NEW RELEASE FIREFOX 3.0.6 FIXES CRITICAL SECURITY FLAWS

Mozilla developers released the latest version of their Firefox browser Tuesday, version 3.0.6, which fixes several security bugs in the software.
The most critical issues are bugs in the browser's JavaScript and layout engines that could be exploited by attackers to run unauthorized software on a victim's PC, Mozilla said. The flaws also affect Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client and SeaMonkey Internet software suite.
The update, Firefox's first of the year, also fixes five other security bugs in the browser, all of which are considered less critical.
The update includes some other performance and stability improvements, including new code that will help scripted commands, such as those used by Adblock Plus, to work better with plug-ins, and addresses a few display issues reported by users.

COUNTRY WITH THE HIGHEST SMS TRAFFIC

A total of 6.37 billion text messages were sent through their messaging systems across Asia Pacific over the 2008/2009 Christmas and New Year period.
According to Acision, the communication solutions provider, short message service (SMS) messages formed a large majority of the traffic with 6.36 billion messages, while multimedia messaging service (MMS) messages were recorded at 9.54 million messages.
Philippines sent most messages
The top five countries with the highest SMS traffic processed over the festive season were the Philippines, again leading the ranking with 2.36 billion messages, closely followed by Indonesia (1.193 billion), Malaysia (1.075 billion) and Pakistan (763 million).
Boudewijn Pesch, managing director of Acision, Asia Pacific, said, "The festive season still remains a favourite high traffic period for operators and consumers alike. Compared to last year's traffic, this year the total messaging traffic in Asia Pacific grew by 40 percent."
MMS picks up
"In addition, we are seeing MMS traffic picking up pace across the region with 9.5 million MMS messages processed during this festive season. MMS traffic is bound to increase as consumers become increasingly savvy in interacting with their personal blog sites and applications such as Facebook", Pesch said.
In terms of year-on-year growth, Pakistan traffic volume grew by 253 percent compared to last year during the same period. Other markets that experienced high messaging growth include Philippines (65 percent), Australia (57 percent), Indonesia (27 percent) and Malaysia (13 percent).
"We are seeing a continued demand for robust and reliable SMS infrastructure and high quality end-to-end SMS solutions, as more and more mobile operators place their trust in the Acision's high performance SMSC", Pesch said.

NEW WORM FLOATS OBAMA'S HEAD ON YOUR DESKTOP

The odds are pretty good that this will never happen to you, but should a floating head of U.S. President Barack Obama pop up on your desktop Monday morning, know this: You've been hit with the Obama worm.
The worm was spotted this past Monday after it infected PCs at a preparatory school in Metairie, Louisiana, and was first reported by Walling Data, a value-added reseller in Claremont, North Carolina. Though it is not detected by any antivirus products right now, it is not considered to be a serious threat because it has infected so few systems.
The worm spreads via USB drive, using the Windows autorun feature to install itself automatically on any drive it connects with. Unlike most of today's profit-driven malware, the Obama worm doesn't steal your credit card number or turn your PC into a remote-controlled zombie system. In fact, it isn't designed to do anything besides float a small picture of Obama at the bottom right corner of your desktop all day every Monday.
Unfortunately, it is so badly written that the worm gradually renders any PC it is run on completely useless, according to Rob Koliha, Walling Data's director of innovation. "It will basically prevent execution of any kind of files."
Because antivirus programs don't detect it yet, it's also hard to know when you've been infected, except on Monday.