Stories by Ann Harrison

Database Programmer Arrested for Attack

Abdelkader Smires, 31, an employee at Internet Trading Technologies (ITTI) in New York, was being held without bail this week for allegedly launching a denial-of-service attack against the company.

Browser Patch Locks Out Win 2k Users

Microsoft Corp. warned network administrators last week to halt distribution of a 128-bit encryption upgrade patch for Internet Explorer 5.0 because it blocks Windows 2000 users from logging on to their computers.

Now, Firewalls for Your Phones

Improperly secured or unauthorized modems attached to private data networks can defeat network security practices and make companies vulnerable to backdoor attacks. As businesses concentrate on implementing Internet firewalls, some are also installing firewalls on their enterprise telephone network.

Corporate Security Begins at Home

One of the fallouts from last month's wave of distributed denial-of-service attacks has been a surge in the use of personal firewalls to secure home PCs accessing corporate networks and to track invaders who seek to use them in attacks.

ISPs Mobilize Against Attacks

As the FBI continues to search for suspects in the distributed denial-of-service attacks that paralyzed popular e-commerce sites last month and later hit the FBI site itself, Internet service providers are forming alliances to fight back.

Alleged NASA, DOD Cracker Is Charged

A student at Northeastern University in Boston was charged this week with using a hijacked corporate Internet account to attack NASA and Department of Defense computers and damage servers of an Internet service provider (ISP).

ActiveX Control May Open Security Hole

Microsoft Corp. this week said it will issue a patch for an ActiveX control program that can download software signed by Microsoft without prompting the user for permission to install it.

UPDATE: College Student Accused of Cracking

A student at Northeastern University in Boston was charged yesterday with using a hijacked corporate Internet account to attack NASA and U.S. Department of Defense computers and damage servers of a Washington-based Internet service provider.

Cracker Charged with Breaking into Systems

A Boston man was charged today with using a hijacked corporate Internet account to intercept log-in names and passwords on a NASA Web server that he then used to attack other government computer systems.

Experts Cite Canadian Teen in Web Attacks

Two California security analysts said they have provided the FBI with information the agency is using to track down one of the suspected attackers in the recent distributed denial-of-service attacks.about which sites to attack.

University Computer Used in Web Attacks

Officials at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) said Friday that a desktop computer located in a university research lab was used to help launch a distributed denial of service attack against CNN.com last week. The machine appeared to have been hijacked by one or more remote attackers who apparently built a network of machines used to invade at least eight Web sites last week.

Du Pont Adopts Central Security Monitoring

Security managers at large companies must often monitor a collection of multivendor security software and other security devices without the ability to conduct real-time surveillance of their far-flung systems from a single location.

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