malicious software

How do you know that the sender of an e-mail that has landed in your inbox is trying to steal your money or your identity? The message comes right out and asks for it.

Tax season means computer criminals are going to be out in force, pumping out bogus e-mails that purport to be from the Internal Revenue Service. These messages ask you to supply personal information in all kinds of scams. Often the scam e-mails offer help speeding up the preparation of tax returns or securing a big refund.

Computer gamers are increasingly finding that there's a serious side to their virtual fun: their hard-earned virtual objects are being stolen from them, and in some cases their entire game as well.

The trend was first reported in an article by Hamburg-based Computer Bild magazine. On the one hand, hackers are employing phishing attacks to snare access data for user accounts for online role playing games.

Microsoft is cracking down on botnets through the legal system -- and winning. The software giant launched a legal assault this week against networks of compromised computers controlled by hackers, and a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., agreed to its request to deactivate 277 infringing domain names.

A research organization that tries to warn computer users about programs that do sneaky things on their computers has spun off from Harvard University.

StopBadware says it will operate as a standalone nonprofit with funding from Google Inc., eBay Inc.'s PayPal and Mozilla, which makes the Firefox Web browser. It was initially set up as part of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Microsoft filed five civil lawsuits Thursday in King County Superior Court in Seattle against alleged malvertisers. Malvertising is an industry term for malicious online advertising -- and Microsoft is moving to fight it in a first-of-its-kind suit.

Q. This Windows computer I inherited is agonizingly slow. It sounds like an air-conditioner running constantly (as though a program is running that uses all the power), and can take several minutes to go from page to page. How can I speed it up?

Move over, Brad Pitt. Actress Jessica Biel has officially overtaken you as the most dangerous celebrity to search for in cyberspace, according to Internet security company McAfee. McAfee's third annual research report into Hollywood stars and pop culture's favored people offers insights into the riskiest celebrities on the Web.

Ideally, every computer should have an anti-virus program installed and every computer user should be vigilant about using and updating it.

But, it's not a perfect world, which means people need to rely on early warning signals should something go awry with their computer.

Unfortunately, that approach is also starting to lose its effectiveness as modern computer viruses become even more pernicious.

Internet users in China celebrated the government's about-face on the Green Dam Web-filtering software with a party Wednesday in a Beijing café.

The event was originally planned to coincide with an Internet boycott planned for the day China had mandated that all new PCs sold in China must have Green Dam. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology abruptly postponed the July 1 deadline on Tuesday, giving the protesters an unexpected victory. The ministry did not say when, if ever, a new deadline might be set.

Paris Hilton we understand -- but Garfield? China's mandated Green Dam software rates some images of the scantily clad heiress and the cartoon cat as morally bad.

While the software that must be installed on all new PCs sold in China is meant to block pornography and violent images, it also blocks other things. Besides Garfield, actor Johnny Depp and roast port are also no-nos.