The government must do more to protect Internet users from the threat of e-crime, says a House of Lords report. The Lords Science and Technology Committee said the internet was now "the playground of criminals".

The report criticized the government’s current "Wild West" approach of leaving internet security up to the individual as "inefficient and unrealistic". A Home Office spokesperson said the government was examining the report and would respond shortly.

In their most recent analysis, Malware Evolution: March-June 2007, the analysts at Kaspersky Lab report that the events that took place during the first six months of 2007 show that Internet threats are evolving from social engineering toward vulnerabilities aimed at penetrating the system. However, as the range of threats may be evolving, the creativity of their writers is not: Kaspersky analysts show that virus writers are still at a "crisis for ideas," as their motives continue to focus on earning dirty money but have failed to evolve in quality as readily as they have in quantity.

The analysis reports that not only have viruses become stagnant in their innovation, but antivirus companies have considerably improved their technologies and methods, leaving security companies with the upper hand for the first time in many years. As for predictions, Kaspersky expects that malicious users will attempt to reach beyond the "field of protection" put in place by antivirus solutions: they will shift their aim from "getting around" antivirus programs to attempting to delve into fields that have not yet been mastered by quality antivirus protection, or areas in which protection is not an option for any number of reasons, including online games, blogs, instant messengers and file exchange networks.

Readers of Google’s Custom Search Blog were handed a bit of a surprise Tuesday when the Web site was temporarily removed from the blogosphere and hijacked by someone unaffiliated with the company. The problem? Google had mistakenly identified its own blog as a spammer’s site and handed it over to another person.

The change was first noticed by the Google Blogoscoped Web site, which noticed that posts on the Custom Search Blog had been deleted and replaced by a strange comment from someone identifying himself as Srikanth. This blog typically offers tips and tricks for users of Google’s Custom Search Engine software, which can be used to build customized Web sites that search specific Web sites or pages.

A massive spam blast that started Tuesday is still in progress and shows no sign of abating, a security company said. "The scale of this stock pump-and-dump spam campaign is like nothing we’ve seen before," said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos PLC.

Similar to countless other email campaigns in both delivery method and intent–the message arrives as a PDF file and baits the scam by touting quick money to be made on an up-and-coming, if completely unknown, stock.

Dell said it will pay its ousted former Chief Executive Kevin Rollins $48.5 million in cash. Rollins, who in January was replaced by company founder and Chairman Michael Dell, will receive the payment on or before 45 days after the company files its annual report with U.S. securities regulators.

Rollins officially resigned from the Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, effective May 4, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the terms of his stock options agreements, 7.37 million unexercised options that vested at the time of his retirement expired 90 days after his resignation date.

This article covers some of the most common steps to follow after you install IBM Lotus Connections. At a high level, it takes into consideration all the different components required to run Lotus Connections: database, LDAP directory, Web server, and application server. Some common tuning parameters are outlined in this article to help customers and I/T specialists understand which configuration attributes could affect the overall performance of the system.

The ability to recall mail messages is one of the most requested features for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino V8. Enabled on the server and client by default, this new feature lets you recall mail messages that were sent in error. This article explains how Message Recall works, discusses how it is configured and controlled, and covers the finer points of planning and deploying the feature.

A laptop containing the personal information of VeriSign’s current and former employees was stolen from an employee’s car last month, the company confirmed Tuesday.

In an emailed statement, VeriSign, a digital infrastructure vendor that manages Internet domain names such as .com and provides security services, said it was taking the recent laptop theft "very seriously" and that the company initiated an investigation as soon as the theft was discovered.[Ed.–Why does it always take months before these companies fess up about a data loss or breach?]

Lenovo Group, the world’s third-largest maker of personal computers, said on Tuesday it is in talks to buy European personal computer maker Packard Bell BV through an independent third party.

While no definitive deal has been reached, Lenovo said it is negotiating with the independent third party, which its does not name, as well as working with other parties or government bodies "in preparation for the entering into of definitive agreements for such proposed acquisition."

In this fascinating article, Teamstudio chief architect Craig Schuman helps us understand how SOA can fit into a Notes environment, helps us understand the changes coming with Notes 8 and composite applications, and helps us gain a real understanding for how this all fits into a development process.

Read this DominoPower article.