The continued rise of IT threats that seek to trick even the most careful, experienced PC users ranks among the top issues highlighted by software maker CA in its latest online security research report. Published on Jan. 25, the CA 2007 Internet Threat Outlook highlights the most pressing online security trends projected to have an impact over the next 12 months by researchers at the IT systems management and authentication applications provider.

Microsoft’s security response team has launched an investigation into reports of a zero-day attack against a previously unknown vulnerability affecting its ever-present Microsoft Word program. The software maker said it’s aware of "very limited attacks" exploiting the reported Word flaw. If the vulnerability–and attack–is confirmed, the company is likely to issue a pre-patch advisory with workarounds or suggested actions or vulnerable customers.

Internet Explorer 7 user complaints continue to abound, with an increasing number of people expressing diminished confidence in Windows Vista. Microsoft has a perception problem. Product marketing often is much more about perception than reality. Negative perceptions, once they set in, are tough to shake.

Cloudmark added a new feature to its Cloudmark Authority 2.0 security tool to help Internet service providers reduce spam. Cloudmark’s Active Scan is able to block the vast majority of unwanted email by allowing service providers to filter unread messages against up-to-the-minute lists of known attacks. Every minute, Authority 2.0 updates local caches of message fingerprints, allowing a simple but sophisticated rescan to be performed locally by checking header information against these caches.

Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina molecular scientist, has developed caffeinated doughnuts. Bobby Boy, you’re a god, man, you’re a god!

Microsoft has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site. While Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no.

MySpace.com has filed a lawsuit against Scott Richter, the so-called Spam King who allegedly sent out millions of unsolicited "bulletins" to MySpace members, the site announced Monday. The social-networking site cited violations of multiple state and U.S. antispam laws, including California statutes and the federal Can-Spam Act, in its case against Richter, who was the proprietor of a site called OptInRealBig.com. According to MySpace, Richter gained access to MySpace user accounts via phishing schemes, or took control of accounts that had already been phished, and then used the service’s bulletin feature, which sends messages to all of a user’s "friends," to churn out unsolicited messages that advertised products ranging from Polo shirts to cellphone ringtones.

Windows Vista is not even fully out the door, but Redmond is already laying the groundwork for its first service pack release of bug fixes and other enhancements for the operating system. The software maker has put out a call for businesses that want to be early testers of the software. "Interested customers should contact their Technical Account Manager at Microsoft to get nominated," a Microsoft representative said in an email. Windows Vista doesn’t hit retail shelves until next week, though it has been on sale to large businesses since November.

There’s a reason Steve Ballmer runs around screaming about developers. When Windows Vista has its mainstream launch next week, much of the attention will be on what users can expect out of the box. But perhaps more important to its ultimate success are a host of new technologies that are built in to Vista, but only come alive once applications are written that take advantage of them. While some companies are well ahead with Vista-optimized software, others may take months or even years to appear. In part, that’s because developers don’t want to target a new operating system until a significant part of its users are running the new software. At this point, many developers are focusing on making sure that their programs will merely run on Vista, rather than adding new capabilities.

Microsoft’s new operating system may be the most eagerly anticipated release of the past 10 years, but concerns over compatibility, bugs and security are keeping many IT professionals from doing so soon, according to the survey released Jan. 23 by Bit9, a provider of desktop lockdown solutions. Only 68 percent of IT pros reported that they’d be upgrading to Vista in 2007, though very few had made immediate plans. Of those who had expressed their intention to shift to the new operating system, 58 percent said they’d be waiting six months to one year after the launch to do so, while but 10 percent planned to roll out the upgrade in the next six months.