Cyber Santa shines light in Europe's retail gloom
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Santa Claus is as likely to be coming  through cyberspace in Europe this year as down the chimney  stack.
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Warnings of a poor Christmas for High Street retailers in the UK are unduly pessimistic, according to accountants Deloitte &Touche.
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A burst of shopping in the waning hours before Christmas helped the nationâs retailers meet their modest sales goals.
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Retailers look set to see a pick-up in Christmas trade in the coming days, despite grim predictions earlier in the season.
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The criminals behind the Storm botnet waited until the last minute, but they&#39;ve finally started delivering unwanted Christmas presents.Starting Monday, Storm-infected machines began sending out Christmas-themed spam in yet another attempt to trick victims into downloading malicious software. In this case, the site is named Merrychristmasdude.com, and the malware is a variation of the Storm Trojan horse program that has been plaguing systems around the world since January.The e-mails contain titles such as &quot;Find Some Christmas Tail,&quot; &quot;Warm Up this Christmas&quot; and &quot;Mrs. Clause Is Out Tonight!&quot;One message reads &quot;Yo, I am pretty sure this is up your alley, from the things you have told me before. This will be the best 2 min you spend this holiday. hehe.&quot;Once the user clicks on the link to Merrychristmasdude.com, he is taken to a Christmas-themed Web site with photos of scantily clad women and offered a free download. That download is a malicious program, called Email-Worm.Win32.Zhelatin.pd by F-Secure, that connects to a P-to-P (peer-to-peer) network and begins downloading even more malware.Storm&#39;s creators have built up networks of infected PCs -- called botnets -- over the past year by using a combination of sophisticated hacking tricks to avoid detection and by spamming potential victims with clever and timely e-mail messages. The network is called Storm because its original messages offered victims video of the deadly storms that battered Europe a year ago, but has also perfected the tactic of sending out holiday-themed messages.Security experts estimate that the&#160;Storm has infected more than 15 million computers over the past year, although the current size of the network is much smaller than that.This latest variant is being blocked by some antivirus vendors, including Kaspersky, Microsoft and Symantec, according to a technical write-up of the Christmas outbreak.The SANS Internet Storm Center recommends that administrators block Web and e-mail access to the Merrychristmasdude.com domain.
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Online shopping has become hugely popular among Britons in the run-up to Christmas, research suggests.
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especially to the electronics industry. This is the time of year when companies begin releasing their shiniest/newest/greatest products to compete for your holiday shopping dollar.
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Many nations in Europe are now feeling an autumn chill of slackening economies and warnings of further market upheaval.
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Ghost of insecure Christmases past for etailers? Online retailers have rubbished claims from the security industry they stand to miss out on billions of pounds of trade this Christmas because of lingering public mistrust in internet transactions.â¦
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Some digital picture frames and other devices sold over the holidays may include malware.
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Europe's retailers showed tentative signs on Wednesday of having overcome bleak expectations for consumer spending in the run-up to Christmas, even as high street retail stocks in the US tumbled on the back of disappointing performance.
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In Norway, children sold their Christmas presents to raise money. French pupils and Danish inmates took up collections, and mobile phone users are giving via text message.
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Santa Claus is facing tough times in Europe. So, for that matter, are the Virgin Mary, Joseph and even baby Jesus.
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By CHRIS TOMLINSON  With just six shopping days left, High Street retailers are already forecasting their worst Christmas for 25 years, while online retailers are bragging that it's going to be the best on record.
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Christmas is just around the corner and major computer games software publishers are readying their wares for the festive season. But these latest games are not your typical children&#39;s programs.
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As growing numbers of Americans turn to the Internet for holiday shopping, experts warn that online dangers such as fraud and identity theft are increasing as well.
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Trojan flea market thrives online Most people will be looking forward to receiving digital cameras, games and the like - as well as the inevitable pair of socks - this Christmas. But cybercrooks can take the opportunity to splash out, angling for things such as credit card numbers and their corresponding PINs, the trade in which is booming online.â¦