Brewed Fresh Daily

In a harbinger of security threats to come, hackers have exploited a newly announced flaw in Microsoft Corp. programs and begun circulating malicious code hidden in images that use the popular JPEG format. Software tools to create the malicious images began appearing last month, and this week security experts saw images employing them posted on adult-oriented Usenet newsgroups. To get the malicious code, a visitor must download the image and view it using Microsoft's Windows Explorer software, said Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager with Symantec Security Response. *Oh look, here's a jpeg. Bang, you're a spambox. *It took an entire WEEK for the globalized digital underground to turn this vulnerability into a for-profit crowbar for organized crime.