Late yesterday a hacker, identifying himself as “Weev”, is now claiming responsibility for the “glitch” on Amazon.com, which caused a multitude of gay and lesbian themed books to lose their sales ranks over the Easter holiday weekend. Weev posted his “confession” on a LiveJournal discussion board on Monday morning.

The Twitter micro-blogging network has been hit by two cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks that spread messages from user accounts across the system without users' consent. The initial “StalkDaily” messages that appeared over the weekend are now followed by a “Mikeyy” attack that apparently can infect Twitter accounts simply by viewing another infected Twitter page.

Late Wednesday, TrendMicro observed a new version of the Downad.KK/Conficker.c worm, dubbed Conficker.e. The previous version utilized its built-in P2P functionality to download the update, which then springs to life with fake or rogue antivirus messages warning of non-existent threats, along with annoying pop-ups until you agree to pay it $49.95. Conficker's authors finally unveil their true intent: Greed.

The third Conficker/Downadup worm, which hit computers on April 1, was almost a disappointment given the excitement that had built up in the weeks before. Those expectations were followed by a lot of nothing, but it now seems that the malware has been quietly activated and downloaded what the security firm described as yet another variant of the worm now called WORM_DOWNAD.E.

It seems that Bill Gates’ 2004 prediction that there would be no spam anymore within a couple of years was wrong. According to Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report, the number of spam messages has reached a dramatic level of 97% of all emails sent. However, the report covered a variety of security concerns and had some good news as well. Discovered vulnerabilities in software, for example, is down from its 2007 highs.

It's being reported that the U.S. electrical grid has been infiltrated by hackers primarily from China, Russia, but also from other countries. The software does not do anything harmful, however it is giving remote entities knowledge of how our electrical grid operates, allowing them to "navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls", according to the Wall Street Journal. It is cyber-spying, and it has targeted a critical U.S. asset -- our electrical grid.

VeriSign has teamed up with Apple to provide a second-factor authentication (2FA) token generator application for the iPhone. For those interested in maximizing their online security against fraud and theft, using a second-factor code, one which changes every 30 seconds, could be the best way to go. And now with VeriSign's iPhone app, you won't need to carry around a separate token or card. The iPhone becomes a one-stop shop for online 2FA security. In this article we explain the technology, and show you how to use it. EXTRAS: SLIDESHOW, VIDEO

The third variant of the Conficker worm was set to strike today, but to a general surprise, humanity still exists. Will Conficker-C, despite the dramatic warnings, be as harmless as the Y2K switch more than nine years ago?

If images like these are to be believed, this is the Mac netbook Apple said would never see the light of day. Simply named MacBook mini, it looks representative and thin enough to attract attention. The $899 computer is allegedly aimed at competing with the higher-end netbook market, hence 10.4-inch LED-backlit display and integrated Nvidia 9400M GPU that also powers its bigger MacBook counterpart. Add in a 1.83GHz Intel Atom CPU, SSD and 2GB of RAM all packed in a unibody enclosure just 4 millimeters tall on its thinnest part and you probably get Apple's next big hit. The only problem is, this isn't the Mac netbook we've been waiting for. EXTRA: SLIDESHOW

The Conficker worm has been widely discussed in recent weeks, and the $250,000 bounty has had many on the hunt for the virus's origination. Microsoft offered the $250,000 for anyone who could provide information which leads to an arrest in the Conficker case. 

Opinion – I am sure you have seen one of those omnipresent new Microsoft commercials that aim to portray Mac products, in this specific case notebooks, as too expensive. There’s quite some buzz over the question whether Macs are really too expensive. At least for some, Microsoft’s new campaign might be a bit shallow, let alone leave the impression that Windows PCs are simply “cheap”. And even if we live in a recession, the description of being “cheap” might not work.

It appears we have been living with viruses all the time, but if we are looking back in history we find that certain types of viruses are actually not that old. For example, the email-aware virus is turning just 10 today. Melissa, the first virus of this kind, was estimated to have infected more than one million PCs and caused damage in excess of $80 million.

The third variant of the Conficker is expected to be spreading beginning on April 1. According to security software companies, the worm will send hundreds or thousands of update requests to its 50,000 domains. The result will be forced downloads of malicious code and potentially an increased rise in spam mail. It may be a good idea getting your security software up to date now.

A security researcher has posted malicious code that exploits a vulnerability in Firefox 3.0.x. Mozilla reacted quickly and changed its browser release schedule: Version 3.0.8, which will include a patch, is scheduled for a release early next week.

It was reported last Friday that over the past several weeks, Wikileaks.org has been publishing what it claims to be a blacklist of banned websites ready to be targeted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). While the Australian government denies the list is actually theirs, a dentist office which appears on the list confirmed it was contacted by ACMA. Wikileaks claims to be a whistleblower organization.

Following a controversial site redesign which changed the user home page and brought users a more frequent Twitter-like update ability, content sharing, and better capabilities for group pages, the site has now begun allowing users to open up all or part of their profiles for all the world to see.

Opinion – Like many of those interested in technology, I have been following Cisco’s integrated blade server announcement today. And there is no doubt that it is an enticing new approach that plays into current cost savings and sustainability trends. But it is unclear whether technology is enough to make Cisco’s UCS the iPhone of datacenters, a product that is so revolutionary that it will change the way we think about datacenters. So let’s calm down and give the Unified Computing System (UCS) idea some time – and rivals to catch up.

In a time when connecting directly with both your customer base and employee base is becoming more and more necessary and important, business are finding themselves struggling with the issue of protecting sensitive data and information due to employee practices.

On Friday, YouTube's Michelle Schlachta wrote in a blog that YouTube is working on some issues relating to user video view counts. They cite spamming and some internal inconsistencies as the cause of some recent unusual view count numbers.