Monday News Feed 5/5/08

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=security&articleId=9082178&taxonomyId=17&intsrc=kc_top
May 2, 2008 (Computerworld) Escalating her efforts to get a California court to break the links to online documents that allegedly contain sensitive personal data, Virginia-based privacy advocate Betty "BJ" Ostergren today posted links on her Web site to legal filings containing what she says are the Social Security numbers of the mayor of Riverside, Calif., as well as other city officials.
Ostergren, whose site is called The Virginia Watchdog, claims that potentially tens of thousands of documents containing Social Security numbers, medical histories, tax records and bank account data have been posted on the Web site of the Superior Court in California's Riverside County as part of civil case records.






The Bank of Ireland said data from 31,500 customers was contained on four stolen laptops; and a parliament committee criticizes the British government's Web strategy. Read more...






Google takes down open-source project after DMCA complaint






DDoS attacks knock Radio Free Europe off the Web







Military computer contractor pleads guilty to ID theft






cbc.ca — The Tories (Canada's GOP) said they raised the age, in part, to deal with internet predators. The new law puts Canada's age of consent in line with those in Britain, Australia and most of the United States.This is the first time it has been raised since 1892.More…






Windows Vista Update Causing Loss of Audio on Some Systems
Published: 2008-05-03,Last Updated: 2008-05-03 23:26:07 UTC
by Deborah Hale (Version: 1)

According to an article at Channel Web a recent update offered for a driver update for IDT (Formerly Sigmatel)'s high definition sound is causing problems for Dell Users that have installed it.

"Should you see this update appear, *do not* install it," warned 'Chris B', a Dell (NSDQ:Dell) Digital Life Liason, in a Thursday forum post.

The update is called IDT High Def Codec and was reported to be one of the drivers that held up the release of SP1 for Vista back in February. If you have a Dell computer and have not yet installed Vista SP1, you may want to take a look at the full article.
www.crn.com/software/207500472







PHP Multiple Vulnerabilities - Moderately critical - From remoteIssued 3 days ago. Some vulnerabilities have been reported in PHP, where some have unknown impacts and others can be exploited by malicious users to bypass certain security restrictions, and potentially by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) or to compromise a vulnerable system.






Stepped Up Cyber Role for Spy Agencies
Read Brian Krebs's latest story on washingtonpost.com: "White House Plans Proactive Cyber-Security Role for Spy Agencies."

America's spy agencies for the first time would be tasked with gathering intelligence on threats to the nation's computer networks under a policy set to be detailed by the White House next week, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Speaking at a security conference in Washington, the official said the Bush administration wants to harness the intelligence community's offensive capabilities in defense of government and civilian computer systems. Continue reading...






"China's cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability."






"The Chinese government is demanding that US-owned hotels there filter Internet service during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, US Senator Sam Brownback has alleged. The Chinese government is requiring US-owned hotels to install Internet filters to 'monitor and restrict information coming in and out of China,' Brownback said Thursday. 'This is an insult to the spirit of the games and an affront to American businesses,' he said. 'I call on China to immediately rescind this demand.' US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he wasn't aware of those specific requests from the Chinese government, but Brownback said he got the information on Internet filtering from 'two different reliable but confidential sources.' The State Department is apparently continuing dialog with China about freedom of expression."







Government wiretaps—the ones we know about—up 20% for 2007
Data released this week on 2007 wiretaps shows that nearly all intercepts are for "portable devices" and 80 percent of all taps target drug criminals. Secret FISA warrants are also up, and no one knows what's happening with warrantless surveillance at the NSA.
May 04, 2008 - 08:15PM CT - by Nate Anderson









Pentagon fears trojans, kill switches in foreign-made CPUs
Worried about the possibility of kill-switches and backdoors in mission-critical integrated circuits, the Department of Defense has launched the "Trust in IC" program to root out foreign tweaks to common chips.
May 02, 2008 - 11:45AM CT - by Jon Stokes








Spambot hides behind pictureMay 5, 2008A spamming run over the weekend offers pictures, and installs a hidden spambot.






And from Bob:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/virtual/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207404029
Desktop Virtualization Drives Security, Not Just Dollar Savings






30th Anniversary of spam








"Byzantine" botnet uses military, education servers for spam
Jim Carr May 02, 2008
Researchers at an Eastern European security company have uncovered a spam-sending scheme of "Byzantine complexity" that attempts to use military and university email servers to send junk email







What's Up with the Secret Cybersecurity Plans, Senators Ask DHS
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/senate-panel-qu.html







May 05, 2008 Russian Business Network was also heavily linked to distribution of malicious code
http://www.crime-research.org/news/05.05.2008/3348/







Symantec claims over 700,000 new viruses were identified in 2007, an increase of almost 500% over the number identified last year.
http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/white_papers/b-whitepaper_internet_security_threat_report_xiii_04-2008.en-us.pdf