for Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), which most administrators installed before or during the original Code Red outbreak.
The original Code Red wreaked widespread havoc during the summer of 2001, infecting more than 350,000 Web servers running IIS. The infected servers were used to spread the worm and to launch a denial-of-service attack on the main Web site for the White House.
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Mobile
Infoworld, 3/13/03: RIM shrinks the Blackberry
Company unveils two new devices
By Tom Krazit March 12, 2003
Research in Motion (RIM) unveiled two new BlackBerry handhelds with a smaller design and more memory for European users at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany , Wednesday.
The BlackBerry 6210 and BlackBerry 6220 allow users to make phone calls and check their corporate e-mail over GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communications/General Packet Radio Service) networks. The 6210 works on 900/1900MHz networks around the world, while the 6220 only works on 900/1800MHz networks in Europe and Asia-Pacific, RIM said.
[more]
Microsoft
InternetNews, 3/13/03: Will Office 2003 Lead to Lock-in?
By Thor Olavsrud
With the recent beta release of Microsoft Office 2003 out the door earlier this week, many customers got their first look at what Microsoft hopes will re-write the office productivity landscape with a new ecosystem of collaborative functionality based on XML (define). But will organizations have to scrap their piecemeal systems and buy into an entirely Microsoft architecture to tap it?
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