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Symantec: Another Surge In Worm Scanning For Unpatched Antiv
2006-12-25 12:52:01
By Gregg Keizer, Symantec said Friday that it had detected another surge in scans for a port associated with a worm that’s been sniffing for vulnerable software made by the security company and warned users to patch immediately in case the malicious code morphs into something more dangerous. Sensors monitored by Symantec’s DeepSight threat management service have reported a significant spike in traffic related to TCP port 2967, which Symantec has traced to scans generated by the “Sagevo” worm, recently released malware looking for systems running some of the company’s enterprise antivirus software. Flaws in both Symantec AntiVirus and Symantec Client Security were revealed in May and patched that same month. Sagevo, however, looks for unpatched machines, then tries to gain control of them. Symantec reported that the number of sensors detecting scans of port 2097 were up over an uptick earlier in the week. “This is the most significant spike observ...
More About: Other , Scanning , Worm , Cann

Nintendo Responds to Lawsuit
2006-12-24 00:50:04
Nintendo says that the lawsuit is “completely without merit.” Yesterday we reported that law firm Green Welling LLP filed a nationwide class action lawsuit against Nintendo of America for defective wrist straps. Nintendo has offered an official rebuttal statement to the allegations, as carried in a GamesIndustry.biz story. ?We believe the lawsuit to be completely without merit,? read Nintendo?s statement. ?Nintendo has a long tradition of delivering high-quality products and excellent customer service, and we take all reports from our customers seriously.? ?At the time we became aware of the lawsuit, we had already taken appropriate steps to reinforce with consumers the proper use of the Wii Remote and had made stronger replacement wrist straps available. This suit has had no effect on those efforts,? said the company. The class action lawsuit awaits approval from a judge. Nintendo has already responded to wrist strap worries with stronger materials and safety reminders...
More About: Lawsuit , Nintendo , Laws , Tend , Pond

Opinion: To buy or not to buy a PS3
2006-12-24 00:50:04
For some reason, Playstation 3s have been popping up around the country here and there. You still need to have some luck to come across a console, but there’s a good chance that you’ll run into available units on your last shopping day before Christmas. And question will be: Should you buy it? What it is all about: The PS3 in detail … Waiting for the PS3: Tent cities forming in front of stores … Well, here is a situation few of us had expected: The Playstation 3 is actually in reach, without a need to shell out a big premium to an Ebay seller. I admit, I was among those who wanted to buy a PS3 initially and I really did not want to deal with a lower resolution Wii and a one-year-old Xbox 360. But who camps out seven days in front of a Best Buy to get a game console? Certainly not me and when I saw that PS3s were going for $4000+ on Ebay I planned on getting the console sometime in Spring, when I believed supply would be able to catch up with demand...
More About: Opinion

Crazy Wiimote Prototype Images Surface
2006-12-24 00:50:04
Someone at Nintendo thought a discus was a good idea? The Wii mote is already pretty unconventional — but that kind of design doesn’t just happen overnight. A brief stroll down memory lane illustrates just how circuitous the Wii’s progression to its current design actually was. Turns out Nintendo cooked up all kinds of crazy ideas in the effort to spark their Revolution. Behold — an image of early Wii prototypes as they recently appeared in the Japanese-only Nikkei Business Magazine. Some of the shapes are kind of recognizable as Wii prototypes and some of them just look like frisbees with invincibility stars on them. You can practically see the little Darwinian evolution diagram showcasing an amoeba-that-becomes-a-gamecube-controller -that-becomes-a-wiimote in there somewhere, can’t you? Bored of mad science? Check out some of Nintendo’s more ‘finalized’ patent illustrations. Slightly more recognizable, but still pretty weird. Thanks ...
More About: Surf , Images , Crazy , Roto

Santa?s Web site hacked
2006-12-24 00:50:04
Heatmiser, Coldmiser, and now we get Malwaremiser December 22, 2006 (IDG News Service) — As if Sant a Claus hasn’t got enough to do this week, it turns out he’s fighting off some very, very nasty elves. The consumer advocacy group stopbadware.org said it was approached this week by an Incline Village, Nevada, man who has legally changed his name to Santa Claus, who asked them to help figure out why his Web site was being flagged by Google Inc.’s Web site filters. It turned out that Santa’s Web site, Santaslink.net had been hacked. On Friday, the Web site was still downloading malicious software, according to Roger Thompson, chief technology officer with Exploit Prevention Labs Inc. It exploits a bug in Internet Explorer that Microsoft Corp. patched last August, meaning that people running older versions of the browser could be at risk, Thompson said via instant message. “The site is hacked,” he said. “If you are not patched, it...
More About: Hack , Site , Hacked

Allchin defends Vista?s security credentials
2006-12-24 00:50:04
The argument between Sophos and Microsoft over the security of Windows Vista took another turn on Tuesday when Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin stepped in to try and calm things down. The dispute was started at the end of November when security software vendor Sophos published its “top 10 threats” for the coming year, and included three potential threats to Vista ? the internet worms labelled Stratio-Zip, Netsky-D and MyDoom-O. According to Sophos, while companies running wholly Microsoft environments ? Vista with other Microsoft software on top ? would be secure, companies running third-party software would be vulnerable. Most organisations fall into that category, such as companies choosing to run IBM/Lotus Notes, instead of Microsoft Exchange. Allchin argued in a blog posting on Tuesday that this is untrue, and that Vista can live happily alongside the right third-party security products. If individuals and organisations use their Vista or third-party security tools...
More About: Security , Eden , Ends , Credential