Second bundled bug in nine days can leave laptops unbootable

(Computerworld) -- The hacker who posted an exploit last week that threatened a large swath of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s laptop lineup followed up yesterday with new attack code that can "brick" nearly every HP laptop.

In a post to the milw0rm.com Web site Wednesday, a Polish security researcher who used the alias "porkythepig" spelled out a pair of vulnerabilities in an ActiveX control used by HP's Software Update, the patch management program bundled with virtually every HP- and Compaq-branded laptop.

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Now that Microsoft has announced the availability of the RC version of Service Pack 3 for our old friend, XP, I'm delighted to tell you all that not only is this upgrade substantial and extremely helpful. Believe it or not, this upgrade creates the best Windows experience I have ever used.

Now, as you may be aware, Vista is, well, crap. Sure, SP1 is on the way early next year and the hope is still there that Microsoft may be able to turn it around, but let's face it -- the chances of Vista becoming a wanted OS are dwindling by the minute.

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By Lisa Vaas
October 24, 2007

A new technique leaves anti-virus products running but brain-dead; an expert says we haven't come close to witnessing Storm's true power.



NEW YORK—The ever-mutating, ever-stealthy Storm worm botnet is adding yet another trick to its vast repertoire: Instead of killing anti-virus products on target systems, it's now doing a hot fix with a memory patch to render them brain-dead.

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Symantec's Security Response blog is reporting that subtle changes in the "Storm worm," the trojan that brought us the "halloween.exe" attacks this week, is showing signs of subtle changes that, at first, make it look like it's becoming more benign. Until the experts looked a little closer:

Specifically, the threat no longer;

1. infects other legitimate drivers on the system. Previous variants infected drivers such as Tcpip.sys and Kbdclass.sys. This was a stealth-like feature used by the threat to start early with the operating system and without loading points in the Windows Registry.

2. injects itself into legitimate processes like Explorer.exe and Services.exe.

But then they figured out this:

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Abstract - Have you ever wondered what is the correct pronunciation of some of the tech words? Well, I compiled a list of some of these words with their correct pronunciation.


GNOME - GNOME stands for "GNU Network Object Model Environment". GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix", and has always been officially pronounced "guh-NEW" to minimize confusion. Since GNU is GNOME's first name, GNOME is officially pronounced "guh-NOME".
However, many people pronounce GNOME as just "NOME" (like those short people from legend), nobody will hurt you if you find this pronunciation easier.

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An Admin's Night Before Christmas
By Paul Bauer
(AKA: El Di Pablo)

'Twas the night before Christmas
and all through the LAN.
Not a problem apparent.
All is right with the SAN.

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