Conficker spawn, recession smackdown

20.02.2009
A new version of Conficker has turned up and could portend even more malevolent uses of that already-nasty malware. Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Sprint Nextel, through either rough earnings reports or market surveys, joined the ranks of big-name tech companies that have been slammed by the recession. And if you use facial recognition to securely log on to your laptop, you may want to reconsider.

1. : The Conficker worm has spawned an even more evil twin that researchers believe could give those who created it more ways to use and abuse computers it infects.

2. and : Bad financial news just keeps on coming, this week courtesy of Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Sprint Nextel. The second link in this entry is included as an example of the dreaded ripple effect.

3. : Face-recognition technologies used for logging in to some laptops are not so secure after all because they are easy to trick, a security researcher warned at the Black Hat conference.

4. : If you are curious about how the U.S. government is likely to spend the US$7.2 billion apportioned to a national broadband plan in the recently passed economic stimulus bill, this is the link for you.

5. : Skype conversations deemed suspicious could be tapped in a European-wide investigation linked to what authorities believe is a huge loophole in existing wiretapping laws. The probe may also help U.S. authorities get access to Internet-based calls made by criminals who do not currently have to worry that their conversations are being tapped because of the loophole.