Monster.com admits to attacks

The theft of personal information from 1.3 million users of the Monster.com job search service first revealed two weeks ago was not a one-time attack, the company's CEO revealed yesterday, reports Computerworld.

"The company has determined this incident is not the first time Monster's database has been the target of criminal activity," Sal Iannuzzi, chairman and CEO of Monster Worldwide, said in a statement. In an interview with Reuters, Iannuzzi also acknowledged the most recent breach may have been substantially larger than the 1.3 million users the company said earlier had been affected.

"It could easily be in the millions," Iannuzzi told Reuters. He did not spell out when other attacks had taken place, or even how many might have breached the company's security.

The three Microvault models that employ fingerprint-scanning technology are no longer being manufactured, says Sony spokesman Tom Di Nome, reports Forbes. This follows two security companies finding that fingerprint-scanning USB drives sold by Sony install hidden software on users' computers.

He also says the company is investigating the source of the problem and "taking the issue very seriously", although no security problems have yet been reported by the USB drives' users.

The rootkit's discovery, originally made by the Finnish company F-Secure, and later verified by McAfee, opens a barely healed wound for Sony.

SAP AG has called for a quick resolution of a US lawsuit in which rival Oracle is suing it for "corporate theft on a grand scale" and asked for mediation to start in coming months, reports Reuters.

Oracle said the scope of the case, which concerns disputed downloads of Oracle software at an SAP US subsidiary, meant the process of discovery of documents and facts would take at least 18 months. It proposed a trial date of 25 September 2009.

The companies, bitter rivals in the global market for business software, submitted their positions in a Tuesday night filing to the US District Court, in San Francisco, which will hold a case conference on 4 September to determine the next steps.

Nokia says the N-Gage store will be available in November with mobile games from big name publishers, reports Daily Tech.

The cellphone is the one device that most people tend to have on their person at all times. The ability to whip out a mobile phone and play games while sitting on the bus or waiting for an appointment is appealing to many people.

Market intelligence firm iSuppli says the mobile gaming market is set to reach a whopping 184 million users per month by 2010, up from 38 million users in 2005. iSuppli says mobile gaming revenue increased by 80% in 2005, so game developers and publishers are flocking to mobile phone game development to capture some of the lucrative market.