Free Republic

A critical software bug has been discovered in several of the most widely used anti-virus programs. It could be exploited to take control of a computer or to steal information, according to an analysis produced by the independent security analyst who made the discovery. The glitch affects 39 different Symantec products - including both home and enterprise versions of its anti-virus software. It resides within the Symantec anti-virus library, which is used by all of the packages. The analyst, Alex Wheeler, discovered that a critical error occurs when the Symantec anti-virus library decompresses files from "RAR" format for analysis Symantec...

While Windows and other Microsoft Corp. products are the favorite targets of hackers, the malicious code writers are increasingly targeting software that run on other operating systems, including Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac and open-source Linux, a security research group said Monday. In its list of the top 20 most critical Internet vulnerabilities in the first quarter of the year, the Sans Institute reported that software fixes were released for flaws in RealNetworks Inc.'s RealOne Player and RealPlayer. Security flaws were found in versions of the multimedia players running on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. In addition, vulnerabilities were listed for...

Early this month, several Web sites began offering software promising ringtones and screensavers for certain cell phones. But those who downloaded the software found that it turned every icon on their cell phones' screens into a skull-and-crossbones and disabled their phones, so they could no longer send or receive text messages or access contact lists or calendars. Security experts named the malicious software "Skulls" and consider it an early warning of the damage hackers could do as they turn their malevolent talents to cell phones from computers. "Hackers are simply trying to put it out there that it can be...

A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit over McAfee VirusScan versions 3 and 4. If you are a U.S. resident and you bought a retail version of McAfee VirusScan version 3 or version 4, then you are a member of the class.

Here is a link to a program that is supposed to help get rid of worm, etc. viruses. Maybe it works okay, maybe not. Any other ideas? Click here.

This is the second night in a row that I hit the instant update button in my Mcafee VirusScan, newly installed after a hardware crash on Windows 98, and in the middle of the downloads the process froze. Then when I go to try to ping www.mcafee.com (which I could reach before the problem) it says network unreachable! I can ping other sites, I can freep, but no mcafee. Is there maybe a McAfee-DDOS-attack virus out there? (DDOS=distributed denial of service) My ISP is Ameritech (DSL).