The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently published a high level report on the state of malware and how it is affecting, and will affect, the Internet economy. Aimed mainly at policy-makers, the report is also good primer on malware and Internet security for non-technical readers.

In the wake of the horrible tragedies in Myanmar and China, millions of dollars worth of donations can be expected from generous people all over the world to help those desperately in need. Unfortunately, we can also count on unscrupulous criminals taking advantage of the situation to defraud individuals. Just like after the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, we can expect phishing and spam to make the rounds very soon.

It's TechSoup's first year at that annual RSA Conference, billed as one of the biggest IT conferences in the country, and certainly the most influential gathering of experts in the field of security.

The Wall Street Journal Business Technology blog's latest post took a closer look at what might have been a phishing email. As noted in the post, sometimes mail scams as such get through your email provider or server's spam filter and past your client's, into your inbox. It is thus very important to be vigilant about clicking any links in an email unless you are 100% certain of its origin. If you do use these services, you should always include a personal message that would let the recipient know it's from a legitimate source.

On March 12, 2008 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., Aspiration will host a free workshop titled "Five Things Every Nonprofit Should Know About Their Hosted Data." The discussion will address the risks involved in having your data hosted remotely and steps you can take to mitigate those risks. 

Event Details:

March 12, 2008
5:00pm - 6:30pm
Nonprofit Technology Center
1370 Mission Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA
Web link
Seating is limited, so RSVP to seminars@aspirationtech.org

Microsoft Windows SteadyState is a free program for Windows XP and Vista that allows public access lab managers to administer program restrictions, user management, and even disk protection, protecting your organization's network or lab setup from unwanted user changes.

I personally see a lot of value with the SteadyState system. I recently listened to recording about SteadyState on the podcast Security Now! by Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte. Episode #129 — Windows SteadyState — is available in many formats right from the page.

In honor of TechSoup's "Stop Spam Today!" campaign, TechSoup blog brings you some of the latest spam-fighting conversations from the TechSoup community forums.

Last Monday, November 19, TechSoup learned that it was one of the organizations affected by the Convio/GetActive break-in, in which hackers stole email addresses and passwords of subscribers to various nonprofit newsletters.

Attackers stole passwords and email addresses from 92 nonprofits by breaking into systems at Convio. This break-in occurred sometime between October 23 and November 1, and affects GetActive clients (Convio acquired GetActive in February.)

Ars Technica, citing a survey performed by Rubicon Consulting, reports that although Web applications in the realm of email and games h