contributed by altomo
One of the over 40 variants of ILOVEYOU has the potential to be a serious threat to computer users. The 'New Love' worm is still sent as an attachment that a user must click on but now it now deletes all files on a hard drive and mapped network drives. In addition it randomly alters itself making it polymorphic and harder to defend against. The worm was first discovered in Israel and is thought to have come from someplace in Europe. So far it has infected only a few systems in Europe and California. All of the major anti-virus companies have added 'New Love' to their definition files.

Associated Press - via Yahoo
ZD Net
ABC
C|Net

Symantec
F-Secure
McAfee
Sophos

contributed by aleph1
Former CIA director R. James Woolsey has warned that new threats will come in the form of 'instructive' viruses as opposed to destructive. Unlike Melissa, ILOVEYOU, CIH, and others this new breed of viruses would use covert techniques to gather sensitive data and return it to international spies and terrorists

Security Focus

contributed by William Knowles
Experts in government information systems told members of the General Accounting Office that the government was slow in reacting to ILOVEYOU. he said that government agencies where not given enough time to respond to the crisis which resulted in substantial damage to government systems and information.

Associated Press - via Excite

contributed by JavaJ
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington is hearing arguments over the rules issued last year by the Federal Communication Commission detailing how telecommunications companies must comply with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), passed by Congress in 1994. The FCC mandated that telephone lines must be compatible with surveillance equipment, traceable cell phones with post dialing digits (account numbers, voice mail passwords, etc.), and tappable packet-mode communications or Internet traffic. The FCC mandated that all of this information would be turned over simply for the asking with no warrant involved. The Center for Democracy and Technology is arguing that the FCC overstepped its bounds and that the FCC rules are in fact unconstitutional.

MSNBC - via ZD Net
Center For Democracy and Technology

contributed by William Knowles
Vitaly Degterev, first deputy chief of the Interior Ministry's department on high-tech crimes was quoted by the ITAR-TAS news agency as saying that there was more Russian cyber crime in the first three months of 2000 than in all of of 1999. From January to March of 2000 over 200 cases of computer attacks had been reported, in all of 1999 there were only 80 cases.

Associated Press

contributed by root66
A teenager from Canada, known online as J0n, has pleaded guilty to charges in a Montreal court of defacing a NASA web page and of penetrating the systems of several Canadian and foreign institutions including Harvard and MIT. Following the surprise plea the judge served the maximum sentence of 240 hours of community work plus one year's probation, restricted use of a computer, and ordered the defendant to deliver a speech at a local high school court on the evils of hacking.

NewsBytes - via USA Today

contributed by Sangfroid
Think your local neighborhood bank is safe from cyber attack? Think again. David H. Freedman has published a step by step guide of one way to break into a bank and siphon off 10 to 100 million bucks. Do you work at a bank? Better read this.

Forbes