The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded information technology solutions provider Merlin International and Watchfire, a provider of Web application vulnerability software, a multimillion-dollar award to build and maintain a Web application security system that will reduce security breach risks at the VA.

Zombies continue to be the major danger to Windows security, Microsoft said Monday. During the six months from January to June 2006, over 43,000 new variants of so-called "backdoor Trojans" were revealed.

After nearly two years in beta testing, Microsoft has at long last released the final version of Windows Defender, its free anti-spyware software. The tool is available now for Windows XP, and will ship as part of Windows Vista.

Application Security, Inc. today announced Oracle on Linux support in AppRadar -- the industry's most complete database activity monitoring and security auditing solution. AppSecInc made the announcement in conjunction with Oracle OpenWorld, taking place this week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Antitrust related changes to security in Windows Vista 64-bit will take years to finalize and will cause compatibility problems in the mean time, according to Gartner.

Users of security technologies such as host intrusion-prevention systems, or HIPS, should postpone buying 64-bit versions of Vista, Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald wrote in a research note published on Wednesday. MacDonald also noted that many integrated security products today include HIPS functionality.

IronPort® Systems Inc., the leading Internet gateway security provider, and Webroot Software, Inc., the leading provider of anti-spyware software for the consumer, enterprise and SME markets, today announced a partnership to stop spyware at the corporate perimeter.

IronPort is using the Webroot RockSafe E1000 SDK in IronPort's new S-Series Web Security Appliances. The IronPort S-Series Web Security Appliance combines a high performance web proxy for application layer analysis with a wire-speed Layer 4 Traffic Monitor, yielding the fastest and most comprehensive protection in the industry.

Fedora Core 6 (FC 6) is now available, offering Red Hat users a view of the latest and greatest in open source technologies.

It could also be seen as a preview of what is coming in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, though Fedora is now a well-established Linux distribution in its own right.

Companies are touting the newest generation of credit cards, where data are transmitted instantly by radio waves.

There's no need to swipe or sign to make a purchase.

Security Assessment Inc., a leading Canadian information security firm providing high-level expertise in securing corporate IT Network Infrastructures has today announced a channel partner agreement with Acunetix, a leading website security software company. The agreement serves as a significant step as Acunetix continues to expand their Canadian presence with its popular web application security tool, Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner.

Caching servers used by leading search engines have become malicious code repositories, according to a report published yesterday.

The study found when the website containing the code is removed, the malicious content it holds remains stored on the caching servers - used by ISPs and leading search engines - leaving businesses vulnerable to spyware, trojans and other security threats.