SCOTLAND YARD has uncovered evidence that Al-Qaeda has been plotting to bring down the internet in Britain, causing chaos to business and the London Stock Exchange.

In a series of raids, detectives have recovered computer files revealing that terrorist suspects had targeted a high-security internet “hub” in London.

The facility, in Docklands, houses the channel through which almost every bit of information on the internet passes in or out of Britain.

More on this story via The Sunday Times

The banner itself appears to advertise and link to a download called Free PC-Secure (which is unfamiliar to us) but the real problem is that its appearance automatically launches a Windows dialog box telling you that "Your system is not clean" and asking you if "you want to download System Doctor to improve it." You know, the typical hoax message that tries to download a malicious ActiveX control even though you click "Cancel" in a fruitless attempt to ignore it.

The conclusion here is that a nasty spyware ad seems to have infiltrated into Microsoft’s banner advertising network because one of their clients is making use of some html code trickery.

We advise everyone to pay strict attention when they receive such a message window out of the blue. Cancel any initiated downloads and close the pop-ups/browser instances it launches. The animated banner in the screenshot below (showing two random frames) is the cause of the unsolicited Windows prompt. The bottom image shows the deceitful message on the page that is automatically opened no matter your choice in the dialog window.

News source: Mess.be

Neowin has just gotten word that the Creator of the Freenode IRC network, Rob Levin (aka lilo) has passed away. Although there is not much information yet on the subject, this is what fellow Freenode staff member, christel has released:

"On the 12th of September Rob Levin, known to many as Freenode’s lilo, was hit by a car while riding his bike. He suffered head injuries and passed away in hospital on the 16th. He spent his last few days at the neuro trauma ICU at a local hospital where he was in a coma. The news reached us this morning that Rob passed away early today. Rob is survived by wife Debbie and son Benjamin, and we ask that you all respect their privacy at this difficult time. Robs funeral is most likely to be monday afternoon, although we have yet to get confirmation as Debbie is waiting to hear from the MEs office that it can go ahead as planned and for those local, wishing to show their respects at his funeral, we ask that you email staff@freenode.net and we will try direct you as we can."

Christel also stated that "[It] is Debbie’s wishes that freenode keeps running as close to normal as possible, and we will be working with the PDPC board to ensure that the network keeps running." Rob’s IRC client is still connected to Freenode. Once it logs off, Robs nicknames will be quarantined to prevent abuse.

More updates will be posted as the story unfolds.

News source: Neowin.net

Early this morning 131 NEC Computers arrived to our workplace. Thankfully were was enough staff to help unbox them and place them into our IT/Server Office and get them security marked up and labled.

Now the fun begins with getting the network cards detected by Windows Server 2003 RIS so we can start building them. I have taken one home so I can work on this tomorrow while I wait for an engineer to fix my dad’s PC.