The latest dirt on technology: River germs could run computers
549622
The next big development in computer technology may be growing in the muck of a nearby riverbed.
650594
I.BM plans today to announce a project to harness untapped computing power from millions of personal computers to help unlock the genetic mysteries of illnesses like AIDS, Alzheimer&#39;s disease, malaria and cancer.
372927
Technology used to check for diluted beer in kegs could soon be used to monitor water quality.
499862
The latest theory about the computer problems centers around possible electromagnetic interference from a new solar array.
394158
New computer-based tools are helping track outbreaks of food contamination in the United States faster, food safety officials say, but they need more funds to meet a growing public demand for a safe food supply.
567941
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- Jason Larsen types in a few lines of computer code to hack into the controls of a nearby chemical plant. Then he finds an online video camera inside and confirms that he has pumped up a pressure value.
187566
Infected computers can be used as &quot;zombies&quot; to send spam or launch attacks on Web sites. Spreading Trojans via chat rooms is not unusual.
611203
Researchers' suggestions of using wormlike software to distribute patches draws security concerns.
352246
Could it be possible, will laptop computers be responsible for a generation of infertile men? It may sound far-fetched, but if the latest results from a new study prove to be true, it just might become a reality.
190671
A virus infection points up the dangers of making it all too easy for visitors to get onto the company network, Mathias Thurman finds.
274144
(InfoWorld) - They just don't make malware like they used to. Or at least like they did earlier this year. Even low-quality malware, however, is taxing the resources of security companies, since it is being detected in ever-higher numbers. Over the last six months, the technical creativity of malware has fallen along with the ability to cause massive damage, such as that created by the MyDoom and Sasser worms of years past, wrote Alexander Gostev, senior virus analyst for Kaspersky Lab, in a recent report. Gostev's lab intermittently sees highly technical malware, but most is "the same unending stream of Trojans, viruses and worms," he wrote. In many cases, hackers simply take existing malware and create variants, by tweaking the older code to evade antivirus software. At times, the process is simple trial and error. Malware writers use online scanners such as Virustotal , which check to see if their new code will be detected by antivirus software, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for F-Secure. If the code is detectable, they can make a slight modification and run it through the scanner again. "I'd like to tell you that we're winning this war," Hypponen said. "But frankly, I'm not so sure. We need new kinds of solutions." Because much of the code is not new, it tends to remain effective for shorter periods of time before antivirus companies detect it. Still, the time it takes to identify and create a signature for a new virus, which can range from a few minutes to a few hours, is often long enough for hackers to infect computers. "Antivirus companies are working at the limits of their capabilities in terms of speed," Gostev wrote. To be sure, some malicious hackers are doing creative work. This year saw some sophisticated phishing attacks, and virus writers have been branching into relatively new areas like instant messaging and social networking sites, noted Christopher Boyd, security research manager for FaceTime Communications. But the trend overall, he said, has been "quantity over quality." Kaspersky Lab in Moscow is on the front lines of the battle. Its analysts added 2,000 signatures to their database in January 2005. Last month they added 10,000 signatures -- a five-fold increase, said Stanislav Shevchenko, head of the lab. The virus analysts work 12-hours shifts, pulling up screen after screen of rolling lines of code. Automated tools analyze some pieces of malware, but human analysis is still needed for others. A good analyst should process an average piece of malware within 5 minutes, Shevchenko said. But some of the rarer, more creative code is harder to crack. Polymorphic viruses -- ones that can change their byte sequences to throw off antivirus software -- can take up to a week to analyze, Shevchenko said. The signatures are added to a database used by Kaspersky's antivirus engine, which is licensed by other security vendors such as Juniper Networks, ClearSwift , and F-Secure. The increase in the volume of malicious code can be attributed in part to the impunity enjoyed by malware writers, said Eugene Kaspersky, head of antivirus research. Despite efforts by law enforcement agencies to strengthen international cooperation, most malware writers are never punished. "It's quite safe for them," Kaspersky said. "If they are clever enough, there is almost no risk for them at the moment." The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the country's KGB intelligence agency, frequently ask Kaspersky Lab for information, said Kaspersky spokesman Timur Tsoriev. The FSB, however, approaches Kaspersky less these days since the agency has bolstered its in-house expertise, Kaspersky said. Kaspersky said his lab focuses less on finding the root of criminal activity than protecting the company's customers. But the burden of rising online criminal activity directly impacts security companies, he said. "If there is no help from the police and if they don't reduce the number of criminals, I'm afraid the detection for all antivirus products will go down," Kaspersky said.
126866
Experts at a UK anti-virus firm have discovered a job application buried in lines of code for two new computer worm viruses. The message, which could only be read by anti-virus professionals, said: &quot;We searching 4 work in AV (anti-virus) industry.
756414
Make the moo jokes, make the methane jokes, make any joke you like -- but the One Laptop Per Child project is pondering the prospect of using cattle to generate electrical power for their low-cost computers. Has Bossy got what it takes to roam the information superhighway?
769100
MIT researchers produce a tiny water-skimming robot prototype they think could monitor water supplies for toxins or skim contaminants off the top of water.
13712
Also: Molecular 'extension cord' for chemical computing. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
374369
Traditional antivirus technology may be too slow to protect users, researchers say.
323998
Researchers hope a new supercomputer will help develop life-saving drugs and model climate change.