Dennis Fisher

Microsoft Corp. officials on Monday said that the company plans to release its long-awaited Service Pack 2 for Windows XP in August. Until today, the company had said only that the update would be available this summer. Microsoft last month released a second release candidate of the service pack, an unusual move for an interim […]

Frustrated by the barrage of security problems surrounding Microsoft Corp.s Internet Explorer, some enterprises are looking for ways to prevent employees from using the dominant browser and are casting about for alternatives. But as they turn to removing the browser as a safeguarding measure, some are finding the task not so simple. In fact, doing […]

When they first banded together nearly three years ago, the companies that would eventually form the Organization for Internet Safety hoped to develop a framework to help security researchers simplify and codify their interactions with software vendors and impose some order on the research community. The idea had some initial support from vendors and researchers, […]

Application security specialist SPI Dynamics Inc. is rolling out a solution that helps developers lock down applications during development through secure chunks of code. Meanwhile, startup Ounce Labs Inc., of Waltham, Mass., has released the second version of its Prexis source code analysis tool. While SPI Dynamics and Ounce Labs take different paths, both aim […]

Security software vendor McAfee Inc. has laid off about 100 employees in a number of groups throughout the company as part of its ongoing effort to cut costs and improve the companys operating margins. Officials at McAfee, based in Santa Clara, Calif., would not specify which departments were hit by the layoffs. However, sources close […]

The rash of recent attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Corp.s Internet Explorer browser is evidence that crackers are adopting tactics favored by spyware purveyors and could just be the beginning of a wave of highly targeted, well-engineered attacks, security experts say. Because of its market dominance and its much publicized security holes, IE has long […]

Customers who use a number of the top online banking sites are at risk of falling prey to a new Web-based attack that snatches user IDs and passwords for these sites. Among the sites targeted by the attack are some owned by Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Barclays Bank. The attack is rather complex and appears […]

Faced with an explosion in identity theft and phishing, lawmakers and vendors are taking action to increase penalties for the crimes and offer technological solutions to help stop the scams at their sources. VeriSign Inc. this week will unveil a service that officials said will help protect enterprises from phishing attacks and, in the bargain, […]

Application security specialist SPI Dynamics Inc. on Monday rolled out a new solution designed to help developers lock down their applications during development through the use of secure chunks of code. Also on Monday, a small startup, Ounce Labs Inc., of Waltham, Mass., released the second version of its Prexis source-code analysis tool. While SPI […]

Security experts are tracking a new piece of malware that appears to be compromising large numbers of Windows PCs and may be laying the groundwork for the creation of a large spamming network or a major attack in the future. Analysts at NetSec Inc., a managed security services provider, began seeing indications of the compromises […]