In a statement, a Microsoft representative said the company “is investigating new public claims of a possible vulnerability in IIS 5 and IIS 6 File Transfer Protocol (FTP)”.

Microsoft said it is not aware of any attacks using the vulnerability. “We will take steps to determine how customers can protect themselves, should we confirm the vulnerability.”

According to IDG News Service, code for exploiting the unpatched flaw was posted to the Milw0rm Web site. IDG said the exploit appears to affect primarily older versions of IIS — and only when the FTP function is enabled.

Once it is done with its investigation, Microsoft said, it will decide how to address the matter, which could include a security update as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday or an out-of-cycle update.

via IIS flaw under investigation by Microsoft | Tech News on ZDNet.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft and Yahoo Tie-Up
2. Judge bans Microsoft Word sales – BBC News
3. “Tories unveil NHS database plans” – BBC NEWS

Confidentiality? Hmm… Well with the proper safety measures in place, this shouldn’t raise concerns. A central database for national healthcare records should have been a top priority years ago! Of course, taking into consideration the proper encryption of all files, it would be a great system! All patients should be able to access their healthcare records through a web portal, this information should be able to be updated by GPs, hospitals and all other healthcare institutions. Doing things this way would allow various good practices to take place:

1. Detecting early and preventing widespread diseases by statistical analysis of information.
2. Allowing to poll all citisens, retrieve feedback, and gather general information in an easy way.
3. Establish better criteria to the flaws in the system, and address all issues to develop a better system.

The Tories are promising NHS trusts a choice of computer systems, rather than having a single one imposed.
Every patient would have a username and password and could update their records with information like blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Shadow health minister Stephen O’Brien insisted these separate systems would be “inter-operable”, allowing information to be accessed in different locations.
He said: “You want to have your data held locally and that should be with the person you trust most in the health service, which will be your GP.”

Yes, this is a good thing. Every patient should have their username and password, but a “choice” of computer systems is not an option! Inter-operable or not, the more systems are in use, the greater the possibility is of there being flaws in the transmission of data, man-in-the-middle hacking/cracking attacks, and a whole lot of other possibilities.

A single well-founded, secure, national database should be established and maintained correctly to provide the NHS and goverment with a ride range of information assets useful to the patients, the GPs and the NHS in general.

Mr O’Brien told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “We want to give patients the ability to give themselves greater control over their information.”
He added: “If we hold the data locally it’s more likely to be protected than within this massive [NHS] database…

Saying that is like figuring out that your money is more protected locally than in a bank. There always exists a possibility of a breach of information, but having the information in one single place, using one single system, means more security. The possibility of a virus infecting or cracking into the computer of a GP is much higher than the hacking of a properly secured database in a wide set of well-protected linux servers with a properly maintained firewall. Sure, there’s always DDoS, but at least there is no information breach.

via BBC NEWS | Politics | Tories unveil NHS database plans.

Related posts:

1. Twitter site reopens after attack – BBC News
2. Judge bans Microsoft Word sales – BBC News
3. IIS flaw under investigation by Microsoft | Tech News on ZDNet

The popular site has been subject to a so-called denial-of-service attack, according to the firm’s official blog.

Denial-of-service attacks take various forms but often involve a company’s servers being flooded with data in an effort to disable them.

Facebook has also said it is “looking into” possible problems with its site.

via BBC NEWS | Technology | Twitter site reopens after attack.

Related posts:

1. Facebook in challenge to Google – BBC News
2. “Tories unveil NHS database plans” – BBC NEWS
3. The increasing level of connectivity between Social Sites

If I made a rundown or a graph explaining the connectivity between social media sites I currently have, it would grow too large, or the connections would not exactly be easy to draw. * Update: Well I’ve decided to draw it anyway:

My Network Map

For instance: My Youtube is posting to facebook, google reader, twitter and two of my blogs. One of those blogs is lemiffe.com which when receiving a post will alert ping.fm which will then release a post of my new blog post to facebook, twitter, my blog at blogger, myspace, google talk’s status, and quite a few other sites.

Now, the only problem I currently see is the level of redundancy. Sites talked to other sites, which in turn talk to other sites, so whenever these sites provide much more connectivity to other services we might end up in a cyclic-post system in which one service posts to the other which in turn posts back to the first one initiating a never-ending cycle in which the user would have to stop one or the other service manually.

I really believe more insight should be applied, like, verifying the other sites connectivity and checking it will not repost to a site the first site has already posted to. This can be done via pure XML transactions between both sites, I mean, thats what web services are for, right?

Another thought I came up with is a Centralised User Account Service, which deals with the connectivity between users of different sites. Lets say: Gravatar meets facebook and ping.fm. All the services first verify the users information on the Centralised service, then they verify which permissions the user has applied concerning posting, which pages must the service send the new update, video or blog message to, and negotiate it only with the Centralised site, which will in turn send off the appropriate XML for all other “connected” sites.

It’s just a thought, Security-wise I am not sure where this would lead to as very tight security would have to be placed. Gaining access to the account of a user at the Centralised Site would be, well, Armageddon for that user. So probably a tighter security would have to be placed, with 128 big encription, SSL sockets, MD-6, who knows what else, but it’s just a thought anyway.

Related posts:

1. Final addition to my Interaction Kit
2. Facebook in challenge to Google – BBC News
3. Social Media and Marketing… Where are we?

The report also warned of emerging threats of auto-run malware to increased botnets. Password-pilfering trojans are proliferating and expected to double this year from the prior year.

Researchers also warned of increasing malicious attacks on social-networking sites like Twitter, where URLs often are condensed. “The caution that users usually apply when they view search results and news links disappears behind the obfuscating address,” the report notes.

via McAfee Warns Spam, Trojans and Botnets Skyrocketing | Threat Level | Wired.com.

Related posts:

1. Facebook in challenge to Google – BBC News
2. IIS flaw under investigation by Microsoft | Tech News on ZDNet
3. My Social Network Map