CA, formerly known as Computer Associates International, issued updates for its BrightStor ARCserve Backup software to address several security vulnerabilities. The most serious of the flaws could be exploited to compromise a vulnerable system. "CA BrightStor ARCserve Backup contains multiple overflow conditions that can allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code," CA said in an alert. The problems affect only Windows systems, the company said.

Intel plans to invest in a major new plant in China to make leading-edge chips, its biggest investment in the country to date, two sources with knowledge of the plan said. The plant will make 65-nanometer multi-core processors, the sources, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. This would make it Intel’s first such manufacturing facility in Asia.

IBM announced new centers designed to address the growing demand for skills needed to solve customer business problems using service oriented architectures. IBM customers, Business Partners and university students are expected to benefit from the up to eight of these new SOA Leadership Centers planned around the world. The SLC will serve as a focal point to harness the SOA skills and expertise from IBM product and services teams, IBM Business Partners as well as universities to address the skills and knowledge customers in key markets need to reach business goals using an SOA. Each center will be staffed by IBM SOA experts and will focus on three key areas: SOA education and training, SOA implementation support, and SOA exhibitions and demonstrations. Initial centers will be located in Dubai, UAE and La Gaude, France with additional centers expected to open in Asia, North America, South America and Northern Europe.

In this important pre-Lotusphere editorial, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz refutes the claim that "Lotus is now a forgotten division of IBM".

Read this DominoPower article.

Desktop publishing software vendor Adobe released a trio of security patches, two of which are aimed at fixing a cross-site scripting issue lingering in earlier versions of its Reader and Acrobat products, with the third targeting a new vulnerability identified in its ColdFusion development platform. The San Jose, Calif.-based company issued two separate bulletins meant to address the XSS flaw present in its Reader and Acrobat applications, including a server-side workaround that promises to prevent exploitation of the problem in versions 7.0.8 and earlier of the two programs. Adobe has already patched the vulnerability in its latest iteration of the products, specifically Adobe Reader 8.

If you wanted to be one of the first to try out Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X60 Tablet PC, you might have to wait a little longer. The Raleigh, N.C., PC maker disclosed on its official company blog that due to shortages of the panels used in the X60’s display, the new tablet will not start to ship in bulk until later in January. Lenovo announced the tablet PC on Nov. 1 and started taking orders immediately. The first shipments of the X60 had been scheduled to roll out of the factory by December. Later, one of the company’s manufacturers told Lenovo officials that there would be a delay due to a shortage in the panel used for the display.

Demand for IT employees from different backgrounds is growing, but statistics suggest that there is still a long way to go. Just how diverse is IT in the United States today? It depends on who you ask. Some will say, "More than ever," and tell you about companies that are itching for a mixed breed of recruits, that will brag about their minority representation and that consider it a great bonus to have dozens of cultures and languages represented within a single organization. But others will say, sure, there is diversification, but only involving workers from very specific parts of the world.

Borrowing a page directly from Microsoft’s playbook, Oracle has implemented an advance notice mechanism for its quarterly release of security patches. Beginning with the first CPU (Critical Patch Update) for 2007, due on Jan. 16, the database server giant is implementing a CPU Pre-Release Announcement that includes the name of version numbers of Oracle products affected by patches, a total count of vulnerabilities being fixed and a severity score for the most serious product flaws.

VeriSign’s iDefense Labs has placed an $8,000 bounty on remote code execution holes in Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7. The Reston, Va., security intelligence outfit threw out the monetary reward to hackers as part of a challenge program aimed at luring researchers to its controversial pay-for-flaw VCP (Vulnerability Contributor Program). The launch of the latest hacking challenge comes less than a month after researchers at Trend Micro discovered Vista flaws being hawked on underground sites at $50,000 a pop and illustrates the growth of the market for information on software vulnerabilities.

Federal prosecutors are poised to score their first victory in their investigation of Hewlett-Packard’s ill-fated boardroom spying probe, after a private investigator agreed to plead guilty to identity theft and conspiracy charges. Bryan Wagner, 29, of Littleton, Colo., will enter his plea during his scheduled arraignment hearing on Friday morning in San Jose federal court, said his lawyer Stephen Naratil. Wagner, however, was just the bottom of a long chain of command involved in the probe that reached into HP’s top ranks. His plea deal includes an agreement to testify for the prosecution, which doesn’t bode well for higher-ups who Naratil said had Wagner do their dirty work.