Brian Prince

Symantec officials announced the release of an upgraded version of Backup Exec System Recovery that features enhanced Microsoft Exchange support and data recovery capabilities they hope will speed and simplify the Windows system recovery process. Backup Exec System Recovery 7.0 works by creating recovery points to capture an exact copy of a system, company officials […]

Oracle Tuesday issued its second critical patch update for the year, this time patching 36 security holes in its products – including several that can be exploited remotely by an attacker without authentication. The most serious of the flaws affects Oracle relational database management system running on Windows, which received a Common Vulnerability Scoring System […]

In a bid to unify database performance management, CA on April 16 introduced an advanced analysis and diagnostic tool for its database management product. Dubbed CA Insight Database Performance Monitor for Distributed Databases, the performance analysis tool allows administrators to monitor both the real-time and historical performance of all an enterprises databases from a single […]

Microsoft is investigating attacks exploiting a vulnerability in the Windows Server Domain Name System Service, as well as two types of hacks targeting Vistas OEM BIOS activation feature. A company spokesperson said a very limited number of attacks exploiting the flaw in the Windows Server DNS Service have been seen in the wild. “Our investigation […]

A House committee gave the federal government a grade of C-minus for 2006 as part of the committees annual assessment of how well information is protected on government computers. The annual report by the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee is meant to judge compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act. The committee has […]

IT organizations are being urged to deploy a patch for a bug affecting how Microsoft Windows handles animated cursors as spammers step up their efforts to exploit the flaw—this time with a promise of lewd pictures of celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton. The spammed e-mail messages have subject lines such as “Hot pictures of Paris […]

Oracle plans to release patches to plug 37 security holes in its products next week, according to a preview of the upcoming Critical Patch Update released April 10. The update will be made available April 17 and will include 13 security fixes for Oracle Database, two for Oracle Enterprise Manager, and one each for Oracle […]

Microsoft says a preliminary investigation into reports of vulnerabilities in its Office 2007 suite has produced no evidence of a threat to users. Reports of new security holes in MS Office have been made public on known exploit sites, including information about four bugs posted on one site. Microsoft has not released specific information about […]

Symantec has patched a security hole in its Enterprise Security Manager tool that allows attackers to take control of infected machines. The Cupertino, Calif., company cautioned users in an advisory that all versions of ESM, except version 6.5.3, are vulnerable to a remote code execution attack. The problem, officials at the anti-virus vendor reported, is […]

Microsoft is investigating public reports of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office. Reports of several new security holes in Microsoft Office have been made public on known exploit sites. The company did not release specific information about the vulnerabilities, citing potential risk to users. “Microsoft is not aware of any attacks attempting to use the reported vulnerability […]