Cisco hole-spotter hired by Juniper

The security researcher who made international headlines in July for blowing the whistle about a major hole in Cisco Systems` software has found employment at Cisco`s chief rival, Juniper Networks, reports EWeek.

A Juniper spokesman confirmed that researcher Michael Lynn now works for the California-based networking equipment maker.

He previously lost his job as a researcher at Internet Security Systems when he disregarded company requests to spike a presentation at the Black Hat Briefings Conference in Las Vegas about vulnerability in Cisco`s Internetwork operating system.

Financial weekly newspaper Barron`s says the best days of personal computer maker Dell may be behind it, reports Reuters.

Following the news that the company had lowered its third-quarter revenue forecast, the paper noted: "Dell`s revenue growth has now slowed for seven quarters in a row.

"If Dell`s revenue fails to grow faster, and certainly if the company continues to miss earnings targets, it will be time to admit that Dell is past its best."

The Australian government and five Internet service providers (ISPs) have joined forces to track down virus-infected 'zombie` computers used to send spam or launch distributed denial-of-service attacks, reports ZDNet Australia.

The new Australian Internet Security Initiative is being run on a three-month trial basis. It aims to identify all PCs in Australia that are being used for 'illicit reasons` and to notify their owners.

If owners refuse to disinfect their machines, the ISPs might disconnect the computer.