Today Intel announced that they are purchasing antivirus software maker McAfee for $7.68 billion. This will be a major purchase for Intel’s software group as McAfee is a giant in the security market. Intel says this buyout will help progress their ability to meet the ever increasing need of hardware integrated security.
Microsoft released an emergency patch on Monday. The patch was to fix a known vulnerability in the windows shell that allowed remote code execution via windows shortcuts (.lnk). Microsoft rated this patch as critical and released it immediately rather than waiting until their regular Patch Tuesday.
Starting today the DNS Root Zone is getting DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) as an added layer of security against hackers. DNSSEC is an internet standard for protecting against cache poisoning by allowing websites to verify their domains with digital signatures and public-key encryption. Cache poisoning is where web traffic is redirected from a legitimate website to a fake site without the knowledge of the user or the legitimate websites administrator. This security flaw in current DNS architecture is also referred to as spoofing.
According to an article at networkworld researchers have found a potential security risk in Cisco’s Aironet 1200 Series Access Points if the devices are configured incorrectly. This is not an actual bug as it has more to do with user error.
Symantec has identified a new variant of Downadup also known as Conficker. This is the third variant and is reportedly more aggressive than the two previous versions.