The co-founder of security firm Webroot Software has apparently gone missing in Hawaii.

Steven Thomas reportedly vanished from his hotel room in Waikiki on 30 June. Family and authorities fear that Thomas, who is bipolar, may have been delusional or suicidal at the time of his disappearance.

Thomas co-founded WebRoot in 1997 in Boulder, Colorado. The company became famous for its SpySweeper anti-spyware tools and was most recently credited with a 26.8 per cent share of the retail security market.

Thomas sold the company to a group of investors for $108m in 2004.

According to the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the 36 year-old was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder earlier this year, but had refused medication.

Family members told the paper that, in the days leading up to his disappearance, Thomas appeared to be suicidal and in a state of extremely fearful delusion.

Anyone on the island with information is being asked to contact the authorities.

Source: vnunet.com

Security site Check Point has issued a set of updates which correct a compatibility issue with the latest Microsoft security update.

The company has posted updated versions of its ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, Pro, Antivirus, Anti-Spyware and Basic Firewall offerings.

The updates correct an error caused by the latest Microsoft security update. One of the four bulletins addressed a flaw in the Windows DNS component, but also resulted in an error which prevented ZoneAlarm users from accessing the internet.

Many ZoneAlarm customers, were left unable to connect to the internet and were forced to either uninstall the security update or temporarily lower the security level on their ZoneAlarm applications.

By Thursday UK time, the company promised that a patch would be in the works, advising users to keep an eye on the site for the updates. By Thursday evening, updated versions of all five applications had been posted, along with a list of recommended actions for those who do not wish to install the updates.

All five of the updated applications can be downloaded directly from Check Point’s support site.

Source: vnunet.com

Trend Micro Incorporated (TSE:4704), a global leader in Internet content security, spyware protection and virus scan solutions, announced today a core set of software and hosted medium business security solutions, all tailored to focus upon issues such as Web threats, employee/company privacy, data leak prevention, email archiving, virus scan, spyware protection, and content filtering. Based on customer feedback, three areas of security concerns for medium businesses are: client and server security, messaging security, and information security. Read the rest of this entry »

Channel Data, the distributor of Cyberoam identity-based unified threat management appliances, has released the latest version of Cyberoam firmware, designed to offer greater control over web surfing activities in corporate and education environments.Mike Hamilton, Channel Data MD, says users will now be able to block access to more than 500,000 dubious websites hosted over the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) communications protocol - a predecessor to transport layer security - which has allowed more than 150 million serious corporate network breaches on a global basis since 2005. Read the rest of this entry »

The Calyx Group has deployed an email and website security system for the Irish Stock Exchange that will guarantee the flow of information free from the intrusion of spam or spyware.Since 1793 the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) has been providing for the trading of equities and government bonds and also in the listing of investment funds and specialist debt securities.

However, at the dawn of the 21st century the venerable institution was inundated with spam, which accounted for some 90pc of its inbound email. Read the rest of this entry »

Cyber-crooks are using new technologies and reinventing forms of social engineering to ensnare consumers and businesses, security experts warn.

Trend Micro’s latest Threat Roundup and Forecast 1H 2008 found an upswing in web threats, but a steady decrease in adware and spyware generated by outdated methods which can no longer compete with high-level security.

Social engineering tactics such as the Nigerian phishing scam have been around for decades, and cyber-criminals continue to refresh and modernise this form of trickery based on the latest trends. Read the rest of this entry »

Last month MySpace won the largest anti-spam payout ever made totalling US$234 million. Now the social network can add another US$6 million to their haul.This latest judgement is against Scott Ritcher based on spam he sent to users on MySpace back in August 2006. The lawsuit was started in January 2007 and went into arbitration in August 2007. Now a ruling has been made against the defendant who will pay MySpace US$4.8 million in damages and a further US$1.2 million in legal fees.

Mr Ritcher has accepted the judgement and will pay the stated amount pointing out it is 95% less than what had originally been asked for. Steven Ritcher, Scott’s father and business colleague in their company Media Breakaway said:

We respect the decision of the arbitrator, and we’re not going to appeal it … We’re going to pay the money he awarded.

