Trend blunder causes IT mayhem

Trend Micro apologised yesterday for distributing a faulty software update that caused IT workers around the world to spend the weekend fixing their systems.

According to ZDNet, the anti-virus company has promised to compensate customers whose computers running Windows XP Service Pack 2 were disabled by the update. The update was only available for 90 minutes.

Trend Micro has denied rumours that the update included a virus, adding that it didn`t know what caused the latest incident. The company has issued a fix and is working with channel partners to solve the problem, says Trend Micro Europe president Raimund Genes.

"We apologise to the people, and we are willing to compensate them for the extra work they had to do [on] their machines. It`s a pattern file that we made a mistake on. I would say this is an isolated incident, but we have to figure out why it wasn`t caught by the quality assurance."

The update affected versions 7.5 and above of Trend Micro`s Scan Engine.

Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) has launched a high-speed 1Gbps broadband service that costs approximately $215 (R1 300) a month.

Users can also get 100Mbps service for around $34 (R210) monthly, reports AllHeadlineNews.

The new service means computer publishers could offer direct download services for their games and movies which could be distributed almost instantly online.

According to HKBN, about 800 000 households out of a total of 2.2 million in Hong Kong are already wired to receive the service.

More than 2 500 Web servers every day are being hacked, while Web site defacements grew by 36% during 2004, when almost 400 000 incidents were recorded.

According to a survey by Zone-H, the attacks include 49 separate sorties against US military servers and huge numbers of Web site defacements carried out during organised hacking sprees. The research revealed that Christmas holidays are a popular time for malicious hackers to attack sites, reports BBC.

Typically defacements involve making a Web site`s public-facing pages display a message showing which malicious hacker or group is responsible.

Web site defacements were the most popular form of attack and made up the majority of the 392 545 recorded incidents.