The March debut of the iPad 3, as some have called it, was first reported today by AllThingsD, the blog owned by Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Citing unnamed sources, the blog said Apple will host a launch event the first week of March, likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, a regular venue for the company’s press announcements.

Last year, then-CEO Steve Jobs returned from medical leave to lead the launch event of the iPad 2 on March 2. Apple started selling the new tablet on March 11, 2011 via its online store.

If Apple follows the same timeline, it will probably conduct the event the week of March 5-9, and begin selling the new model the following week.

It’s possible that Apple will trot out a new iPad on one of the first two days of March — Thursday, March 1 or Friday, March 2 — but Apple usually hosts events earlier in the week.

Next month’s iPad introduction, if it does take place, will be the first without Jobs, who died last October at the age of 56 of complications from his long-running battle with pancreatic cancer.

Rumors have been circulating for weeks about the next iPad, with many claiming that Apple’s next tablet will boast several important changes, ranging from a quad-core processor to a higher-resolution screen.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, dismissed the former but said the latter was a certainty.

“[The next iPad] will have a higher-resolution screen that Apple will call a Retina display, even if it’s not,” said Gottheil, talking about the term Apple uses for the iPhone’s 326 pixel-per-inch (ppi) screen. “That’s important to them because it means the iPad will work well in their home theater play, since it will display full HD. And it’s an important differentiator [between the iPad and rival tablets] going forward.”

The iPad 2′s 9.7-in. screen has a resolution of 1024-by-768 pixels, or 132 ppi.

An iPad with a screen similar to the Retina display on the iPhone would have to have a resolution of approximately 3,220-by-2,060 pixels. Most of the chatter about the next iPad’s screen, however, has pointed to a resolution of 2,048-by-1,536 pixels, exactly double that of the iPad 2.

It’s possible that Apple will up the iPad’s processor to a quad-core, acknowledged Gottheil, but he said that was a long shot because of the power requirements. More likely is that Apple has settled for a faster dual-core system-on-a-chip, perhaps one designated A6 to mark improvements over 2011′s A5 that powers both the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S.

“Siri will be there for sure,” added Gottheil, moving on to other predictions. “It’s clear that there’s some kind of hardware constraint, probably related to the noise reduction circuitry.”

Siri has been cited by most analysts as a major factor in the iPhone 4S’ sales last quarter, when Apple sold a record number of smartphones, most of them the Siri-able iPhone 4S.

Gottheil also expects that Apple will mimic its current iPhone practice and keep selling last year’s iPad 2, albeit at a lower price. His bet: $400 for an iPad 2 with Wi-Fi only and 16GB of flash-based storage space.

And the company will want to replicate last year’s short span between announcing the next iPad and the start of

“They’re very strong on getting a product out as soon as possible,” said Gottheil. “They’re going to have a relatively tough first quarter for iPads as it is, what with buyers, like me, who are waiting for the next one.”

Apple suffered from that phenomenon last year when sales of the iPhone slumped in the quarter prior to its October launch. Company executives admitted that the nearly-constant Internet buzz about the next iPhone contributed to that slow-down.

Gottheil went out on a smaller limb for another pair of predictions, saying that he expects Apple to roll out a smaller 7-in. iPad — though not at the upcoming event — and perhaps tout a specially-designed wireless keyboard-case accessory for its tablet.

“I believe that’s always been in the plan” said Gottheil of a small iPad, contradicting past comments by Jobs, who had rejected seven inches as too small for a tablet. “Actually that’s a good form factor for some users, and although they will also charge a premium above other similar-sized tablets, they want to protect that price flank.”

The hottest-selling 7-in. tablet has been Amazon’s Fire, which debuted last November and serves primarily as an e-reader, secondarily as a true tablet.

A matched Bluetooth keyboard, perhaps integrated with a case to enclose the iPad, is also a long shot, but something that could attract customers.

“I think something like that would be an important peripheral for students,” Gottheil said.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, on Google+, or send him an email to gkeizer@computerworld.com.

Some of the underlying technologies are already used widely in protecting email, relying on the equivalent of digital signatures that help identify a message’s sender.

