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The Danish security firm CSIS is reporting that they have uncovered evidence of a new “crimekit” called “Weyland-Yutani BOT” that criminals can use to make malware designed to steal information and access credentials (such as for online banking sites). At the moment, Weyland-Yutani supports “web injects” and “form grabbing” in Firefox, with support for Safari and Google Chrome on the way. These techniques enable the attackers to defeat online banking security tokens and capture login information entered into forms. CSIS also reports that while Weyland-Yutani targets Mac OS X currently, iPad and Linux versions are planned.

Intego has discovered a fake antivirus program called MAC Defender, which targets Mac users via SEO poisoning attacks (web sites set up to take advantage of search engine optimization tricks to get malicious sites to appear at the top of search results).

Although Apple was silent for several days after researchers raised issues about location information being stored on the iPhone, that wasn’t because it was ignoring the issue. Apple CEO Steve Jobs told Mobilized that the company wanted to figure out exactly what was and wasn’t happening, and then figure out the best way to explain a complex set of issues to its customers.

Apple® today updated its signature all-in-one iMac® with next generation quad-core processors, powerful new graphics, groundbreaking high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology and a new FaceTime® HD camera. Starting at $1,199, the new iMac is up to 70 percent faster and new graphics deliver up to three times the performance of the previous generation

According to internet security lab Websense, someone installed code on Athar's blog that attempts to install malware on any visitors' computers. That's potentially a lot of people, given that Athar (handle: ReallyVirtual) now has over 70,000 followers thanks to his citizen reportage. (After his Al Jazeera appearance, scheduled for later today, he'll probably have even more.)

It seems a few American carriers have started working with Google to disable access to tethering apps in the Android Market in recent weeks, ostensibly because they make it easier for users to circumvent the official tethering capabilities offered on many recent smartphones — capabilities that carry a plan surcharge. Sure, it’s a shame that they’re doing it, but from Verizon’s perspective, it’s all about protecting revenue — business as usual. It’s Google’s role in this soap opera that’s a cause for greater concern.

Following up on this morning's news that Sony Online Entertainment servers were offline across the board, SOE announced that it has lost 12,700 customer credit card numbers as the result of an attack, and roughly 24.6 million accounts may have been breached.

CSIS partner Peter Kruse told me that the builder runs on Windows, “and based upon the configuration added by the user it will create a Mac binary which obviously can be used to steal data from infected Mac hosts.” I’ve had an opportunity to observe the videos of this program in operation, and it works as advertised. Building the malware package took literally a couple of clicks and less than five seconds. With the Trojan installed on a Mac, a remote host was able to log keystrokes in Safari and capture passwords for a Gmail account—it was even able to detect and log the victim’s attempt to change the compromised password.

It also has 768MB of RAM, with 8GB of internal storage for media and other data, the most RAM and built-in storage of any current BlackBerry. And the Bold 9900 also supports microSD memory cards up to 32GB. All of these things make the Bold 9900 feel much more "modern" than RIM's past few handhelds.

To make matters even more complicated, this forthcoming OS 7 is not to be confused with QNX, the real-time OS shipping on their PlayBook tablet and will be the future smartphone OS that will be deployed on their handsets in 2012. Cause Balsillie’s co-Chief Executive, Mike Lazaridis said so. Oh but it gets better. You see, even though OS 6.1… ahem, OS 7 is an incremental improvement over OS 6, the software cannot be over-the-air updated on currently shipping BlackBerry handsets at any of the wireless carriers. OS 7, apparently, has no support for BlackBerry legacy hardware at all.

RT @nytimestech: Europe Leads In Pushing For Privacy Of User Data

“@nytimestech: Google Takes to TV to Promote Browser #twig

“@gigaom: Infographic: How People Watched the Royal Wedding #300 #twig

Apple has informed us that they do not plan to release the iPhone in the June to July timeframe, though there will be a newer version in the future. Unfortunately, we have not been given a release time for the new phone. We will release this information on our website when it is available to us.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the is the implication that Moore’s Law is alive and well, at least for the next several generations of process down to 14 nm and below, and Intel has no intention of yielding primacy as the world’s leader in semiconductor process. Given their history and their willingness to invest, this announcement looks like their position is secure.

The cutting-edge technology -- which Intel says breaks new ground by moving away from flat circuitry to a three-dimensional model -- may eventually challenge rival ARM Holdings, whose chip technology is favored in devices like Apple's iPad.

Intel announced today that its upcoming Ivy Bridge processing platform, which will be based on a 22-nm version of its second-generation Core (aka Sandy Bridge) microarchitecture, will also utilize a new transistor technology called Tri-Gate. The company says that Tri-Gate transistors, the first to be truly three-dimensional, mark a major change in the way the industry has done things for 40 years, and could revolutionize it. Here's a quick glimpse at some of the most important facts and figures about Tri-Gate transistors, and what they will mean for PCs in 2011 and beyond.