1. and : Internet Explorer users were urged to immediately install an emergency patch released by Microsoft to fix a flaw in the browser that was inadvertently made public by Chinese security researchers last week. Hackers immediately began using the flaw after the attack code was posted and it is expected to be more widely used to plant malware on Web sites. Hackers also quickly began to exploit the flaw by stashing malicious ActiveX controls in Word documents. McAfee's Avert Labs director of security research and communications, David Marcus, summed it up: "This is a pretty insidious way to attack people, because it's invisible to the eye, the communication with the site."
2. and : Apple is done with Macworld after the 2009 show in three weeks and Jobs won't be giving the keynote when the show opens Jan. 5. That announcement surprised -- even shocked -- many industry watchers and also renewed speculation about Jobs' health. Macworld, the Web site/magazine, took a long look at the news, including what it says about the state of trade shows generally and Apple specifically, in a number of articles and columns.
3. : Siemens and some of its subsidiaries forked over more than US$1.4 billion in bribes to foreign officials, scammed the United Nations Oil for Food program and -- as if that wasn't enough -- "cooked" financial records for years until being busted by U.S. and German prosecutors. As a consequence, the parent company and subsidiaries will pay $898.4 million in criminal fines to the U.S. Additionally, in a separate civil proceeding that involved some of the same incidents, Siemens agree to turn over $350 million in profits linked to the shenanigans. "Today's filings make clear that for much of its operations across the globe, bribery was nothing less than standard operating procedure for Siemens," said U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich.
4. : Three major underwater cable cuts affected Internet and telephone access and traffic between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The cuts were on lines that connect countries between Singapore and France and the U.K. and Japan, France Telecom said. The cause of the cuts was unknown, though it could have been an undersea earthquake or a ship passing through the area of the cables, which are located in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Sicily.