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Ann Mather, a Google board member, could well find herself on the receiving end of a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit regarding stock option transactions made while she was chief financial officer at Pixar Animation Studios.

"On April 23, 2008, Ann was advised by the staff of the Los Angeles office of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it intends to recommend that the SEC initiate a civil proceeding against her, alleging violation of federal securities laws related to certain stock option transactions involving her former employer, Pixar Animation Studios," Google said in a regulatory filing Monday. … Read more

It held out as long as possible, but a Windows Vista laptop fell to a determined bunch of hackers Friday evening at the Pwn to Own contest at CanSecWest.

Since it was the third day of the contest, which saw a MacBook Air get hacked on Thursday, the TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative relaxed the rules even further. On the first day of the contest, only the operating system could be targeted, but on the second day that was expanded to include standard applications. An undisclosed Safari flaw led to the MacBook Air's downfall.

But on Friday, hackers could target … Read more

A team of security researchers has won $10,000 for hacking a MacBook Air in two minutes using an undisclosed Safari vulnerability.

IDG News Service is camped out at CanSecWest in lovely Vancouver, Canada, and has chronicled the exploits (gotta love security puns) of Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel of Independent Security Evaluators during the Pwn to Own contest sponsored by TippingPoint. The team was able to gain control of a MacBook Air on the second day of the hacking competition, which pitted the Air against Windows Vista and Ubuntu machines.

No one was able to execute code … Read more

This post was last updated at 7:37 AM PT.

Claiming that it is both undervalued and underappreciated, Yahoo has fired some key financial forecasts over the bow of an acquisitive Microsoft.

On Tuesday, Yahoo reported the contents of a presentation to investors detailing the company's strategy for the next three years, as seen in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The presentation was first shown to investors in December 2007, prior to Microsoft's announcement that it planned to acquire Yahoo. But on Tuesday, Yahoo underscored the contents of the presentation as evidence that Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid, … Read more

The SEC's new Financial Explorer site, is a tool that lets users manipulate raw data derived from XBRL, or extensible business reporting language. You can view, chart and compare company financial information using US GAAP taxonomies. And, it's open source.

If you've ever had the pleasure of combing through 10-k or other filings this seems like it can make your life much easier. I would have killed for this when I was in grad school.

This week, Cisco did something it is extremely good at: it announced yet another marketing-focused initiative called the Cisco Trusted Security, or TrustSec. The company describes TrustSec as "a new architecture that integrates identity and role-based security measures for scaled implementation across enterprise networks."

Hey, great idea! If I knew who was on my network and what they were doing, I could certainly get a better handle on security, business process management, workflow, and regulatory compliance controls. That said, we've been talking about this for a long time. I would also argue that a number of vendors … Read more

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will have to appear before federal investigators as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission's lawsuit against Nancy Heinen, Apple's former head lawyer, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

In April, the SEC filed suit against Heinen and Fred Anderson, Apple's former CFO, charging them with orchestrating the backdating of stock options at the company. Anderson agreed to settle his suit with the SEC at the time it was filed, but the proceedings are under way against Heinen. Bloomberg's report said that the SEC is not opening an investigation of Jobs with this move, but … Read more

Dell actually beat analysts' expectations Thursday when it released the preliminary results of its earnings for the second quarter of fiscal year 2008, but again opted against the traditional follow-up conference call with company executives, investors and the media.

Dell has failed to file its last six quarterly earnings reports and its last annual report with the SEC due to the company's internal investigation into its accounting practices. The probe, which was wrapped up earlier this month, found that Dell accountants were regularly fudging quarterly earnings numbers as far back as 2003 to meet or surpass Wall Street expectations. … Read more

This article was updated at 2:45 p.m. PDT.

Dell concluded an internal investigation into its accounting procedures Thursday and found that three years' worth of quarterly earnings statements were improperly adjusted, and senior executives knew about it.

Which executives knew isn't clear yet. A Dell representative said the company is "taking responsibility as a team" and isn't naming names.

According to a statement released by the company, the investigation yielded evidence that "certain adjustments appear to have been motivated by the objective of attaining financial targets," and usually took place at the … Read more