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To: stockman_scott who wrote (238)	3/10/2009 12:04:08 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1685

Absolutely, though there are going to be a few bumps along the way; Google software bug shared private online documents Mar 10 07:39 AM US/Eastern Google has confirmed that a software bug exposed documents thought to be privately stored in the Internet giant's online Docs application service. The problem was fixed by the weekend and is believed to have affected only .05 percent of the digital documents at a Google Docs service that provides text-handling programs as services on the Internet. "We've identified and fixed a bug where a very small percentage of users shared some of their documents inadvertently," Google Docs Product Manager Jennifer Mazzon wrote in a message at the firm's website on Saturday. "We're sorry for the trouble this has caused. We understand our users' concerns (in fact, we were affected by this bug ourselves) and we're treating this very seriously." The problem occurred in cases where people had chosen to collaborate on multiple documents and adjusted settings to allow access to others, according to Google. Collaborators were unintentionally given permission to access documents aside from the ones intended. "As part of the fix, we used an automated process to remove collaborators and viewers from the documents that we identified as having been affected," Mazzon said. "We then emailed the document owners to point them to their affected documents in case they need to re-share them." The slip comes as Google and other Internet firms entice people to rely on applications offered online as services "in the cloud" instead of buying software then installing and maintaining it on their own machines. While the trend toward cloud services is growing, some still worry about the privacy of data kept online and whether it is shrewd to rely on the Internet for access to information and applications. Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium breitbart.com

To: stockman_scott who wrote (238)	3/13/2009 8:28:13 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1685

A new twist on the SaaS model: Cybercrime-as-a-service takes off By Ry Crozier 12 March 2009 11:37AM Malware writers that sell toolkits online for as little as $400 will now configure and host the attacks as a service for another $50, a security expert has said. Speaking at the Vasco Banking Summit in Sydney yesterday, the company's technical account manager, Vlado Vajdic, told delegates that cyber crime was becoming so business-like that online offerings of malicious code often included support and maintenance services. Additionally, he said, cybercrime outsourcing would become a key trend in 2009. "It was inevitable that services would be sold to people who bought the malware toolkits but didn‘t know how to configure them," Vajdic said. "Not only can you buy configuration as a service now, you can have the malware operated for you, too. We saw evidence of that this year." "Investors get malware developers to write code for them and then get the writers to host and distribute it, too." Vajdic showed delegates an email purported to be from a malware 'provider' offering hosted services for an extra $50 for three months. Vasco's regional director for Pacific, India and Japan, Dan Dica, said company researchers buy the kits online and disassemble them to try to learn the secrets of their programming. "The kits come with maintenance, support and a user guide," Dica said. "For $400 you can become a hacker." Vajdic said that toolkit creators increasingly appeared to apply commercial development techniques in their creation. "There's evidence of solid software engineering practices being built into them," he said. "Today's bad guy is a business person that attracts investment, has malware writers working under them and probably even employs a project manager. These people are high-flyers." Vajdic also said that the malware writers often viewed themselves as being involved in a legitimate business. "They say it is spyware or that it's for research purposes only and they can't control what you do with it," Vajdic said. itnews.com.au