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Big vendors tardy on fixing security flaws
Some of the biggest names in the IT software business still are very lax when it comes to fixing security holes reported by third-party brokers.
According to a list maintained by TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Computer Associates and Hewlett-Packard are among the vendors most tardy about shipping fixes for known flaws that could be used in code execution attacks.
Microsoft, for example, has nine "high risk" vulnerabilities on the list. Three of the nine Microsoft product flaws were reported more than 404 days ago.
IE7 lock-in with XP SP3
Microsoft has warned users updating to Windows XP SP3 that they won't be able to downgrade from Internet Explorer 7 to the older IE6 without uninstalling the service pack. The warning first appeared in a post Monday to a company blog written by the IE development team. Microsoft released Windows XP SP3 to Windows Update as an optional download Tuesday.
Advantages of Hosted Exchange 2007, SharePoint Services
With business decisions resting on accurate, up-to-date information, organizations are recognizing the need for a comprehensive messaging and collaboration solution that keeps everyone in sync--an application that enables team members to effectively share information and quickly respond to others. That's why businesses of all sizes are evaluating full-featured, enterprise-class solutions like Microsoft Exchange 2007 and SharePoint to meet their business goals.
TechRepublic's Webcast, featuring Steve O'Brien, Sr. Director of Service Development at USA.NET, and host James Hilliard, Moderator for TechRepublic, who explore how companies can gain these advantages with no capital outlay for infrastructure resources.
New article: The White House email controversy: it's time for a Special Prosecutor
These have not been good weeks in our cause to repair the systemic problems with White House email. This week, we have a judge who's directing the White House to look in many of the wrong places. We have a White House CIO who claims that asset management is a new invention, so it's tough to keep track of those pesky hard drives. We also have a White House who can't account for any email messages at all during the months of the initial Iraq invasion. And we have a Congress who's decided we don't need any real form of record management for another four years. Sadly, officials in Washington are not making the situation any better. In fact, it's getting worse.
Read this OutlookPower article.
Yahoo fixes ActiveX flaw
Yahoo has silently pushed out a patch for a critical vulnerability affecting users of its Yahoo Assistant browser add-on. According to an alert from a researcher at Nevis Labs, the vulnerability "allows attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations."
Yahoo Assistant is marketed to Chinese users as a security product featuring tools to repair Internet Explorer settings, provide antivirus protection and block pop-up advertising.
Microsoft withdraws Yahoo offer
Microsoft withdrew its offer for Yahoo on Saturday as negotiations fell through on price, even after the software giant raised its bid by about $5 billion to $47.5 billion.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said his company increased its offer to $33 per share, from the $31 per share cash-and-stock bid that it initially made on January 31. But Yahoo was looking for $37 a share, Ballmer said.
Yahoo never got offer in writing
Monday was a rough day for Yahoo, with shares plunging 15% in the wake of the weekend collapse of merger talks with Microsoft. Yahoo's President, Sue Decker, sat down with Yahoo Finance Tech Ticker editor Sarah Lacy in San Francisco and recounted her version of events during the 3-month takeover battle. She reiterated what looks to be a key Yahoo theme: Jerry Yang & Co. never received written confirmation of Microsoft's $33 raised bid. This is an echo of comments made by Yahoo sources over the weekend (including those to the Wall Street Journal and CNBC).
Post-Yahoo, what should Microsoft do?
Now that the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is tabled, what is Microsoft's next move? Many are assuming Microsoft is waiting for Yahoo's stock to tank in order to sweep in and make another pass at Yahoo. Others are counting on Microsoft buying another Web 2.0 powerhouse in Yahoo's stead--a MySpace, FaceBook or an AOL.
Investors sue Yahoo, CEO
With Yahoo's stock down, Yahoo and CEO Jerry Yang are facing lawsuits from angry stockholders. Yang says he was open to Microsoft's advances, but "they choose to walk away." Reportedly, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer refused to meet Yang's price of $37 a share. Meantime, Yahoo's CEO choose to focus on a questionable deal with Google.
XP SP3 released
Microsoft released the third service pack for Windows XP to the Web after last week delaying its scheduled release because of an incompatibility with one of its other software applications. It also resumed automatic distribution of Windows Vista, Service Pack 1, which had been halted because of a similar problem.
Windows XP SP3 is now available through Windows Update and also on the Microsoft Download Center. Microsoft had expected to release the software on April 29; however, it discovered it conflicted with an application called Microsoft Dynamics RMS. The problem also affected Windows Vista SP1. Dynamics RMS is a retail-chain-management software for small and midsized businesses.
Download Center revamped using Silverlight
Microsoft is beta-testing a new version of its Microsoft Download Center Web site using Silverlight technology, a browser plug-in and development runtime for adding multimedia and high-definition video to Web-based applications.
A visit to the Microsoft Download Center on Tuesday opened a page inviting users to test the new site, which Microsoft said is being enhanced by Silverlight.
Pivot4U Excel add-in
Excel4U.Net Solutions announced Pivot4U, an add-in for Microsoft Excel that enhances it with a new feature--editable pivot tables. With Pivot4U Add-in, any pivot table, using an Excel sheet as source data, will grow into a powerful tool for planning, calculations or form of data entry. All the power of calculations and planning "FROM ABOVE-DOWNWARD" will become readily accessible without complex and costly software.
