rootkits news from FierceCIO

On June 20, officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will hold a hearing on Capitol Hill to discuss the agency's apparent problems in staving off electronic attacks and IT systems Read more...

Host-based technologies can target a range of threats from spam to rootkits while providing network repair. Host-based anti-malware products have two components: a security agent that resides on Read more...

While they're not topping the big security threat lists, rootkits still pose a danger to today's enterprises. It is extremely important to understand what a rootkit is and how it can be used Read more...

Remember that whole Sony rootkit scandal? The company was selling CDs with hidden rootkit software. Well, Read more...

Boy, it's been a fun year for Sony, hasn't it? Let's recap: they infected users' desktops with rootkits, they almost took down a plane with one of their exploding batteries and they had to massively scale back production forecasts for their Playstation 3 video game console. What's next? Well, it looks like the battery fiasco isn't over yet, with Hitachi joining the fray as of today. The company plans to recall 16,000 laptop batteries, not due to any reports of problems, but rather, for …

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Just on the heels of a recent report on the popularity of rootkits with hackers comes news of a new Read more...

Quick, how do you remove rootkits? You're likely to hear a different theory from every security professional you ask. Whether it's even possible to remove rootkits without completely wiping out a system is becoming a controversial topic lately, because if you remove the rootkit, you'll probably leave a hole where the original healthy files used to be. The problem is acute because security vendors can't advertise rootkit removal tools if they don't know the actual consequences. So the …

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In and by itself, a rootkit isn't inherently dangerous. It's what malware and worm code writers can do with a rootkit that gives them a bad name. Knowing how to detect and eradicate malicious Read more...

Microsoft is buying Winternals Software for an undisclosed amount. Winternals is known among sysadmins for its Windows utility software and the Sysinternals blog of co-founder Mark Russinovich. (Russinovich himself is known as the guy who discovered rootkits in Sony music CDs last year.) Microsoft's plans for Winternals products are not yet clear. Russinovich and co-founder Bryce Cogswell both plan to stay, which bodes well for Windows itself.

For more on the deal:
- check …

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Ever since the Sony CD debacle involving rootkit technology, greater security attention and investigation has been focused on what rootkits can allow the criminal element to do to networks and Read more...