Paul Roberts

When student visa approval forms for 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi arrived at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., six months after the two men had died flying hijacked jets into the World Trade Center in New York City, it was clear that the system that tracked foreign students was in need of repair.

VeriSign Inc. has been awarded a contract to manage a key component of a coming global distribution network that uses electronic product code (EPC) technology, according to a joint announcement by VeriSign and EPCglobal Inc., a non-profit organization.

VeriSign Inc. is planning changes to a Domain Name System (DNS) component responsible for coordinating updates to the .com and .net domains throughout the DNS system, according to a company spokesperson.

Security companies are warning Internet users about a new Trojan horse program spreading via spam e-mail and masquerading as a Windows XP software update from Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft Corp. is again facing criticism from security experts after a researcher posted instructions for circumventing a password feature in the company's popular Microsoft Word word processing program.

Computer security researchers are again warning about a critical vulnerability in the Linux kernel that could be used by malicious hackers to take control of systems using the popular open source operating system.

This New Year will offer weary network administrators little respite from a new generation of Internet worms, viruses and targeted hacks that appeared in 2003, according to security experts.

Noted computer hacker Kevin Mitnick is offering cash in exchange for tales of hacking escapades to fill a new book he is writing for publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc.