Network Security Roundup for October 24, 2003

E-Commerce Times: Spyware as Enterprise Achilles Heel
24-Oct-03 6:56 ET

Story Highlights:
"As IT departments battle trojans, viruses and worms, one particularly nasty critter is still finding myriad ways to slither onto enterprise PCs. Spyware, usually considered an annoyance of home users, has been showing up more often in the corporate world, and it is bad news for business users. If users' keystrokes are recorded by spyware, for example, the malware's author could gain access to corporate passwords, credit card numbers, e-mails and other sensitive documents. What can companies do to defend against this largely unseen scourge?"

Full Story on the E-Commerce Times

Story Highlights:
"Putting personal information online has hazards. Complaints of Internet-related identity theft more than tripled to 2,352 last year from the year before, says the Federal Trade Commission. While that's a fraction of the 168,000 nationwide reports of ID theft, the growth is alarming as more consumers shop online."

Full Story on USA Today

Story Highlights:
"Secure Linux operating system and software provider Trustix was today acquired by internet security company Comodo. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Comodo, which is best known as a certification authority for SSL certificates, said that the deal will allow the developers of Trustix to take advantage of Comodo's sizeable R&D labs to further improve Trustix's software for the benefit of the Linux community at large."

Full Story on The Register

Story Highlights:
"SafeNet Inc., a security company with chip, board and software products for encryption and Virtual Private Networks, said Thursday (Oct. 23) it will merge with Rainbow Technologies Inc. Baltimore-based SafeNet will issue 11.1 million shares of its common stock for all Rainbow stock, worth approximately $457 million on a fully diluted basis, based on SafeNet's closing price of $41.02 on Oct. 22."

Full Story on EE Times

Story Highlights:
"A program that exploits a software vulnerability Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) recently described could spell trouble for companies that haven't quickly patched their system, security experts said this week. Released on a security mailing list earlier this week, the program takes advantage of a flaw in Microsoft's Messenger Service to cause Windows-based computers to crash. The vulnerability affects almost every current Microsoft Windows system."

Full Story on CNET