Best Buy Sold Infected Digital Picture Frames
Best Buy sold digital picture frames during the holidays that contained malicious code able to spread to any connected Windows PC. They are not recalling the frames, however.
What Best Buy called a limited number of the 10.4 inch digital frames sold under its Insignia brand were contaminated with a computer virus during the manufacturing process. The malware packed with the frame is an older virus that Best Buy claimed would be easily detected by any up to date antivirus software.
Best Buy recommended users running a current antivirus program plug the frame into the PC so that the security software can scan the frame and delete the malware. Other customers should call a special toll-free number for help.
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AT&T offers free Wi-Fi and superfast broadband
AT&T says that it will soon offer its broadband subscribers unlimited free Wi-Fi access in its hot spots, as well as 10Mbps tier of service. Free Wi-Fi will be offered only to AT&T broadband subscribers who subscribe to services with 1.5Mbps downloads or higher. Subscribers who only have the company's wireless service will not be offered free Wi-Fi.
AT&T has more than 10,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.S. and has been offering free Wi-Fi access to its higher-speed broadband customers since last year.
AT&T's move could be seen as a way to entice subscribers to bundle cell phone service with their broadband service.
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FCC to Test 'White Spaces' Broadband Devices
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) next week will begin testing devices that will allow Internet service providers to utilize unused spectrum for wireless broadband service.
The field tests will be conducted at a variety of locations to provide information on the performance of the devices under real world conditions. In an effort to free up spectrum for public safety use, Congress has ordered TV broadcasters to shift their signals from analog to digital by February 2009. When this happens, there will be open, unregulated spectrum between the digital channels, or white spaces, that companies like Google and Microsoft want to use for wireless broadband service.
Accessing that spectrum, however, is easier said than done. A coalition of Internet companies known as the White Spaces Coalition has been working on equipment that will provide white space broadband access via spectrum sensing.
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Excel Vulnerability Affects Windows And Mac Users
Microsoft posted a security advisory warning of a vulnerability in several versions of Microsoft Office Excel that affects both Windows and Mac OS users.
The affected versions include Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel 2002, Excel 2000, and Excel 2004 for Mac.
The attack relies on a maliciously crafted Excel file that contains malformed header information. Attempting to open the file, either through a Web browser or as an e-mail attachment, can corrupt system memory, which could give an attacker the opportunity to execute remote code on the victim's system or to obtain elevated user privileges.
Microsoft said it is working on a fix that will be released either as part of its regular patch schedule or in an out-of-band release.
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Another QuickTime bug revealed
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team has discovered a new buffer overflow vulnerability with Apple's QuickTime media software.
The vulnerability affects both Mac and Windows operating systems. Because QuickTime is part of Apple's popular iTunes software, it is also affected.
The vulnerability is found in the way QuickTime handles RTSP response messages. When attempting to display a specially crafted Reason-Phrase, QuickTime crashes at a memory location that can be controlled by an attacker.
US-CERT offers several solutions to the problem including uninstalling QuickTime, Blocking the RTSP protocol and disabling the QuickTime plug-ins in your Web browser.
Attackers targeted QuickTime in December in a separate RTSP vulnerability that Apple later fixed with a software update.
