Security
Computerworld, 7/10/03: Social engineering: It's a matter of trust
By Douglas Schweitzer
Boiled down, social engineering is simply the exploitation of the natural human tendency to trust. It's sometimes used by hackers -- or others with malevolent intent -- to gain unauthorized access to a computer, with the goal of obtaining information that resides therein.
Social engineering uses computer security cracking techniques that rely on weaknesses in human nature rather than weaknesses in hardware, software or network design. Using social engineering, even someone with minimal computer hacking skills can find his way into a supposedly secure computer system and access, modify or destroy the data contained in it.
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InternetWeek, 7/10/03: Mail-Filters Introduces Software To Protect E-Mail Providers Against Being Hijacked To Send Spam
Mail-Filters on Wednesday introduced software designed for Internet service providers and other e-mail providers, to protect against their services being hijacked to send spam. SpamPlug monitors outbound e-mail to detect spam, just as conventional spam filters are used to monitor inbound e-mail.
The software is designed for ISPs, hotels, Internet cafes, executive office suites and enterprises. The software is designed to block spam, which can tarnish a mail provider's reputation and cause it to be blacklisted by the anti-spam community. It's also designed to let legitimate mail through.
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The New York Times, 7/11/03: Hackers Hijack PC's for Sex Sites
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have recently had their computers hijacked by hackers, who computer security experts say are using them for pornographic Web sites.
The hijacked computers, which are chosen by the hackers apparently because they have high-speed connections to the Internet, are secretly loaded with software that makes them send explicit Web pages advertising pornographic sites and offer to sign visitors up as customers.
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Microsoft
Network World, 7/9/03: Microsoft revives TrustBridge for Web services role
By John Fontana
SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft is dusting off its year-old and mostly forgotten TrustBridge technology and recasting it as middleware to support federation of identities across disparate platforms, company officials said Wednesday.
Microsoft said at the annual Burton Group Catalyst Conference that TrustBridge will become a security server capable of producing a user authentication and authorization token in a variety of formats. It will also facilitate the sharing of that token across corporate boundaries.
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Optimism
Business Week, 7/21/03: Commentary: Why the Tech Rally Is No Freak Performance
That sound from Wall Street this week was the sharp snap of minds changing about technology stocks. The NASDAQ Composite Index average jumped 5% on July 7 and 8, to cross 1,700 for the first time since May, 2002. It's now up 31% for the year. The biggest catalyst was a survey of corporate technology buyers that Goldman, Sachs & Co. released on July 7, saying that tech spending will rise about 5% next year by Goldman's reckoning, the first gain since 2000. That may not sound like much, but consider the source: Goldman has been bearish on tech for two-plus years.
Is Wall Street getting carried away? Maybe, but not as much as it may seem. Tech companies have been beating their earnings estimates for the first time in two years. Renewed business confidence is raising hopes that CEOs may start spending again. And because info-tech companies have cut costs so drastically over the past three years, even a modest uptick in capital spending should fall straight to the bottom line.
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