It's been a complicated take-over, apparently, but Check Point Software Technologies has at last completed the acquisition of Nokia's security appliances business which was announced last year.

Powerpoint, Porn and Twitter

The organisers of the main Black Hat security conference - which takes place at the Moevenpick City Centre hotel in Amsterdam's Piet Heinkade this Thursday and Friday - have announced that presenters will reveal no less than six high profile vulnerabilities at the event.

The operators of Paul McCartney's web site were caught with their electronic pants down this week after the portal was found to be serving up malware.

Samsung, a name better known for its PC and mobile phone offerings, has signed veteran value-added distributor Wick Hill to handle its IT security products in the UK.

Even though version D of the Conficker worm failed to cause havoc - as was widely predicted - on April 1, the worm's methodology continues to cause problems in the shape of an updated version of the Neeris worm.

Hispasec Sistemas, one of Spanish-speaking world's rising IT security stars, has enhanced its online malware analysis service to accept programmes of up to 10 megabytes, as well as supporting an impressive 23 languages via its on-screen interface

Ghost in the machine The Information Warfare Monitor published a report on GhostNet, a cyber-espionage network that it discovered after conducting a security audit for the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Government in Exile. Almost 1300 machines were discovered in a micro-botnet controlled from servers mainly in Chinese IP blocks. The 30% of machines that it identified were of high importance to Chinese interests, it found. The Dalai Lama has condemned the whole affair, and the Chinese government is denying everything.

SQL injection will take a new turn later this month at Black Hat Europe, when a security researcher shows how to take control of a database server using the technique.

Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are underestimating the security danger posed by their employees, especially in light of the current recession, according to network security software developer, GFI.

TelTech has launched what appears to be the industry's first pay-as-you-use telephone voice analysis (lie detection) service.

In a response to a BBC investigation into the leaking of payment card data from Indian call centres, Symantec's Indian operation has admitted that card data on three of its customers may have been leaked from its call centre contractor in India.