by Joseph Forbes | Mar 25, 2013 | HARDWARE, MONEY, NERD NEWS, Technicals
from the round-rock-rumble dept. Seven weeks ago, Dell announced a definitive agreement to be taken private by a group led by founder and CEO Michael Dell and the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, assisted by a $2 billion loan from Microsoft and debt financing...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 25, 2013 | HACKING, KnowledgeBase (KB), Microsoft's Malware Protection Center, SECURITY, Technicals
Ramnit is one of the most prevalent threat families still active in the wild today. Two years ago, we talked about the infection method it uses in the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC) blog Little red Ramnit: My what big eyes you have, Grandma! by Scott...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 25, 2013 | Blog Entry, DATA, ENTERTIANMENT, MONEY, NERD NEWS
from the hope-they-do-justice-to-the-moon-level-music dept. Many Slashdotters are probably aware of the 1989 Nintendo Entertainment System platformer classic DuckTales (video, designed around the Disney cartoon series. Capcom announced today at their PAX East panel...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 25, 2013 | Blog Entry, DATA, HACKING, INTERNET, MONEY, POLITICAL, PRIVACY, SECURITY, Technicals, TECHNOLOGY
CASP is ‘toughest technical test’ in network security from CompTIA The Department of Defense (DOD) has begun including the security certification known as “CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner” (CASP) in its accepted roster of industry-based...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 25, 2013 | Blog Entry, HACKING, SECURITY, Technicals
The TL-WDR4300 Router. Security experts in Poland have discovered a treacherous backdoor in various router models made by TP-Link. When a specially crafted URL is called, the router will respond by downloading and executing a file from the accessing computer, reports...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 25, 2013 | DATA, MONEY, NERD NEWS, TECHNOLOGY
Blackstone Group has reportedly sent a preliminary counterbid to buy out Dell, which would rival the current proposed offer of US$24.4 billion from Silver Lake Partners and Michael Dell made in early February. Blackstone, an equity firm, submitted its offer to Dell on...
![US vulnerability database offline after hack]()
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 25, 2013 | Blog Entry
The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is currently offline after malware was discovered on two NIST web servers, according to a report in The Register. The NVD is a US Government repository of...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 24, 2013 | DATA, HARDWARE, INTERNET, SECURITY, Technical Support, Technicals
from the and-it-can-be-yours-for-free dept. UEFI guru Matthew Garrett, who cleared the Linux kernel in Samsung laptop bricking issues, has come to rescue beleaguered users by offering a survival guide enabling them to avoid similar issues. According to Garrett,...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 24, 2013 | NERD NEWS
from the internet-dragging-its-feet-slightly-less dept. Google on Tuesday announced that it now fully supports DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) validation on its Google Public DNS resolvers. Previously, the search giant accepted and forwarded...
by Joseph Forbes | Mar 24, 2013 | INTERNET, LAW, MONEY, POLITICAL, Technicals, TECHNOLOGY
from the man-vs-the-states dept. passed a nonbinding proposal to allow states to collect sales tax on Internet sellers that have no presence within their borders. The proposal was an amendment to a 2014 budget bill that the Senate debated Friday. It was pushed by...
