Web hosting company Savvis launched a hosted security service that is designed to offer firewall, intrusion detection prevention and mitigation of denial-of-service attacks within a company’s wide area network. The Savvis Security Utility service is managed by Savvis, which provides its customers monitoring capabilities through its Web portal.

Oracle has changed its database-licensing structure, giving customers a price break on servers that use new multicore chips from Advanced Micro Devices, Intel and Sun Microsystems. The database heavyweight updated its licensing terms on Monday to reflect the changes. The shift was made because of the emergence of high-volume servers with multicore processors, according to Oracle.

Malicious hackers are targeting U.S. credit unions with phishing emails that try to take advantage of a recently patched Internet Explorer browser hole to compromise systems used by the bank, according to CUISPA, an association of IT professionals who work at credit unions. The attacks use email messages that are being sent to CEOs and other executives at credit unions across the United States. The messages contain a link to a Web page that, when visited, attempts to download a Trojan horse program onto the executives’ machines.

Database and system administrators who are responsible for a UniData system that has the Recoverable File System (RFS) feature enabled will find this article most helpful. All RFS status and error messages are recorded in the $UDTBIN/sm.log file. You will find examples to help you find and decipher the messages to determine the appropriate actions needed to keep your system running smoothly.

Dell on Friday announced a recall of about 22,000 notebook computer batteries sold in the United States and an additional 13,000 abroad. The 35,000 recalled batteries were sold with several models of Latitude and Inspiron machines and Precision mobile workstations between Oct. 5, 2004, and Oct. 13, 2005. Manufactured in Japan or China, they were also sold on their own as replacement batteries–at a cost of between $99 and $179–during that time. The company has learned of three incidents of the recalled batteries overheating, resulting in damage to a tabletop and a desktop, and in "minor damage to personal effects," but no reported injuries.

IBM has opened a $200 million development center to support companies building software for AIX, its version of Unix, the company said Friday. The center, based in Austin, Texas, gives IBM customers, partners and academics the tools to develop, test and fine-tune programs for AIX, a data center operating system. In addition to IBM pSeries servers and 64-bit Power systems, the AIX Collaboration Center provides access to technical experts, training and remote testing capabilities.

ACL Dominator is a platform-independent ACL Management Security Tool allowing Access Control Lists to be quickly and easily managed across all databases on a Lotus Domino network. Domino Administrators can generate ACL reports and modify detailed ACL information on multiple databases in a few simple clicks. ACL Dominator is ideal for collecting and analyzing ACL information for all Lotus Domino servers in an environment, and it can be installed on any workstation or server. The report can quickly identify faulty ACL’s including misspellings, improper access and users who are no longer employed at the company.

A Windows-targeted worm that drops spying software on vulnerable PCs is spreading across the Internet, security experts have warned. The Dasher.B worm exploits a flaw in Microsoft Windows Distributed Transaction Coordinator, or MDTC, security companies said Friday. Microsoft announced and patched the hole in the component for transaction processing in October. However, initial glitches with the update may have left some users without a properly implemented fix, Sophos said.

SitePoint, provider of fun, practical, and easy-to-understand content for Web professionals, announced the release of Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache, collaboration between seasoned developers Stuart Langridge and Tony Steidler-Dennison. Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache deftly guides readers through the installation of Linux and Apache onto a development server before explaining how to master common server admin tasks and, importantly, how to secure their servers using a firewall and intrusion detection system. No prior experience with Linux is expected by the book’s authors. Readers also learn how to manipulate server settings for maximum performance through the management of traffic reporting, log-file rotation and more.

Third Brigade announced that customers that have deployed Deep Security, its advanced Host Intrusion Prevention System, are protected from attacks that could exploit multiple new Internet Explorer software vulnerabilities disclosed in the December Microsoft security bulletin. Two of the four vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer are rated as critical. These vulnerabilities are part of the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-054. An attacker who successfully exploited these critical vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs, view, change or delete data, or create new accounts with full user rights.