Group items tagged

"Look at what FoxNews says. The code that was used to hack Gmail accounts in China is now publicly available on the Internet, and security experts are urging computer users throughout the world to be highly vigilant until a patch can be developed. The hack involves Internet Explorer 6, the browser that came with the Windows XP operating system that, while outdated, still powers millions of businesses and home computers and is now dangerously compromised. Hacks based on this security flaw led Google to threaten to drop its www.google.cn Web site and leave China last week. The Internet behemoth believes these security intrusions are a quest not just for political knowledge but also for intellectual property. Experts warn that as many as 30 other companies have been hacked, ranging from software firms like Adobe and Juniper Networks to Northrop Grumman - a major U.S. defense contractor and manufacturer of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and the Global Hawk unmanned drone. Microsoft has yet to patch the hole in IE 6, a flaw so serious it's prompted the German government to suggest citizens avoid IE. Microsoft has posted a security advisory detailing the problem, and urging users to upgrade to newer browsers. The main strategy or process that these hackers are following is said to be known as Spearphishing. They target the user with an e-mail that would appeal to them, one that leads to a site that launches malicious code onto your system. And the IE 6 exploit makes it particularly easy to slip that code on your computer. India's security chief, M.K. Narayanan, is claiming that Chinese hackers have attempted to hack into India's most sensitive government office. Tensions between China and India have been resizing lately ever nice India's relationship with the U.S. has improved to the point that the U.S. is poised to be selling them billions of dollars worth of weapons. Although there is no way for the Indian office to now for sure, they are pretty sure

"PositiveID (PSID) is to begin a study of its Health Link implantable microchip in diabetic, hypertensive and obese patients. The study -like everything else associated with the company formerly known as VeriChip - is bound to be controversial. The Health Link chip is implanted under a patient's skin. It can be scanned to access the patient's online medical records. The company's critics fear the chip will one day become mandatory, leading to a complete loss of medical privacy, or that Americans will be unable to receive healthcare unless they get chipped. BNET has noted that PositiveID also owns a credit monitoring and identity-theft prevention company, Steel Vault, and that it envisions its chips being linked to Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and employers. PositiveID linked credit monitoring and the Health Link chip in its most recent 10-Q. While PositiveID's press release gives few specifics, it indicates that the study will have something to do with the Health Link chip and customers of HealthScreenDirect, a company that offers screening for diabetes and high cholesterol. Its says the study will be: … a prospective, randomized, comparative clinical study that will seek to address improving disease management through the use of appropriate, concise, and up-to-date patient health information available to both practitioners caring for diabetic, hypertensive and obese patients and the patients themselves through the utilization of PositiveID's personal health record (Health Link) and an electronic medical records system. PositiveID CEO Scott R. Silverman said in the statement that the study will also advance the company's in-development glucose-sensing chip. Silverman is doubtless hoping that patients with the chip - and with their health records online - will have better outcomes in terms of managing their diabetes than those doing it the old-fashioned way. The unanswered question is why health record access - or even a microchip