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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Gathering 'Storm' Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets

The Storm worm first appeared at the beginning of the year, hiding in e-mail attachments with the subject line: "230 dead as storm batters Europe." Those who opened the attachment became infected, their computers joining an ever-growing botnet.

Although it's most commonly called a worm, Storm is really more: a worm, a Trojan horse and a bot all rolled into one. It's also the most successful example we have of a new breed of worm, and I've seen estimates that between 1 million and 50 million computers have been infected worldwide.

Old style worms -- Sasser, Slammer, Nimda -- were written by hackers looking for fame. They spread as quickly as possible (Slammer infected 75,000 computers in 10 minutes) and garnered a lot of notice in the process. The onslaught made it easier for security experts to detect the attack, but required a quick response by antivirus companies, sysadmins and users hoping to contain it. Think of this type of worm as an infectious disease that shows immediate symptoms.

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E-mails containing malicious PDF files have been putting computers at risk since Friday, Finnish security software firm F-Secure said on Saturday.

"The e-mails sent in bulk looked like credit card statements, and contained an attachment called 'report.pdf'," its Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen said in a statement.

When such PDF files are viewed on vulnerable machines, they start downloading software from servers in Malaysia or Sweden, which are now being cleaned, he said. "There will be more such attacks."

"We are worried about this case, as PDF attachments are typically not filtered at e-mail gateways."

A security update for Adobe Acrobat Reader, which opens PDF files, was made available a few days ago, but many users have not updated the program yet, Hypponen said.

Small business blogging Benefits:

The Bottom Line

A blog is likely to help your small business grow if you use it well.

10 Key Benefits of Small Business Blogs

Here are 10 of the most significant benefits of small business blogging. Some of these benefits overlap.

1. Increase profit. You can significantly raise revenue at little expense with a business blog.


2. Increase targeted website traffic. Targeted traffic means people who are likely to be interested in your company. Blogs make it easy for those people to find your business.

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