Non-tech criminals can now rent-a-botnet
Online fraudsters that aren't highly skilled in the arts of cybercrime can now rent a service that offers an all-in-one hosting server with a built-in Zeus trojan administration panel and infecting tools, allowing them ...

The top 10 social networking annoyances
The same question people used to ask about PCs can be asked of social networks: Were our lives easier or harder, better or worse, simpler or more complex, before they came around? The answer is yes. For some folks, ...

After 'treasure hunt,' hacker releases IE attack code
One week after hiding Internet Explorer attack code on his Web site, security researcher Aviv Raff has posted details on how to launch the attack.

Missouri woman charged in 'cyber-bully' case
A Missouri woman whose online taunting was blamed in the 2006 suicide of her 13-year-old neighbor now faces criminal charges.

It's a hard-knock life: 3 rugged notebooks take a beating
Anybody who has spent any amount of time working on the road has probably witnessed their share of notebook disasters: dropped from a hotel desk, shaken beyond repair in the trunk of a rental car or doused by a knocked- ...

Icahn takes on Yahoo board
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has sent a letter to Yahoo's board announcing he is nominating 10 candidates to replace all incumbent directors at the company's shareholders meeting in July.

Gov'ts must intervene to end IP address shortage, says OECD
Businesses alone are not doing enough to avert an impending shortage of Internet Protocol addresses, and governments must work with them to secure the future of the Internet economy, according to a report published ...

Comcast to buy Plaxo for social networking
Comcast will acquire social-networking company Plaxo to power upcoming community features on its TV, broadband data and phone services.

NATO to set up cyber warfare center
NATO plans to set up a cyber defense center in Estonia later this year to research and help fight cyber warfare, the organization announced Wednesday.

Philly won't fight to save Wi-Fi network
The city of Philadelphia is moving on after its brief municipal Wi-Fi relationship with EarthLink, no longer trying to find a way to keep the network up and running.

Want to use a supercomputer?
The Department of Energy (DOE) this week said it is offering over 680 million supercomputer processor-hours to run advanced scientific projects on its supercomputers. Through its sixth annual Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, DOE’s Office of Science plans to award the supercomputer processor-hours at its labs in Berkeley, CA; Chicago, IL; Oak Ridge, TN; and Richland, WA for large-scale, computationally-intensive science projects in 2009.

PODCAST

Microsoft / Yahoo heading for a shotgun wedding?
Jason and Keith discuss the Yahoo stockholder revolt, why girls aren't interested in IT, and mourn the end of the Philly Wi-Fi network.

LIVE CHAT

Crimeware: understanding new attacks and defenses, with authors Markus Jakobsson and Zulfikar Ramzan
Join internationally acclaimed security scientists and authors Markus Jakobsson and Zulfikar Ramzan for a live chat on Wednesday May 28 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST where they will answer your questions about advanced IT threats. Some of the spooky new tools financially motivated attackers are using today include rootkits, bot networks, spyware, adware and click fraud. But you can learn to protect your networks. PLUS, attendees of the chat will be eligible to win one of 10 copies of the authors' latest book Crimeware: understanding new attacks and defenses.

BLOGS

Today on Layer 8 we look at some cold, hard facts:
Turns out that the surface of Mars is stiffer and colder than previously thought. New observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that any liquid water that might exist below the p***t’s surface and any possible organisms living in that water would be located deeper than scientists had suspected.

MAY GIVEAWAYS

May giveaways from Microsoft Subnet and Cisco Subnet
Win a Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 from New Horizons; a Cisco training course worth up to $3,995 from Global Knowledge; one of 15 copies of the SharePoint training video, WSS and MOSS 3.0 Development (video training) published by Sams; one of 15 copies of the Cisco Press book CCNA Practice Questions (Exam 640-802), 3rd Edition, or a Cool Stuff techno-toy worth up to $500 from Global Knowledge. Hurry! Deadline for entries is May 31.