Matthew Broersma

Microsofts hearing at the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg starting Thursday is perhaps the most critical stage of a European Union legal process that is likely to stretch on for years, according to legal analysts. But any real-world impact from the hearings is likely to still be months away, experts said. The European Competition […]

Symantec Corp. has warned of a string of security holes in its Firewall/VPN Appliance and Gateway Security products, less than a month after its last firewall security problems. Three new bugs could allow a remote attacker to shut down a firewall appliance, identify active services in the WAN (wide area network) interface and alter the […]

Microsoft Corp.s offer to share the source code of Office 2003 with governments may be a positive move, but governments say it is unlikely to make much difference to which software they choose. On Monday Microsoft said it would extend its Government Security Program—which allows governments to inspect source code, visit the companys Redmond, Washington […]

Anti-virus companies are warning of a new variant of the Sdbot mass-mailing worm that installs a network sniffer in order to grab unencrypted passwords, apparently the first worm to do so. Separately, experts noted the appearance of another unusual worm—besides the usual infestation and damage, Amus uses Windows XPs built-in speech engine to inform users […]

Software giant Microsoft Corp. and U.K.-based cell phone maker Sendo Holdings plc. on Monday reached a settlement to their intellectual property dispute over a failed smart-phone partnership between the two companies. Before the January 2003 lawsuit, Sendo had been one of Microsofts earliest and staunchest allies in its bid to enter the market for high-end […]

Linux users are at risk from serious security vulnerabilities in components used to view graphics and handle archives, according to researchers. The security holes, found in the imlib graphics library and the LHA archive tool, can be exploited via a specially crafted bitmap image or an LHarc-format archive to take over a Linux system. The […]

Apple Computer Inc. has issued a patch for 15 security flaws in its Mac OS X operating system, including many originating in the softwares open-source components. The company, however, claims most users are safe from the bugs most dangerous effects. The patch, available from Apples Web site or through its automatic update system, fixes issues […]

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has disclosed a number of serious security flaws in the Kerberos v5 authentication system, the worst of which could give unauthorized users access to protected corporate networks. Various bugs in the Kerberos key distribution center, or KDC, which is used to authenticate users, may allow an attacker to run malicious […]

The European Union is introducing regionwide legislation to stop spammers, but even the most enthusiastic member states are not expecting prosecutions any time soon. Spam is a serious and growing problem in Europe, just as in the United States, and faces the added problem that while European users receive comparable levels of spam to those […]

Developers, IT department workers and early adopters have begun to report on their experiences installing Microsofts Windows XP Service Pack 2, and while most say they have had no serious problems installing the update, it hasnt all been smooth sailing, either. Early experiences suggest that the security-oriented upgrade will need extensive testing before IT managers […]