IBM will announce several initiatives, including new software packages for enterprise companies around RFID business processes; an RFID security consulting practice to help users understand what data they are collecting, how it will be handled and who will have access to it; and an RFID printer that can print tags and identify unreliable RFID labels. Separately, Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., announced last week its intent to develop an RFID architecture.

Citing the rapid adoption of Linux in the enterprise, security software company McAfee is broadening the reach of its Entercept host intrusion prevention technology to the Linux platform. The company’s Entercept for Linux release includes support for Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux Version 3. The announcement is the latest move by McAfee to widen support for Linux, as enterprise customers abandon platforms such as Solaris and Windows in favor of Linux.

A second Blue Gene/L supercomputer has posted speed results that lift it to the high ranks of supercomputing. The system, called Blue Gene Watson and located at IBM’s Thomas Watson Research Center, performed 91.3 trillion calculations per second, or 91.3 teraflops. That means it’s second only to IBM’s original Blue Gene/L system, the fastest supercomputer in the world, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and clocked at 135 teraflops.

Two computers containing personal information on Motorola employees were stolen from the mobile phone maker’s human resources services provider, Affiliated Computer Services, the latest in a series of incidents of companies losing control of employee data. The data on the stolen computers included names and Social Security numbers but no financial information, according to Motorola. The number of employees affected was not disclosed.

A bug in a Zone Labs update caused firewall crashes late Thursday for about 50,000 users of the popular ZoneAlarm Pro and ZoneAlarm Security Suite products. The crashes happened after people downloaded the daily Program Advisor update, said Gregor Freund, general manager of Zone Labs, which is part of Check Point Software. Thursday’s update contained a bug that had slipped by Zone Labs’ quality checks.

A key adviser to institutional investors late Friday gave a thumbs up to Symantec’s pending merger with storage specialist Veritas Software. The favorable recommendation by Institutional Shareholder Services bodes well for security giant Symantec, which has felt the sting of investor wrath since announcing the deal late last year and has seen a third of its market value vanish.

Emails claiming pop star Michael Jackson has tried to kill himself are being spread by hackers as a means to break into computers, a British antivirus firm said Friday. The hackers have sent emails with the subject "Re: Suicidal attempt" and the message text: "Last night, while in his Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson has made a suicidal attempt," according software security company Sophos. Jackson is awaiting a California court verdict on charges of child molestation.

Security experts are warning that vulnerability assessment worms, which check computers for security flaws and relay the information back to the author, are likely to become more of a threat. James Kay, the chief technology officer at email security company Blackspider Technologies, said that vulnerability assessment worms are quite rare at the moment. However, their number will probably increase as virus writers focus their attacks more carefully and try to avoid detection.

Google’s sponsored-link ads may have helped turn the world’s best-known search engine into a financial powerhouse, but they’re also coming under attack for contributing to spyware practices that undermine trust on the Web. Anti-spyware researcher Ben Edelman criticized Google for playing a role in the distribution of browser toolbars that he says violates Google’s own principle about software downloads.

Symantec has filed a lawsuit against a New York Internet company for the right to detect its toolbars as adware. The suit, which does not seek any monetary damages, was filed against Hotbar.com late Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, said Cris Paden, a Symantec spokesman. The move is a preemptive strike. Last October, Hotbar contacted Symantec, an Internet security software maker based in Cupertino, Calif. It complained about Symantec’s enterprise antivirus products, which flag the Hotbar programs as adware.