Robert Lemos

How China and Others Are Altering Web Traffic

Google leveled new charges against China this week, claiming that the country has interfered with some citizens' access to the Internet giant's Gmail service, disguising the interference as technical glitches.

Security experts say that China is most likely using invisible intermediary servers, or "transparent proxies," to intercept and relay network messages while rapidly modifying the contents of those communications. This makes it possible to block e-mail messages while making it appear as if Gmail is malfunctioning.

Technology Review

For Small Businesses, Social Networking Poses New Security Risks

For about six hours on Tuesday, a small snippet of JavaScript code ran rampant among Twitter users. The code used a particular class of flaw to execute simple commands, including changing the color of the interface and posting itself to the users' followers. Victims only had to hover the mouse pointer over the text.

As social networks become more popular, such threats are becoming more common, taking advantage of the trust between users. No wonder, then, that more than a third of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) already have identified a social network as the entry point for a virus or Trojan horse infecting their corporate networks, according to survey released last week by Panda Security.

"Everyone has to worry about it, but small and medium businesses are most vulnerable," says Sean-Paul Correll, a senior threat researcher with Panda. "Either they don't have the needed expertise or they don't have the budget to hire the expertise."

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