SecureSlinger

Though thereâ??s speculation that Microsoft will eventually provide Windows support for its Kinect hands-free control system for the Xbox 360, it seems like everybody is jumping the gun. Hackers have made it work with PCs almost from its launch, and now a Korean PC game developer is claiming its new title will support Kinect. GamePrix told IncGamers that its game Divine Soul will include support for Kinect for its combat mode. The company also says that â??there are many [PC] game companies that are trying to apply for this system.â? Questions abound concerning the announcement, including why GamePrix is divulging Kinect support when no other PC game company has, and does this mean an announcement about official Windows support for Kinect is coming sooner than later. Or is GamePrix just building support into its game and hoping that hackers take care of the rest? Maybe next monthâ??s CES will provide a more definitive answer.

Novell iPrint Client 'ienipp.ocx' ActiveX 'GetDriverSettings()' Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Novell iPrint Client Multiple Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities

If you have OS X and also interested in monitoring the state of Infocon, reader Robert sent us a li ...(more)...

In my spare time I am teaching computer security topics in a local university. One of the activitie ...(more)...

We hope you have a Merry Christmas and lots of fun with your family tonight!!! -- Manuel Humberto S ...(more)...

PHP 'open_basedir' Security-Bypass Vulnerability

PHP 'ext/imap/php_imap.c' Use After Free Denial of Service Vulnerability

Rocket Software UniData and UniVerse 'unirpcd.exe' Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring 'DoubleTake.exe' Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

A hospital foundation trust has written to 1,500 patients after the theft of a computer containing their personal details. Calderdale and Huddersfield foundation trust said it has informed local police about the theft and has since increased its security precautions. "At the end of November it was found that part of an electromyography (EMG) machine, a computer which drives it, had been taken from a locked office in the neurophysiology department at Calderdale Royal Hospital," Yvette Oade, the medical director for the trust, said. "We have written to some of the department's patients because limited personal data, such as names and dates of birth, was on the password protected computer," she said. The NHS has suffered a string of small losses of personal data, many involving stolen equipment. In November, information commission Christopher Graham said that data losses from the health service outnumbered those from any other sector, making up 30 percent of all data loss incidents reported to his office.

The market for on-premise, end-point security software is unlikely to be displaced by a growing focus on security in the cloud, industry experts say. According to Gartner security analyst Rob McMillan, virtualisation and cloud computing were driving an evolution in enterprise security demands. He likened the shift to the advent of the internet, which came with greater information flow - and security risks - than ever before. "We're at a cusp of major change in how IT services are delivered," McMillan said, acknowledging the growing role of cloud security in enterprise defence in depth strategies. "As we start to deliver of user interfaces from the cloud, protection mechanisms will move to stay close to those delivery mechanisms."

Security vendor Kaspersky Labs has quietly launched a hosted security service from two Sydney data centres which offers email and web threat protection as a hosted service. Kaspersky Hosted Security Services has been running for select customers from a cluster of servers located in two Sydney data centres since mid-October. The vendor has kept mum on which data centres are hosting the service, saying only that the â??two biggest data centre providers in Australiaâ? have signed on to run the cluster. By that rationale, the hosters are likely to be Global Switch and Equinix.

While work continues on developing the fundamentals for super-fast quantum computers, a group of researchers has shown that, at least for some sorts of problems, classical computing could match the eventual speed of a working quantum computer -- with the correct software algorithms in place. "We're putting lots of money into building quantum computers, but we shouldn't underestimate the power of algorithms," said John Watrous, who works at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo at Ontario, Canada. As a by-product of studying the predicted performance of quantum computing, Watrous and other researchers have shown how an algorithm little used in today's software could provide a new level of problem-solving performance in traditional computers, one that could match, in theory anyway, speeds obtained by quantum computers.

Internet calling and messaging service Skype SA mostly recovered Thursday from an outage caused by an undisclosed glitch, but problems lingered for its worldwide user base. The service went down for almost all of its users starting at midday Eastern time on Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon, things had improved to the point where about 21 million users were logged in, said CEO Tony Bates. That was 10 percent less than the usual traffic for the time of day, as some people still could not log on. Voice calling, video-chatting and text-based instant messaging are working for most users, Bates said, but other features, such as offline instant messaging and group video calls, are still down.

An apples-to-apples comparison may not be possible here, given that Twitter used to keep its stats private, time's passed, and Twitter and a service called Baidu Talk operate in different markets. But Baidu Talk, Baidu's Twitter-esque product, is doing quite well, apparently racking up a million users in a rather short period of time. Michael Kan wrote today, "China's largest search engine Baidu reports that its new microblogging service has grabbed more than 1 million users after being launched three months ago." Then Kan continued, "[T]he service incorporates Twitter-like features, but is being built to become a fully fledged social networking platform. Baidu Talk was launched in mid-September as a closed beta, with new users being brought in through invitation only."