The NewsForge brings us the details on a group of programmers at Penn State University that have developed software to validate XML database queries before allowing them to be processed by the database.

New software developed at Penn State University promises to protect XML database queries and filter out unauthorized requests, thereby boosting query performance as many as 100 times, researchers said.

Security firm Secunia is recommending people stop using Internet Explorer. We couldn't agree more. And we'll go one step further...use FIREFOX. :)

Millions of Internet Explorer 6 users are at risk from three "extremely critical" security Relevant Products/Services from Verisign -- Free E-Commerce Start-up Kit holes that give hackers open access to PCs running the browser -- even if Windows XP Service Pack Two has been installed.

Time for the weekly security warnings from Linux.com.

This week, advisories were released for mplayer, samba, wxgtk, cups, htmlheadline, nasm, zip, pcal, tiff, namazu, imlib2, selinux, tetex, pcmcia, kernel, mysql, gpdf, hotplug, linpopup, firefox, shoutcast, mit-kbr5, xine, phpgroupware, xzgv, vilistextum, vim, mc, and fam. The distributors include Conectiva, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, and Red Hat.

This story belongs in a folder labelled "snowball's chance in hell", "secure version of Windows", "cow flies without the aid of ILM", or well, you get the idea...

A trio of newly exposed flaws in Mozilla browsers (including Firefox) was announced this week by a number of different security researchers.

Some people claim that if Linux was as popular as Windows, it would see as many attacks. McAfee has reported that 2004 saw an INCREASE in viruses released for the first time in three years. I think it's time to find out what would happen if Linux was more popular.

The number of new viruses released into the wild increased in 2004 after three consecutive years of decline, according to U.S. anti-virus software company McAfee.

The weekly security warnings from Linux.com.

Happy New Year! This week advisories were released for netpbm, libtiff, imlib, Xpdf,CUPS, and ViewCVS. The distributors include Conectiva, Debian, Gentoo, and Mandrake.

Time for the weekly security alert from Linux.com.

Happy Holidays! This week, advisories were released for cscope, htget, a2ps, ethereal, xzgv, debmake, xcdroast, udev, cups, postgresql, namazu, pam, samba, glibc, krb5, php, gnumeric, abiword, libtiff, kfax, abcm2ps, phpMyAdmin, WordPress, NASM, mplayer, mpg123, wget, urpmi, aspell, krb5, logcheck, samba, Linux kernel, kerberos5, libxml, gd, XFree86, and nfs-utils. The distributors include Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, NetBSD, Trustix, Red Hat, and SuSE.

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, wait, no, a Microsoft mouse!...poor Microsoft engineers :)

DECEMBER 24, 2004 - Antivirus company Symantec Corp. warned its customers about a number of critical holes in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system that surfaced late yesterday and that could make Windows systems vulnerable to compromise by remote attackers.

Finally, some real data to backup what we already knew...Linux is SECURE! That's right, Open Source software blew away the Commercial makers AGAIN!

The data, from a dozen networks, showed that the average Linux system lasts three months before being compromised, a significant increase from the 72 hours life span of a Linux system in 2001. Unpatched Windows systems continue to be compromised more quickly, sometimes within minutes, the Honeynet Project report stated.

We know Tux can guard your computer, now watch him outperform a Doberman Pinscher!

CFD Elettronica's Plenitude Premium is an embedded Linux-based home intrusion detection system with cameras tripped by infrared sensors. It includes 32 fully wireless sensors with a claimed battery life of three years, and can send images to mobile phones using any of three wireless protocols.

We have written a range of guides highlighting excellent free books for popular programming languages. Check out the following guides: C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, HTML, Python, Ruby, Perl, Haskell, PHP, Lisp, R, Prolog, Scala, Scheme, and SQL.