Sophos vulnerabilities

IT security experts have warned of a vulnerability in Sophos anti-virus which can potentially be exploited by malicious hackers to cause buffer overflows, reports Vnunet.

The problem affects users of Sophos Anti-Virus Small Business Edition and Sophos anti-virus versions prior to 3.96.0 and prior to 4.5.4, according to Secuni.

Sophos said it has already provided a fix for these versions of its anti-virus offerings.

Further patches are expected for small business edition on all platforms, and within the next fortnight for the remaining versions.

TimeDiff Linking -- 41^st Parameter`s patented anti-fraud technologists branch, designed to protect banks against phishing scams and their resultant consumer security problems -- have hired ex-hacker Kevin Mitnick, TechNewsWorld reports.

Parameter CEO Ori Eisen knew that banks wouldn`t simply take his word for security, so he hired the FBI`s former most wanted cyber criminal. Mitnick was wanted for hacking into computers of major international corporations.

"If anybody could hack through our technology Kevin could," Eisen said. "We wanted to be sure that our solution was as secure as possible against phishing tactics and other cyber crimes."

Akonix Security Centre said it has discovered another bug coming through instant messaging (IM) clients, reports Internetnews.

The latest IM spyware worm, named Chode -D, is moving rapidly over leading IM networks, the security centre said. The worm has been classified as a "medium risk".

Chode-D runs continuously in the background of computers, providing a backdoor server that allows a remote intruder to gain access and take control over a PC via Internet relay chat channels, according to Akonix.