Sean Michael Kerner

Attention Apple users: Step away from reading about MacWorld, put down your iPods and update your QuickTime software now to prevent a hacker from taking over your system. There are five highly critical flaws in Apple’s QuickTime application that affect both Apple and Windows versions, as well as Apple’s popular iTunes application. The flaws all […]

The gloves are now officially off in the open source battle for enhanced Linux application security. Novell is open sourcing its AppArmor framework under the GPL license and will compete head on against the NSA and Red Hat backed SELinux (Security Enhanced). AppArmor has been in Novell’s product portfolio since the May 2005 acquisition of […]

The latest version of DragonFly BSD is now available with a new package management system that pushes the project further away from its FreeBSD roots. DragonFly BSD 1.4 is the third major release of the project since being spun out from FreeBSD-based code in 2003 by DragonFly BSD project leader Matthew Dillon. The new BSD […]

The newest version of Skype is out of beta and now enabling users to put a new face on their VoIP calls. Skype 2.0 has been in public beta since December and is the first Skype release to include full-screen video calling. The Skype video service, which had been rumored as far back as July […]

Though it continues to fall behind Google in other categories, Yahoo currently holds the lead for the most toolbar searches, but only by the thinnest of margins. According to newly released data from comScore Media Metrix, Yahoo sites garnered 48.5 percent of toolbar searches in November just slightly ahead of Google, which grabbed 46.4 percent. […]

In a world of multiple e-mail addresses, phone numbers and changing locations, staying in touch isn’t always an easy task. That’s where the Plaxo contact management application comes into play by keeping contacts connected and accurately synchronized. Plaxo integrates into popular e-mail programs, such as Microsoft’s Outlook and Outlook Express, as well as the open […]

If you’ve been receiving suspicious and likely phished e-mails purporting to be from eBay or PayPal, you’re not alone. According to year-end 2005 data from research firm Netcraft, eBay and PayPal were the top phishing targets representing 62 percent of attacks. Netcraft’s data is derived from its Toolbar, which aims to block and or help […]

IDC is predicting that U.S. IT spending will grow by 5 percent in 2006. The new prediction comes from IDC’s FutureScan unit, which analyzes both customer surveys and market indicators to gauge IT industry supply and demand. Metrics for buyer expectations and vendor revenue forecasts, as well as the macroeconomic indicator are all apparently aligned […]

Which operating system logged the most vulnerabilities in 2005? According to the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-Cert) 2005 year-end index, Unix/Linux racked up more reports of vulnerabilities compared to Windows. Security professionals, however, argue that the numbers alone don’t tell the full story, and that a properly configured Unix/Linux server is likely more […]

Don’t expect 2006 to be a breakout year for IT spending. According to a new report from Merrill Lynch based on 100 CIO surveys, overall IT spending will grow by 2.5 percent in 2006, up marginally from the 2 percent mark recorded in 2005. That’s not to say that CIOs don’t have wish lists of […]

Once limited to the realm of supercomputing, InfiniBand is beginning to catch on as an enterprise storage interconnect. InfiniBand technology offers low latency, current performance of 10Gbps, and the promise of future performance of as much as 120Gbps as an I/O interconnect. While the technology failed to live up to its early hype several years […]

The Windows Metafile Format (WMF) flaw is not quite a zero-day exploit anymore, but it’s not quite patched yet, either. Microsoft has completed the development of a security update to fix the WMF flaw, which appeared last week. However, the update is being tested for quality control and isn’t going to be released until Tuesday, […]