This week's report presents a series of Microsoft vulnerabilities, MS06-066, MS06-067, MS06-068, MS06-069, MS06-070, and MS06-071, the TelnetOn.A worm and the Briz.S Trojan.

Bulletins MS06-067 to MS06-071 refer to a number of critical vulnerabilities, including a cumulative update for Internet Explorer (MS06-067), a flaw in Flash Player (MS06-069) and another in XML Core Services (MS06-071). The MS06-066 bulletin is classified as "important" and is about problems in the client service for NetWare.

Malicious code that exploits a "critical" Windows 2000 vulnerability has been released on the Internet, rising the probability of attacks, experts advised on Thursday.

The code makes use of a security vulnerability in a key operating system module that routes file system and print requests called the "Workstation Service." On Windows 2000 systems, the defect could be exploited via the Net by an unidentified aggressor without any user interaction, increasing the likelihood of the arrival of a Zotob-like worm.

Sophos, a world leader in integrated risk management systems, stresses carefulness in recent declarations that banks should end emailing customers to avoid providing more attraction for phishers. The call to action, made by a security expert at Dimension Data, is in reply to a new legitimate Citibank email that consumers incorrectly took for a phishing scam.

The New York State Consumer Protection Board just announced New Yorkers can request that a security freeze be placed on their credit records. A security freeze can aid in the prevention of identity theft by thwarting someone from opening credit cards or lines of credit in another person's name.

"This new law will give New Yorkers a way to help prevent identity theft because it will block access to your credit history," said the board's Chairwoman Teresa Santiago in a news release. "Blocking access to your credit files, in most cases, will prevent someone from using your name and credit information to establish a new line of credit.

During a telephone discussion with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while publicize the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system's new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Vista without antivirus software installed.

Some customer are calling new software from Symantec Corp. "adware" for the reason that the security vendor covertly delivered it to their desktops. But the software is actually a new update notification service, a Symantec represenative said Thursday.

The new software, called "Norton LiveConnect," started reaching users earlier this week. After not finding any additional information about the software by searching Symantec's Web site, some users questioned if wasn't a poorly disguised promotion program that they hadn't agreed to accept.

The open question still remains whether the agreement between the FTC and Zango, formerly known as 180solutions, will reduce adware.

The Federal Trade Commission said Zango, a major adware distributor formerly known as 180solutions, and its two principals, Keith Smith and Daniel Toddhad of Bellevue, Wash., agreed to settle FTC allegations that the company used unjust and misleading methods to install and hinder the removal of adware on consumers' computers in violation of federal law.

Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 46, of Azusa, California, was arrested today by FBI agents after having been a escapee for the past four months, declared J. Stephen Tidwell, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

Goodin, who was well-known as “The Hacker,” was initially arrested in January 2006 on accuses that he operated an identity theft scheme known as “phishing.” During the scheme, Goodin supposedly sent thousands of fraudulent e-mails which appeared to be from America Online’s Billing Department to AOL subscribers, looking for their personal credit and debit card account information. The stolen data was later used by Goodin to make unauthorized purchases.

Thompson Cyber Security Labs published a study according to which, amongst current desktop security software, Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2007 suite is the best at detecting and removing stealth rootkits.

In the study, which was commissioned by Symantec and conducted by veteran anti-virus expert Roger Thompson, 20 arbitrarily selected pieces of rootkit-laden malware files were used against the major anti-virus and anti-spyware vendors to scale detection and elimination capabilities.

Symantec Corp. has publicized the availability of its Mobile AntiVirus 4.0 for Windows Mobile, a software that automatically protects mobile devices from security threats received via e-mail and multimedia messaging service (MMS), downloaded from memory cards, the mobile network and Wi-Fi, transmitted by Bluetooth or beamed over infrared connections.