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Global warming could cost the world up to $20 trillion over two decades for cleaner energy sources and do the most harm to people who can least afford to adapt, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warns in a new report. (Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080130/ap_
University of Warwick scientists have discovered how a pneumonia-causing bacterium became resistant to penicillin, in research that could restore penicillin's full antibiotic effect and help in designing drugs to fight MRSA (an antibiotic-resistant superbug bacterium).By replicating the activity of the bacterial enzyme MurM--an enzyme associated with strength of the bacteria's cell wall--in the lab, the scientists found out how the bacteria deployed MurM to neutralize penicillin. (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/728745
As Democratic and Republican candidates debate issues of national security, there remains a security threat that could leave the next election hanging in the balance.
This time it won't be Florida's hanging chads, the bits on the paper ballots that caused a scandal in the 2000 elections. Nevertheless, the Sunshine State could find itself in the midst of a new controversy if it relies on its brand new e-voting machines. California has a similar story to tell. These key voting states are both home to Diebold e-voting machines that are vulnerable to ing.
A new report titled "Source Code Review of the Diebold Voting System" reveals an attack could be accomplished by a single skilled individual with temporary access to a single voting machine. The damage could be extensive -- malicious code could spread to every voting machine in polling places and to county election servers.
"The software contains serious design flaws that have led directly to specific vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes," read the University of California at Berkeley report. The report was commissioned by California's Secretary of State.
While this week's news has warned John Q. Public that ers can easily break the security of virtually every model of state electronic voting machine, this is certainly not the first word on the matter.
The midterm elections in 2006 had watchdog groups on post, keeping a close eye on e-voting machines. An estimated 66 million voters, or about 38 percent nationwide, had access to e-voting machines in the 2006 midterm elections, according to Election Data Services.
"Studies have been conducted, warning of vulnerabilities, but unfortunately these morphed into political disputes over how much money should be spent on the machines or to fix the vulnerabilities," said Phyllis Schneck, vice president of Secure Computing Corp.
Florida State University. E-Voting s Highlight Political Problems
Get ready to roll up your sleeves. If you are in the I.T. department, you are going to be busy for a while. On Patch Tuesday yesterday, Microsoft issued its second-largest set of updates this year with nine security bulletins altogether.
The updates fix 14 vulnerabilities. Eight bugs are rated critical, four are rated important, and two are considered moderate. The patches fix holes in Windows, Windows Gadgets, Windows Media Player, Office, Excel, Internet Explorer, Visual Basic, Virtual Server, and Virtual PC.
"Many of the vulnerabilities addressed by Microsoft's fixes could be exploited if a Windows user simply visits a malicious Web site," said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager at McAfee Avert Labs. "Microsoft's patches again underline the trend of malware writers seeking out the Web browser as a means of attack and reinforce the need of safe browsing habits."
With six critical flaws, I.T. admins are charged with targeting the most potentially dangerous of the bunch first. According to Sheldon Malm, a vulnerability researcher for nCircle, one of the most critical vulnerabilities is covered in security bulletin MS07-042, which describes the update for an XML services vulnerability. "XML is so pervasive -- it ships with so many different products and sits in so many different places on an enterprise network," he said.
Malm said he was most concerned about bulletin MS07-048, which describes three vulnerabilities in Vista gadgets. The RSS feed gadget vulnerability could allow a er that has gained control of a blog to create a malicious post and distribute it to everyone who subscribes to the RSS feed.
"RSS feeds have the potential to become the next big vector for worms or bots because it exploits an existing trust relationship. People place implicit trust in the security of the information source when they use RSS feeds," Malm. Patch Tuesday Highlights Web-Based Malware