Matthew Broersma

Security researchers have discovered a new type of rootkit they believe will greatly increase the difficulty of detecting and removing malicious code.

Belgium may become the first national government to mandate the use of the Open Document Format (ODF), with a full-scale trial to begin next year. Belgium's Council of Ministers on Friday approved a proposal that could see ODF adopted for all document exchange.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) has suspended the working group developing 802.20, a wireless broadband standard expected to challenge WiMax, following accusations that Qualcomm was improperly influencing the group's decision-making process.

CERN, the Geneva-based nuclear physics research center, has launched a collaborative effort with some of the biggest names in IT to tighten up security on its landmark Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, as well as working on platform virtualization and the interoperability of grid software.

IT workers in the U.K.

Users of Windows laptops with Wi-Fi capabilities may be opening their hard drives up to snoopers, according to a security researcher. A bug in the way Windows manages wireless network connections means that people using their laptops in public places are frequently giving anyone in the area the means to invade their systems, according to Mark Loveless of Nomad Mobile Research Centre (NMRC).

The UK Cabinet Office has published a study into e-government practices, highlighting how governments in the most advanced countries are moving into a new wave of electronic services and processes. This "fourth wave" is allowing governments to change the way they do things - even reforming legislation - rather than just creating electronic versions of existing processes and services, the study found.

Red Hat has joined with IBM and software maker Trusted Computer Solutions (TCS) to enter Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for evaluation under the Common Criteria security scheme. Red Hat expects its upcoming RHEL 5 to achieve Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL 4), the highest level generally achieved by commercial software.