A pivot table is a data summarization tool that, among other functions, can automatically sort, count, and total the data stored in one table or spreadsheet and create a second table displaying the summarized data. Pivot4U Add-in 1.2 requires Microsoft Office 2007 and .NET Framework 2.0. The product is available immediately as a free evaluation version from www.excel4u.net. The evaluation version can be tried for 14 days before making the purchase of $79.99 (US).
David's cure for insomnia
For those of you who happen to be awake at 4am Rocky Mountain time, David will be broadcasting on the 50,000 watt radio station KOA-850AM, doing the after-midnight show with Rick Barber and talking about White House email and the Mexican theft of White House BlackBerrys. Just so you know, in order to do this at 4am Rocky Mountain time, David's got to be conscious and lucid at 6am Florida time.
If you know our fearless leader, you know he's definitely not a 6am kinda guy, so the only way this is going to fly is stay up and do the show before going to bed. In any case, if you happen to be up at 4am and located pretty much anywhere on the western side of the US (50,000 watts reaches a long distance at night), you can tune in. You can also listen via their Web feed, should you be in a different part of the world. David promises to do his best to keep you awake throughout the full hour.
And, if you're mature and sleeping, like all good people should be at that hour, we'll post the download link sometime in the next day or so when it makes it online.
Microsoft hit with patent suit
A company that develops cameras that produce 360-degree videos is suing Microsoft for alleged patent infringement in its RoundTable conferencing product.
In a filing this week with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, FullView asks the court to require Microsoft to stop selling RoundTable and to award FullView triple damages.
FullView's patent, which builds on other patent applications dating back to 1995, covers a camera system that combines the fields of view of several cameras to form a continuous 360-degree view.
Microsoft, Yahoo talks intensify
Microsoft and Yahoo have intensified talks in a last-minute effort to reach a friendly agreement on a buyout of Yahoo, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
Yahoo shares rose 7 percent on news of the accelerated talks. Investors had feared Microsoft might walk away from its unsolicited bid, now worth about $42.2 billion, or launch a hostile takeover battle. The software maker had set a deadline for Yahoo that passed last Saturday.
Microsoft has since increased its offer by several dollars per share, though the talks could yet fall apart, the New York Times's DealBook blog reported, citing a person involved in the discussions. Microsoft declined to comment.
Microsoft snags Photoshop guru
The competition between Microsoft and Adobe heated up some more recently when Microsoft scored a key hire from its competitor.
Mark Hamburg, who had been chief architect of Adobe Photoshop and who launched the Adobe effort that became Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, resigned from Adobe after 17 years and is joining Microsoft.
Malware infected hardware
Samuel King and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have shown that they could gain control of a computer by adding malicious circuits to its processor. Because these circuits interfere with the computer at a deeper level than a virus, they effectively operate "below the radar" of AV software.
To evaluate the risk from such hardware, King's team designed their own malicious circuits. They used a processor called a field programmable gate array (FPGA), whose logic circuits can be rearranged, to create a replica of an existing open source processor called Leon3, which contains around 1.7 million circuits. They then added about 1000 malicious circuits not present in Leon3.
The team found that the circuits allowed them to bypass security controls on Leon3 in a similar way to how a virus hands control of a computer to a hacker, but without requiring a flaw in a software application. When they hooked the FPGA up to another computer, they were able to steal passwords stored in its memory and install malicious software that would allow the operating system it was running to be remotely controlled.
HP builds intelligent memory
Researchers at Hewlett-Packard have developed a working unit of a memory circuit that has existed in theory for 37 years, which could ultimately replace RAM and make computers more intelligent by tracking data it has retained.
The technology, called memristor, could allow computers to make decisions by understanding past patterns of data it has collected, similar to human brains collecting and understanding a series of events.
For example, a memristor circuit could be capable of telling a microwave the heating time for different food types based on the information it has collected over time, said Stanley Williams, senior fellow at HP.[Can you say Skynet?]
Man gets prison for sending spam
A Colorado man accused of sending hundreds of thousands of spam emails has been sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and falsifying email headers.
Thirty-five-year-old Edward "Eddie" Davidson of Louisville was also ordered to pay nearly $715,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced Monday and ordered to report to prison authorities in May.
Microsoft directors mull Yahoo bid
Microsoft's directors were meeting Wednesday to consider raising the software maker's $41.9 billion bid for Yahoo instead of pursuing a threatened hostile takeover attempt, according to a published report.
A decision could emerge after the meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
Microsoft also is weighing withdrawing its bid--a move likely to cause a precipitous drop in Yahoo's stock, which has been bolstered by the 3-month-old takeover bid.
Microsoft expands management capabilities
Microsoft in 2000 rolled out its Operation Manager software with the goal of bringing the same management strengths the company had in desktop environments to Windows-based data centers.
Now company officials are looking to continue expanding those capabilities to include virtualized and non-Microsoft environments.
At its Microsoft Management Summit April 29 in Las Vegas, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business, also will outline the company's new use of open-source technologies and industry standards.
Taming Vista's UAC
User Account Control is one of Windows Vista's most controversial and most misunderstood features. This walkthrough will help you smooth over some of its harder edges without shutting it off completely.
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