McAfee update flags innocent programs

Google has made it possible for users to explore the landscape on Mars, reports the UK`s Telegraph.

Google Mars stitches together tens of thousands of photos from the Arizona State University`s Thermal Emission Imaging System, a multi-band space camera on board Nasa`s Mars Odyssey spacecraft, to create a virtual tour of the Red Planet.

Google Mars also draws on information from instruments on the Mars Global Surveyor.

InformationWeek reports that an error in McAfee`s anti-virus software mistakenly flagged hundreds of legitimate executable files as a virus on Friday, causing users to quarantine or delete them.

The error in McAfee`s daily virus definition file identified the files as W95/CTX, a virus first discovered in 2004. All editions of McAfee`s on-demand-scanning products, including both the enterprise and consumer versions of VirusScan, were affected.

Among the legitimate files mistaken for malware were Microsoft`s Excel spreadsheet, Adobe`s Flash, the Google Toolbar installer, several Adaptec drivers, and parts of Sun Microsystems` Java Runtime Environment. McAfee corrected the list a few hours later.

The Ubuntu open source OS project has released a fix for a bug in version 5.10 of its Linux operating system that could expose sensitive information, says Techworld.

The installer in Ubuntu 5.10 fails to clean user passwords in the installer log files, leaving the passwords exposed to anyone who opens the log file. A malicious local user could exploit the flaw to gain access to the first user account, which has full sudo privileges. Sudo is a tool that allows administrators to give users elevated privileges.

Microsoft has announced that it is to release a new e-mail client for public beta testing, says PC Pro.

The new e-mail client, to be called the Windows Live Mail Desktop beta, will become a free replacement for the current Outlook Express currently bundled with Windows XP.

It will incorporate much of the new functionality that has emerged since Outlook Express was released in 2001, principally areas such as RSS feeds and blogs.