IE flaw threat raised to 'extremely critical'

The security company Secunia has re-issued warnings about critical vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The advisory was first published back in October 2004 - New security holes identified for Internet Explorer post SP 2 - and it even affects machines that have Windows XP SP2 installed. As well as increasing the rating of the threat - from 'highly critical' to 'extremely critical - Secunia has constructed a test program, which can be used to check if a browser is affected. ...more

Matrix Worm gets smart

Yet another virus has reared its ugly replicating head, but this one has a special twist. The W95/MTX.9244 worm often infects computers via an e-mail attachment and can wipe out some of the files on the hard drive. ...more

Virtualisation becomes enterprise critical - Gartner

According to analyst firm Gartner, Virtualisation will be the most important IT technology for the next three years. According to the company, the number of virtual machines will increase from 540,000 at the end of last year to more than four million by 2009. "Several things will make virtualisation critical to most enterprises in the next few years: the need to consolidate space, power, installation and integration, and providing server resources which are capable of responding to unpredictable workloads," Gartner analyst Thomas Bittman told a conference in Sydney yesterday. ...more

Creative warns of Christmas MP3 player shortage

The president of Creative Labs has warned potential MP3 player buyers that they may be hard to find in the run up to Christmas because of a shortage of flash memory chips. Craig McHugh said that 1GB chips are proving particularly elusive and blamed Apple. 'Industry demand for high-capacity flash memory currently outstrips supply and this will impact availability of our 1GB flash MP3 players for the holiday quarter,' he said in a conference call following the announcement of Creative's latest financial results. ...more

PlusNet offers refunds for network slowdown

PlusNet is offering certain Broadband Plus customers a refund on their February subscription charge if they can provide evidence of problems with their service's performance. In an email to customers, the ISP acknowledged that a readjustment to the amount peak time network capacity resulted in slower than acceptable speeds. It explained that Broadband Plus pays for approximately an 18 per cent share of its network at peak times, but during December and January it was taking around 15 per cent, which was affecting Premier and PAYG customers. ...more