New Release Advances Microsoft’s Integrated Communications Vision and Makes It Easier for Users to Initiate, Engage and Share With Participants, and Reach Global Audiences

Microsoft Corp. today introduced a new release of Microsoft(R) Office Live Meeting, its hosted Web conferencing service that helps information workers communicate and collaborate with anyone, anytime, anywhere, with just a PC and an Internet connection. Live Meeting 2005 further delivers on Microsoft’s vision for integrated communication and presents significant user enhancements. These include the ability to launch a meeting from within familiar Microsoft Office software, more effortless and cost-effective audio controls, and powerful presenter control capabilities. In addition, Live Meeting 2005 will be available in localized versions with support for seven additional languages, enabling people all over the world to participate in a Live Meeting session.

The 2005 release of Microsoft Office Live Meeting is scheduled to be available to customers beginning March 11. Live Meeting is offered in Standard and Professional editions and is sold as a hosted online service. Several license models are available (named user, room, shared seat and monthly minute) in order to accommodate different types of organizations. Live Meeting Event Services also are available for customers that require professional event management to conduct their online events.

Microsoft is offering a free 14-day trial of Live Meeting. You can sign up for the free trial or learn more about Live Meeting at http://www.microsoft.com/livemeeting.

Microsoft Corp.’s newest operating systems can be penetrated by an old-school-type denial-of-service attack, according to a warning from a security researcher.

In a SecurityFocus advisory, researcher Dejan Levaja warned that Windows Server 2003 and XP Service Pack 2 (with Windows Firewall turned off) could lead to LAND attacks.

A LAND attack is a remote denial-of-service condition caused by sending a packet to a machine with the source host/port the same as the destination host/port. The LAND attack scenario was discussed in 1997 by Carnegie Mellon’s CERT Coordination Center.

Using widely available reverse-engineering tools, Levaja found that a single LAND packet sent to a file server could cause Windows Explorer to freeze on all workstations connected to that server. “CPU on server goes 100% [and] network monitor on the victim server sometimes can not even sniff malicious packet,” Levaja warned.

He said the script could be replayed endlessly to cause a total collapse of the network.

A spokeswoman for Microsoft confirmed Levaja’s findings but downplayed the risk to customers.

“Our initial investigation has revealed that this reported vulnerability cannot be used by an attacker to run malicious software on a computer. At this point, our analysis indicates the impact of a successful attack would be to cause the computer to perform sluggishly for a short period of time,” the spokeswoman said in a statement sent to eWEEK.com.

She said customers running the Windows Firewall, enabled by default on Windows XP SP2, are not impacted by this issue.

Source: eWeek

Having released a full version of its desktop search application, Google Inc. next wants to hone the software’s enterprise features.

The Mountain View, Calif., company is working on an enterprise version of the application, officials confirmed to eWEEK.com. Google is providing few details about its features, but the enterprise edition will include the ability for organizations to install and run Google Desktop Search on multiple Windows accounts on one machine.

“We fully understand the needs of the enterprise and are trying to address them with new features,” said Nikhil Bhatla, a Google product manager.

He declined to say when the enterprise version will be available or go into beta testing but indicated that Google wants to make desktop search more appealing to corporations.

Source: eWeek

The first mobile phone virus that spreads using the popular Mobile Messaging Service (MMS) is circulating among mobile phone users with Symbian Series 60 mobile phones, antivirus companies have warned.

Antivirus vendors first spotted the new virus, dubbed CommWarrior.A, on Monday. When opened, it places copies of itself on vulnerable mobile phones and uses the phone’s address book to send copies of itself to the owner’s contacts using MMS. Antivirus experts believe CommWarrior, which has been spreading slowly among cell phone users since January, is not a serious threat. However, the virus could herald a new age of malicious and fast-spreading cell phone threats, according to Mikko Hyppönen of F-Secure Corp.

MMS is a popular text messaging technology that is closely related to SMS (Short Message System), but allows mobile phone users to send multimedia content, such as sound files or photos, between MMS compliant mobile phones. The technology is popular, especially outside of the U.S. where phone users have widely adopted newer-generation cell phones that support multimedia features and MMS messaging, Hyppönen said.

Source: Yahoo

Music fans don’t have to be in Austin, Texas, to hear hundreds of new songs from the South by Southwest music festival.

For many years, SXSW, as it’s known, has provided on its website a library of free MP3s of bands participating in the conference. This year, the festival is making it even easier to listen by providing a huge BitTorrent file (2.6 GB) of more than 750 songs. The songs can be downloaded for free using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing application.

For the bands, providing a free MP3 of their music is optional. Of the more than 1,350 bands scheduled to play the festival, 758 offered an MP3. The songs can also be downloaded individually from the conference website.

Source: Wired