Stories about: America Online

While two-factor authentication schemes face various snags, S/MIME is ready to help secure e-mail today.

Big-name companies like America Online Inc. (AOL) and Adobe Systems Inc. could do a better job of writing secure software, according to a recent report by two Princeton University researchers.

The Santa Claus worm doesn't care whether you've been naughty or nice, but it's making a list of PCs to infect this holiday season, according to a threat alert released by security firm IMlogic Tuesday.

A Massachusetts teenager has pleaded guilty in federal court to hacking into the networks of Internet and telephone service providers, stealing someone's personal information and posting it online, according to a statement from Michael Sullivan, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts.

The Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC), a group of IT companies and public interest groups, is hoping to succeed where a previous vendor organisation failed in tackling the global problem of spyware. The ASC released an agreed-upon draft definition of spyware Tuesday that it hopes will promote public comment and ultimately result in users becoming better educated about the dangers of spyware.

A study released by instant messaging (IM) security vendor, IMlogic, reported that hackers and virus writers are recognizing and exploiting the opportunites presented by IM-based attacks, the numbers of which have risen sharply over the last two quarters.

Standards body the Liberty Alliance Project believes it can contribute something currently missing from the ongoing debate on tackling identity theft -- a lexicon of terms defining exactly what constitutes ID theft. The alliance, which focuses on developing open standards for federated network identity, revealed its work on the lexicon Tuesday.

Reuters Group was able to bring its instant messaging (IM) system back online early on Friday morning, after an outbreak of the Kelvir worm led the company to shut down the system for most of Thursday.

Technology isn't going to protect e-commerce customers -- stronger government regulation is what will get the attention of online banks and merchants, forcing them to stop being casual about security, said Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security.

Growing fears of identity theft and e-mail phishing scams, exacerbated by the recent data leaks at ChoicePoint and Bank of America, are pushing companies to adopt new IT security tools in a bid to bolster consumer confidence in online transactions.