Malicious code masquerading as a trusted application could trick a ZoneAlarm firewall into letting it connect to the Internet, security experts have warned. The issue affects the popular free ZoneAlarm firewall and default installations of version 5.5 and earlier of the paid product, maker Zone Labs said in a security advisory. Default installations of the Check Point Integrity Client are also affected, but the paid ZoneAlarm 6.0 products, released in July are not.

Security experts have discovered a malicious program aimed at tricking users into clicking on phony search results on fake Google, Yahoo, and MSN sites. People with infected machines who try to visit those popular search sites are redirected to spoof versions, antivirus company Panda Software said. The spoof sites serve up bogus search results intended to generate traffic and revenue for other sites that are presumed to be in on the scheme.

A sweeping U.S. Senate measure that would stiffen security requirements and penalties for so-called brokers of personal data may go up for a committee vote next week, a representative said Friday. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, originally introduced the Personal Data Security and Privacy Act in June as part of a legislative outcry directed at a series of breaches by big-name companies such as ChoicePoint, Bank of America, and Visa.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s first privacy chief stepped down on Friday amid praise from civil-liberties groups–and regret that Congress didn’t prescribe more power to her position. Nuala O’Connor Kelly, appointed by then-Secretary Tom Ridge in April 2003, plans to start as General Electric’s Washington-based chief privacy leader and senior counsel in early to mid-October.

EMC and Adobe Systems have joined forces to develop a content management infrastructure that will help organizations with multiple content management systems more easily integrate content into enterprise workflows and access, exchange, manage and integrate structured and unstructured content. The new infrastructure combines EMC/Documentum’s content management platform with Adobe’s XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) while supporting the efforts of the Association for Information and Image Management to develop the iECM (Interoperable Enterprise Content Management) standard.

Cingular Wireless and Nokia introduced the Nokia 9300 business device with BlackBerry Connect. The Nokia 9300 will be available in the U.S. through Cingular Wireless beginning in November. In conjunction with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, corporate users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino can have synchronized access to their corporate email as well as calendar functions, remote address book lookup and attachment viewing capabilities.

CompuLaw LLC, publisher of calendar/docket software with built-in court rules databases, announced the release of Vision 9.0. Vision 9.0 offers Event Exclusion and Parties Insert features, the CompuLaw Information Center (CIC), court date scheduling enhancements, international trademark changes and new reporting options. Vision integrates with Microsoft Outlook, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Notes and the CompuLaw Vision Web Portal.

Broadcom has unveiled a software tool that it claims simplifies the process of connecting PCs and cell phones via Bluetooth. Blink features a graphical user interface (GUI) that creates a graphic image of the user’s cellular phone on their PC monitor. The tool lets users manage and synchronize contact information between their mobile phones and PC programs including Outlook, Outlook Express, and Lotus Notes by dragging and dropping contact information from the PC to the mobile phone vice versa.

This opinion piece at PDF Zone says that large-scale, feature-rich implementations of XML forms from Adobe, IBM, and Microsoft might be an answer in search of a problem.

A small startup is hoping for international success with its search engine for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino domains. C-search is the brainchild of Colin Neale who says he spotted a gap in the market and subsequently developed the product which was first released ten months ago.