Microsoft is a mite upset, and is
offering $500,000 reward to inform on the virus writers responsible for the Blaster and Sobig worms. (In August, if you recall, the Blaster-A worm infected many unprotected home and business computers, attempted to launch a denial of service attack against a critical Microsoft security update website, and, most importantly, mocked Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. The worm exploited a critical security hole in versions of Microsoft Windows. Just days later the Sobig-F worm, which spread on the Windows platform, bombarded email users around the world, clogging up email servers.)
Sophos, the anti-virus people, had this to say: “It’s no surprise to hear that they are fed up with this situation and prepared to offer a reward for the capture of these virus writers,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. “There must be people out there in the computer underground who know who is responsible for the creation of these malicious worms. Offering a total of $500,000 will be a great temptation for someone to break their silence – and do all legitimate users of the Internet a favour.”
If you’re not a big user of Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s browser — and therefore no fan of Google’s Toolbar — you may be interested in their new Deskbar.
I’ve not been keeping score, but more and more Nokia phones seem to be exploding. Another one did in Finland, The Register reports. Nokia has confirmed that it was one of its 3310 handsets equipped with a rogue battery which exploded and caused minor injuries to a woman in Finland yesterday.
Internet payment system Worldpay is under hack attack from unknown assailants, hitting thousands of online retailers around the world, the BBC reports. The company’s payment and administration networks have been flooded with computer-generated requests, clogging the system and slowing transactions – also known as a “denial-of-service” attack. Worldpay is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. It has 27,000 clients around the world, ranging from heavyweights like Vodafone and Sony Music Entertainment to numerous small online retailers.