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Cisco has scrambled to fix a serious vulnerability in its Adaptive Security Appliances and Next-Generation Firewalls products which can be used to remotely take over and reboot the devices. Unauthenticated remote attackers can exploit a bug in the internet key exchange (IKE) version 1 and 2 protocol code running on Cisco ASA software, and trigger a buffer overflow. IKE is used to authenticate connections and to set up secure virtual private networks, landing on the firewalls. Security researchers David Barksdale, Jordan Gruskovnjak and Alex Wheeler said the algorithm for reassembling fragmented IKE payloads "contain a bounds-checking flaw that allows a...

Given how hard antivirus software makers push you to sign up, you'd think that business was booming. Far from it, according to Symantec’s Brian Dye. He tells the Wall Street Journal that antivirus tools like his company’s Norton suite are effectively “dead.” The utilities now catch less than half of all attacks, according to the executive—to him, the focus is on minimizing the damage whenever there’s a successful hack or infection. …

As many of you know, my old computer died on the sixth of this month and I replaced it with a cheap used computer (yeah, I know; you get what you pay for). At first there were all sorts of problems--the main one a bad program that was slowing the computer down to the speed of a two toed tree sloth. Removing the program took care of that. Similarly, things have improved in other ways as well and right now I'm pretty satisfied with what I've got-- Except for one thing. My task bar frequently tells me that my Windows...

Hackers have published code that could let an attacker disable the Windows Firewall on certain Windows XP machines. The code, which was posted on the Internet early Sunday morning, could be used to disable the Windows Firewall on a fully patched Windows XP PC that was running Windows' Internet Connection Service (ICS). This service allows Windows users to essentially turn their PC into a router and share their Internet connection with other computers on the local area network (LAN.) It is typically used by home and small-business users. The attacker could send a malicious data packet to another PC using...

CHICAGO, May 3 (UPI) -- Firewall? Forgetaboutit. Cyber-criminals, including the mafia, are now so savvy they can penetrate past these supposedly sturdy security measures and hack your computer network, whether you work at a university, Fortune 500 company or smaller firm, experts tell UPI's The Web. "The firewall and the network perimeter are dead," Ted Demopoulos, author of the best-selling book, "Blogging for Business" (Kaplan, 2006), and IT expert based in Durham, N.H., tells The Web. "Firewalls offer less protection than before." By Gene Koprowski

OK, so I upgraded my Zone Alarm(paid version, I'm no freebie mooch), and ever since then I am unable to put the weather radars in motion(NWS, tv station radars, etc.) If I turn off Zone Alarm, they work just fine, but once I turn it back on, any refresh of the radar loop page kills it again. Been experimenting with all the various controls in ZA, but haven't yet found the problem. Anyone know exactly what it is that ZA is blocking/stopping to prevent the loops, and more importantly what controls on ZA I can change to fix the problem?...

<p>Despite the tech doldrums, this computer-security outfit has just secured $24.3 million in new VC funding, and sales are exploding.</p> <p>Can you give something away and still make money? That was the way of the early Web, and few companies that charted that course in those treacherous waters lived to tell the tale. Then there's ZoneLabs, which started out in 1997 handing out free downloads of an advanced personal firewall.</p>