Security Bites podcast

Security Bites 103: Capitalizing on botnets

IronPort's Pat Peterson joins Robert Vamosi this week to talk about how online criminals make money using botnets.

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How do online criminals make money off of botnets? Previously, we've explored how parts of the Storm worm botnet may have been rented out to others. No matter who owns the botnet, the traffic is usually the same: spam. But what kind of spam?

IronPort Systems, a divison of Cisco, released a that identified some of the specific spam messages being used. Not surprising is the pharmaceutical spam. But criminals are also luring unsuspecting more

Security Bites 102: Mozilla's 'Human Shield' on Firefox 3

Jonathan Nightingale of Mozilla joins CNET's Robert Vamosi to talk about the latest version of the browser and its built-in security features.
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If you haven't tried Firefox, what are you waiting for? The latest version, Firefox 3, will soon be out, and the release candidates are stable enough these days for daily use. (Currently, RC2 is the latest build.)

What's good about Firefox 3 is that it's light on resources (even if you have 15 tabs open) and very fast--an improvement over Firefox 2 by far. What's even better more

Security Bites 101: Tackling vulnerabilities

CNET's Robert Vamosi speaks with Ari Takanen of Codenomicon about whether companies do a good job of finding and fixing their own vulnerabilities.
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Last week, an independent security researcher announced that it was possible to install a rootkit on the Cisco IOS network, which is used for routers and voice over Internet Protocol.

This week, CNET's Robert Vamosi spoke with Ari Takanen, co-founder and chief technology officer of Codenomicon. While Takanen's company doesn't engage in vulnerability research, it creates the tools by which enterprises can check their own software for more

Security Bites 100: Google Docs claimed by spammers

This week, CNET's Robert Vamosi talks with Matt Sergeant, senior antispam technologist for MessageLabs.
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This week, CNET's Robert Vamosi talks about spam with Matt Sergeant, senior antispam technologist for MessageLabs.

About two weeks ago, MessageLabs discovered that spammers were publishing to Google Docs. What this does, says Sergeant, is allow spammers to use Google's incredible bandwidth and also have a Web site that is never going to get blacklisted.

Also, MessageLabs this week reported an uptick in the number of spam e-mails related to the Storm worm and botnet. A few more

Security Bites 99: Fujitsu gives biometrics a hand

This week, CNET's Robert Vamosi talks with Joel Hagberg, vice president of marketing and business development at Fujitsu.
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For years, biometric finger scanners have been used in ATMs and at the cash register. But there are problems with finger scanners. Researchers have demonstrated how a flat photograph or molded fingertip can easily fool these devices into giving a false approval. And while face recognition is improving, especially , these devices aren't yet in wide use today.

is another option. Already in use in hospitals and government offices, the device reads the hand's more

Security Bites 98: The good (and bad) news about electronic voting

This week, Robert Vamosi talks with Fortify CSO Brian Chess about electronic voting.
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A correction was made to this story. Read below for details.

Following the February 5 presidential primary, several county clerks in New Jersey asked an independent researcher to study the vote results on the state's electronic voting machines. The vendor, Sequoia, has threatened legal action, but so far hasn't taken any. Initial results suggest that there were some inconsistencies in vote tallies, although none were enough to reverse the election results themselves.

Since last year, several states have requested audits more