Critics chuck MS 'friendly worm' plan on the compost heap
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Out of control Microsoft researchers are reportedly working on a scheme to distribute software patches using the same techniques as computer worms. The cunning plan, which security experts describe as misguided, aims to reduce the load on servers handling patching.â¦
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A series of minor MyDoom worms released in the last 24 hours may be a harbinger of a bigger threat surfacing soon, a security analyst said Friday.
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bug text As worms proliferated through the first half of the year, attacks gained in sophistication. Also: A start-up fights zombies.
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NZ council probes 'psychological impact' of crap job Auckland Regional Council (ARC) has required the inventor of a worm-driven composting toilet to get professional confirmation that his workforce was not "traumatised or stressed" by its crap job, the Sunday Star Times reports.â¦
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A variant of the Zafi worm, Zafi.d, is doing the rounds disguised as a Christmas message. This worm arrives via email and through peer-to-peer networks bearing the message &quot;Happy Hollydays&quot; and the subject
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A new version of the Download.ject worm has begun spreading on the Internet, according to security firm PivX.
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It sounds like a sci-fi nightmare, but it could be every teenage geek&#39;s dream: a computer worm that can wriggle into bedrooms and secretly hijack webcams to spy on people.
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Here&#39;s a quote from The Worm before the run: &quot;Just because Kiki&#39;s my friend, he doesn&#39;t have to give me this opportunity.
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The latest variant of the MyDoom mass-mailing worm is spreading fast, even as security firms raise the worm&#39;s threat assessment.
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Code that exploits a "critical" Windows flaw has been posted on the Net, opening the door for a worm to be created.
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A new worm has been discovered in the wild that&#39;s not just settling for invading users&#39; PCs - it wants to invade their homes too.
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A new worm has been discovered in the wild that&#39;s not just settling for invading users&#39; PCs--it wants to invade their homes, too.
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A variant of an older worm is poorly designed, but it nonetheless shows the effectiveness of our manager's incident-response process.
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By Tiffany Martin  A lawyer for a Cambridge sand quarry wanting to set up a a large composting facility says it is significant that health authorities have not opposed the scheme.
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Blog: Various people hiding behind pseudonyms are fueling news about a supposed worm for Mac OS X.
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Worm is traveling by e-mail, but does not appear to cause much damage.
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Microsoft is moving to counter some scathing comments regarding a security paper authored by researchers at its Cambridge, England, facility.The paper, &quot;Sampling Strategies for Epidemic-Style Information Dissemination,&quot; looks at how worms sometimes inefficiently spread their code.The research explores how a more efficient method could, for example, be used for distributing patches or other software. The advantage would be that patches could be distributed from PC to PC, rather than from a central server.That method would reduce the load on a server, and patches would be distributed faster. But the patches would have the same qualities as a computer worm, a generally malicious file.Since a story about the paper appeared on Thursday in the New Scientist magazine, the paper has been roundly assailed.&quot;This is a stupid idea,&quot; wrote Bruce Schneier, a security expert, author and CTO of Mountain View, Calif.-based enterprise security vendor BT Counterpane, on Tuesday, before quoting a passage from the New Scientist story on his blog.Schneier wrote that the idea of so-called &quot;benevolent worms&quot; comes up every few years.However, a worm is designed to run without the consent of a user, which doesn&#39;t make it a good method of software distribution, Schneier wrote. The worm patching technique could also make the patches hard to uninstall or interrupt during installation, he wrote.Worms designed to distribute software patches could also be hacked to distribute malicious software, wrote Randy Abrams, director of education for security vendor Eset, in his regular e-mail commentary.Forced patching is also troublesome since some patches may not be compatible with critical software, Abrams wrote.&quot;Breaking into computers is a bad idea,&quot; Abrams said.A Microsoft spokesman said on Monday that the New Scientist story is not inaccurate. However, the writer of the story &quot;sexed&quot; up the research paper a bit, particularly with the headline that used the phrase &quot;friendly worms,&quot; the spokesman said.In response to the criticism, Microsoft said it doesn&#39;t intend to develop patch worms.&quot;This was not the primary scenario targeted for this research,&quot; according to a statement.The company also said it will continue to let customers decide how and when they apply security updates.One of the paper&#39;s authors, Milan Vojnovic, said in a statement that there were no plans to incorporate the ideas into Microsoft&#39;s products. Efforts to reach Vojnovic for comment were unsuccessful.