flame

Let me introduce you to Norm.

"Norm!"

No, not George Wendt. Norman is an IT security company based in Norway that's selling a box that just might save the world from the next nuclear disaster.

Perhaps you've heard of a beefy piece of malware dubbed "Flame" that's been getting some attention lately. This week it became the latest dark monarch to reign in the underworld kingdom of scary code. Norm -- sorry, Norman -- says its new box could douse Flame and stop destructive cousins like Stuxnet and Duqu in their tracks, too.… Read more

The Flame worm has put the Middle East and neighboring regions on high alert and caused several security experts to look for the source. And although some media reports have linked Israel to the attack, the country has denied all involvement.

The trouble for Israel started recently when the country's vice prime minister, Moshe Ya'alon, said on Israel's military radio station, Army Radio, that "there are quite a few governments in the West that have rich high-tech [capabilities] that view Iran, and particularly the Iranian nuclear threat, as a meaningful threat -- and can possibly be … Read more

The Flame virus recently found in Iran could be used to infect other countries, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

As the United Nations agency charged with helping members protect their data networks, the ITU plans to issue a warning about the danger of Flame.

"This is the most serious (cyber) warning we have ever put out," Marco Obiso, cyber security coordinator for the ITU, told Reuters. The warning will paint the virus as a "dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure," Reuters added.

Flame was recently identified as a culprit … Read more

In today's show, we test Google's new operating system, chirp goodbye to Nextel, and pay our Russian bills with green pigs:

The reviews are out for Samsung's new Chromebook and Chromebox, running on the newly updated Chrome OS. And the bottom line is that it's better than the last version, but still not all that impressive. (Especially since the Chromebook has limited capabilities and costs more than a tablet.)

The Nextel network will officially be killed-off in June of 2013, and Sprint is pushing Nextel customers to use Sprint Direct Connect devices.

There's a new … Read more

The most "complex malware ever found" -- Flame -- has taken the information security world by surprise. Given that it is said to have been around for years, how did everyone miss it?

Several security research firms, including Symantec, Kaspersky, and McAfee, have been hard at work analyzing a specific piece of malware in the past few days after the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team posted an alert about malicious code designed to steal and exfiltrate information from infected computers back to a network of at least 10 command and control servers.

However, as Budapest University's Laboratory … Read more

A complex targeted virus has been discovered stealing data in the Middle East, security researchers announced today.

The malware -- dubbed Flame -- has been operation since 2010 and appears to be state-sponsored, Kaspersky Labs said today, but it was not sure of its origins. Flame is designed to steal information about targeted systems and stored files as well as computer display contents and audio conversations.

"The complexity and functionality of the newly discovered malicious program exceed those of all other cyber menaces known to date," Kaspersky Labs said in statement announcing the malware's discovery.

The virus … Read more

The Indian government is demanding Web and social media companies, including Google and Facebook, prescreen user content in the country and remove disparaging, inflammatory, or defamatory material before any of it goes online.

Top executives from the Indian offices of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo will be meeting with Kapil Sibal, India's acting telecommunications minister to discuss the issue, according to two of three unnamed representatives from Internet companies, The New York Times reported yesterday. (See also: "ZDNet: Indian govt. piggybacks on religion to censor the Web.")

This would mark the third in a series of meetings … Read more

Are record labels ready to help rock bands stay at the forefront of fans' minds in the age of social media overload? Wayne Coyne, the lead singer of the Flaming Lips, isn't so sure.

There's no doubt that the group plays inside the traditional label system: it has been signed to Warner Bros. Records since the '90s. But Coyne thinks that tech-savvy musicians may well be better able to attract fans to their brand-new work than the record companies. And while he expects that labels like Warner may well set the tone for innovative artist promotion in the … Read more

About 80 percent of commonly used baby products recently surveyed by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, contain toxic or untested halogenated flame retardants, and 36 percent contain chlorinated Tris--a toxin that, along with the related brominated Tris, was banned for several years in the 1970s.

What's more, the flame retardants--there to meet California standard TB117 that consumer items withstand a small open flame--are easily rendered ineffective when put in, for instance, baby furniture with fabric covers that are not required to be resistant, says chemist and visiting scholar Arlene Blum, who helped organize the study just reported in in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

"The California furniture flammability standard called TB117 does not provide proven protection from fire," she says. "If we can change that requirement, we can have a positive effect worldwide, because these flame retardants are not just a California or U.S. problem--they've become global pollutants."

The semi-volatile chemicals get into the air and then into dust, where researchers say they can be ingested or form films on walls and windows. (An April 2011 UC Berkeley study found that Latino children in the U.S. have seven times the level of flame retardants in their blood than those living in Mexico.)… Read more