Upfront

McAfee reports doubling of threats

McAfee Avert Labs, which added the 100,000th threat to its database in September 2004, officially released protection for the 200,000th threat in its database demonstrating a 60 percent decrease in the amount of time it took to double the number of threats in the database since September 2004.

“It’s remarkable to note that it took 18 years for our database to reach 100,000 malicious threats and just under two years to double to 200,000,” said Stuart McClure, Senior Vice-president, Global Research and Threats, McAfee. “Although security awareness continues to improve, hackers and malicious code authors are releasing threats faster than ever before with 200 percent more threats per day than two years ago,” he added.

MS expands document interoperability

Microsoft has announced the creation of the Open XML Translator project with a focus on interoperability. The project, developed with partners, will create tools to build a technical bridge between the Office Open XML Formats and the OpenDocument Format (ODF). This is in response to government requests for interoperability with ODF, as it works with constituent groups who make use of that format. In addition to making these tools available as free, downloadable add-ins will support several older versions of the MS Office system, the tools will be developed and licenced as open source software.

Satyam partners with Sweden’s EPiServer

Satyam Computer Services has formed an alliance with EPiServer, a Swedish content management company. The partnership will enhance Satyam’s ability to implement, maintain, and provide training services for EPiServer-based solutions. “We see a growing need in the marketplace for easy-to-use, and readily deployable enterprise content and portal management systems,” said G B Prabhat, Director, Consulting and Enterprise Solutions, Satyam.