FRISK, one of the early pioneers in anti-virus technology, has been acquired by Commtouch. Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were undisclosed. Icelandic-based FRISK developed the first versions of its flagship F-Prot anti-virus software in 1989, and claims it was the first firm to develop heuristic (generic) detection of …

Security software biz Avira has apologised after its antivirus suites went haywire and disabled customers' Windows machines. A service pack issued in Monday caused its ProActiv monitoring software to think vital operating system processes were riddled with malware and blocked them from running. Users of the affected products …

Symantec has confirmed earlier versions of its anti-virus source code have leaked, following a security breach of what the company said was the network of a "third party entity" rather than their own. The admission follow claims by an Indian hacking group that it had accessed source code used in the company's flagship Norton …

A computer virus infection affecting the New Zealand Ambulance service last week forced dispatchers to resort to manual backup systems, according to local media reports. Unnamed malware left the communications network supporting the St John Ambulance service hobbled. Mobile data and paging services were worst affected by the …

Many free-of-charge antivirus products fail to protect Android smartphone against malware effectively, leaving users with a false sense of security as a result. Tests by antivirus testing lab AV-Test.org revealed that the best freebie Android anti-virus scanner, Zoner Antivirus, caught 32 per cent of 160 recent Android threats …

Avira anti-virus detected components of its own application as potentially malign on Wednesday following a dodgy signature update. Avira detected its own AESCRIPT.DLL library file as the previously obscure "TR/Spy.463227" strain of malware. The dodgy AntiVir virus definition file was quickly pulled and replaced with a new …

A leading computer scientist has warned that the latest so-called Trusted Computing proposals may restrict the market for anti-virus and security software. Cambridge University Professor Ross Anderson warns that the secure boot features in the UEFI firmware specification - understood to be required on certified Windows 8 …

Spanish anti-virus firm Panda Security has announced plans to cut its workforce in response to a sustained drop in sales. Panda, which employs 1,000 worldwide as part of either its core business or in local franchises, plans to lay off 120 (or around 35 per cent) of its workforce at its headquarters in Bilbao. A further eight …

Scareware pushers have turned to Skype with automated messages to pressure marks into buying worthless 'security' software. The scam is promoted via unsolicited calls on Skype during which a machine-generated message warns potential victims that their computer security is "out-of-date". Victims are invited to visit a website …

Networking giant Cisco has warned customers that a CD-ROM it supplied with its kit automatically took users to a site that was a known malware repository. The affected CDs, designed to supply warranty information, were supplied to customers between December 2010 and August 2011. When the disc was opened, or if autorun was …

Updated Sophos has apologised after its security screening technology went awry and began falsely warning users when they visited websites running Google Analytics. The false positive - which identified web content served up from google-analytics.com as malicious code (specifically HTMLGen-A) - kicked in at around 05:15 GMT and …

A leading security researcher has warned that Google risks repeating Apple's mistakes on security with its new Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is a Linux-based operating system designed to work exclusively with web applications. Chrome netbooks running the new OS will be available from Google's partners Samsung and Acer from June …

Scammers have developed a strain of Mac scareware that avoids the need to trick a mark into entering an administrative password. Earlier rogue anti-virus strains, such as MacDefender, need permission to run, a hurdle MacGuard neatly sidesteps. MacGuard works on the premise that home users have administrator rights, meaning …

Apple has finally held its hands up and admitted that the MacDefender scareware package might be a problem, abandoning the line that support workers must on no account suggest to users that their machine might be infected with malware. Contrary to this (unsustainable) line, Apple has now published an advisory explaining how to …

Interview The developers behind Snort, the open source intrusion detection system, are pushing ahead with a project to develop a system for detecting malformed documents in a bid to provide early warnings about targeted attacks. Razorback is designed to complement traditional anti-virus products by providing a warning about maliciously …

Major freebie anti-virus scanner Avast has apologised for a cock-up defining the vast majority of the web as malign. Rather than a Howard Beale-style insight into the state of the modern interwebs, the finding of any sites with scripts or frames - including Avast's own support forums - as malign was the result of a rogue virus …

Chinese security firm NetQin has been accused of conspiring to plant malicious software on users' handsets in order to drum up business for its mobile security software. NetQin denies the alleged ruse, the mechanics of which were broadcast during a recent episode of 3.15 Gala, a Chinese consumer rights programme on state-run …

F-Secure has apologised about a bug in its consumer-focused Mac security software that left surfers fighting against their own browsers as clean files were wrongly classified as malign. A faulty definition in the beta version of F-Secure Mac Protection meant that the software had been wrongly identifying some benign files as …