Scott Ritcher has already paid US$7 million to Microsoft in a previous ruling over spam and the use of website OptInRealBig.com. With the MySpace spamming, Ritcher had used MySpace accounts acquired by phishing and directed users to the website ConsumerPromotionCenter.com.

MySpace released the following statement regarding the ruling:

This award reflects MySpace’s continued momentum and holistic approach to ridding the site of spammers and phishers … We will continue to do our part in cleansing the Internet of this invasive onslaught of spam.

Read more at Computerworld.com

Matthew’s Opinion
Unlike the huge payout last month it looks like MySpace are going to get this money; and US$6 million is not to be scoffed at. They would do well to re-invest the money back into the site, improving their infrastructure and increasing their security measures just to make sure they are well prepared for the future.

The ongoing action taken against spamming is an important one alongside better spam controls and more user knowledge on what spam is and what to do with it. If court cases keep being won against spammers then there is more risk in doing it in the first place and hopefully less people attempting it.

Popularity - the elusive Holy Grail sought by many a geek during the school years. In that social setting, you paid a price for not being popular. The irony is that in today’s technology setting the reverse is true: being popular often paints a target on your back - just ask Microsoft and the thousands of customers who have to update their Windows security settings every month.The miscreants who develop computer viruses and other malware follow the popular crowd. They go where the action is and, according to Eset, a leader in proactive digital threat protection, the action is in mobile devices, which is why the company has announced a free beta version of Eset Mobile Antivirus.

The time is right for mobile antivirus. At least, that’s what Dan Clark, vice president of marketing at Eset thinks. “It has to do with the number of phones in the market - 35 million of them shipped in the fourth quarter of 2007, which is up 72 percent from the same time period in 2006,” he said.

Clark claims the market for smartphones is close to150 million. “It’s increased to the point that malware developers will target Smartphones more heavily to generate financial gain,” he said. “Attacks follow volume, and we wanted to get our product out a bit before it’s really needed.”

The Eset products designed for computer desktops are known for having very little impact on system performance, and Clark says this holds true with Eset Mobile Antivirus. “The mobile product uses a very small client and has minimal memory, minimal bandwidth and minimal CPU requirements,” said Clark. “It’s been optimized especially for the mobile phone platform.”

The Eset Mobile Antivirus features include:

* Heuristic Threat Detection - Based on ESET’s heuristic engine, ThreatSense, which identifies threats based on their behavior.
* On-demand Scanning - Scans and cleans both integrated and removable memory media (i.e., smart cards), performs a full memory/running processes scan; specific folder scanning capability with results displayed on screen.
* Advanced On-access Scanning - Scans created/used files. Scans incoming files via wireless connections (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Infrared).
* Activity Log - Stores scan statistics and database status in a user-friendly format. Includes scan results-history.
* Variable In-depth Scanning of Cab Files - Lets you set cab file scanning to the level you want.
* Automatic/On-demand Updates - Providesup-to-date protection against all threat types. Schedule updates on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
* Intuitive User Interface - Easy-to-set dialogs and intuitive menu.
* Compact Updates - ESET’s update files consume less bandwidth to the mobile device.

ESET Mobile Antivirus currently supports PDAs and smartphones running Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6.

If you’re interested in testing the beta software for free, you can download it here. The company said it expects the final version of the software to be generally available later this year.

from the that-doesn’t-sound-good deptPoliticians have been pushing for an anti-spyware law for quite some time — mostly because it’s the sort of thing likely to draw headlines that make the politicians look good. However, it’s widely acknowledged that such laws aren’t at all necessary. Anti-fraud laws can mostly take care of the problem cases out there — and the market itself seems to have actually taken care of the worst offenders in the space. Plus, with such laws (witness CAN-SPAM’s failure), they tend to do little to actually stop the activity, but more to define the rules by which companies can continue to do bad things without breaking the law. Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Trade Commission this week told the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that it favors legislation granting it new powers to seek civil penalties in spyware cases.The federal agency said it wants authority to assess monetary penalties when other enforcement options–such as seeking consumer redress, or making the operators give up their ill-gotten gains–are not appropriate, or are insufficient to deter spyware distributors. A stiff civil penalty, said the FTC, may serve as a strong deterrent.