Five IRS employees charged with snooping at tax records
Five federal workers at an Internal Revenue Service office in California have been charged with computer fraud for illegally accessing the confidential records of taxpayers.

Three virtualization lessons learned
Tim Hays, IT director for Lextron, a wholesale distributor of animal health pharmaceuticals, found that virtualizing the company's servers provided a host of benefits, from reduced costs to improved efficiencies

Cisco alums readying firewall killer
Five former Cisco engineers have co-founded a start-up called Rohati Systems whose products take dead aim at traditional perimeter firewalls.

NASA moves to save computers from swarming ants
A flood of voracious ants is heading straight for Houston, taking out computers, radios and even vehicles in their path.

Microsoft: Don't misunderstand UAC, other Vista features
In its continued attempt to convince business customers to adopt Vista, Microsoft has outlined and tried to explain some of what it calls the OS's most "misunderstood" features in a document posted to -- then mysteriously removed from -- its Web site this week. Plus:
Microsoft ballyhoos Vista's lower patch count

Doing the math on virtualization
IT director shares the math behind doing Unix and Windows virtualization at his organization.

New chip detects heart attacks better than an EKG
University researchers have developed a silicon chip that they say will more quickly and accurately diagnose heart attacks.

WhitePages.com grapples with privacy in Web 2.0 world
WhitePages.com does exactly what you'd expect from the name -- it tries to provide phone book-style listings for both the U.S. and Canada. Of course, there's nothing new about that, so WhitePages.com tries to do an ...

Can OpenOffice 3.0 beta replace MS Office
If you think that you always get what you pay for, the just-released beta of OpenOffice 3.0 should convince you otherwise. This free, open-source software suite provides most of what anyone could want in an office suite ...

Former Microsoft manager offers fix for XP SP3 'endless reboot'
A former Microsoft security manager has published a tool designed to detect and fix PCs that may be susceptible to "endless reboots" if updated to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3).

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.

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.