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A BLUNDER has become a publicity stunt when Microsoft managed to pass reality as an embellished version of it. The company claims to have made a security product free of charge. Microsoft not only alienates partners in the security industry by overriding them but it is also getting across the message that security is not an inherent property of its software. The danger here is that if security-oriented companies are harmed, then security is only reduced (monoculture) and Microsoft now has an incentive for making software less secure. It's what some label "disaster capitalism", which deals with monetising problems that are unnecessarily created.

Although one of the top consumer security vendors welcomed Microsoft's Security Essentials to the market, another dismissed the new free software as a "poor product" that will "never be up to snuff."

The bank Trojan, dubbed URLZone, has features designed to thwart fraud detection systems which are triggered by unusual transactions...

According to the study, IT security breaches – everything from viruses to intellectual property theft to abuse by employees – cost the average Canadian organization $834,149 in 2009, almost double the amount reported in last year's study. The average number of reported IT security breaches also soared to 11.3 per organization in 2009, compared to three per organization in 2008.