The companies—along with others such as financial-service companies Bank of America Corp., FMR LLC’s Fidelity Investments and eBay Inc.’s PayPal—are hoping to create an environment that allows the recipient of an email from, say, a bank, to feel secure that it isn’t a trick.

To achieve that, the firms have created DMARC.org, a working group of 15 companies that plans to promote a standard set of technologies that they say will lead to more secure email.

Some of the underlying technologies are already used widely in protecting email, relying on the equivalent of digital signatures that help identify a message’s sender. But senders don’t always authenticate every message they send, so recipients are forced to rely on complex and imperfect ways to distinguish trusted messages from potentially fraudulent ones, backers of the effort say.

Brett McDowell, chair of DMARC and a senior manager at PayPal, says senders also need policies that tell email providers how to treat messages that aren’t authenticated. That way, the email provider will be able to vouch for the authenticity of the real emails—and block fake ones or label them suspicious.

PayPal has been using the authentication technologies with Yahoo’s email service since 2007 and with Google’s since 2008, Mr. McDowell says, and is now blocking around 200,000 fake emails per day. Adam Dawes, a product manager at Google, says that 15% of the messages the company delivers to inboxes—a count that doesn’t include spam and other junk emails—is currently protected with the authentication safeguards.

Such volumes could be the reason that this effort to secure email can succeed where past ones have failed, representing a “critical mass” of key companies, says Mr. McDowell.

If the system were to work and email could be authenticated, it would allow businesses to communicate with customers in new ways—or rather in old ways that have been compromised by phishing attacks. A bank customer would be able to trust an email advising him to follow a link and update his account information, for example. Currently, many companies tell customers not to trust emails with this kind of message, and many consumers assume that such messages are phishing attacks.

“If you are a big bank or a retailer, you have a very strong interest in making sure people trust your messages,” says Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research, which tracks the messaging industry. While past efforts to secure email have fallen short, DMARC “has a lot of promise,” he says.

Even if every email can be authenticated, it won’t bring an end to email fraud, Mr. McDowell acknowledges. But it will mean that scammers need to find new addresses with which to launch their attacks. Instead of crafting an email that looks like it comes from paypal.com, for instance, it would need to come from “paypalpayments.com” or some other fake site.

The DMARC working group officially launches Monday. Besides email providers and financial-service firms, initial participants include social-networking companies such as Facebook Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. and messaging-security providers such as Agari Data Inc.

Mr. McDowell said it won’t cost a lot for companies to start using the standards, but it will require them to identify every server that sends email and ensure that the technologies are in use. The same holds true for third-party firms such as marketing agencies that send email on behalf of a company.

When it comes to receiving emails, it’s likely that email vendors or security firms will add the capability to authenticate messages into future versions of their systems, Mr. McDowell says. He hopes that makers of security and email software also adopt the DMARC standards.

Write to Ben Worthen at ben.worthen@wsj.com.

Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

Of the 13 bulletins, two were rated as “critical,” nine as “important” and two as “moderate,” Microsoft said Aug. 9 in its Patch Tuesday notification announcement. The patches addressed bugs in both desktop and server versions of Microsoft Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, .NET and Visual Studio.

“Everything from Microsoft operating system kernel and networking components to their Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser and development products are impacted to patch information disclosure, denial of service, memory corruption, and elevation of privilege vulnerabilities,” wrote Kurt Baumgartner, a senior malware researcher at Kaspersky Lab, on the Securelist blog.

Administrators should prioritize the two critical updates fixing vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and the Microsoft DNS server running in Windows Server 2003 and 2008 first, Angela Gunn, senior response communications manager at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, wrote on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog on TechNet. Even though there are no exploits currently targeting the flaw in the wild, according to Gunn, the exploitability index on the IE issue is “1,” meaning a reliable exploit is expected soon. The DNS issue has an exploitability index of “3,” meaning an exploit is not expected within the next 30 days.

The Internet Explorer patch resolves five “privately reported” bugs and two publicly disclosed flaws in the Web browser, Gunn said. The most severe vulnerability would allow attackers to remotely execute code if the user viewed a specially crafted Website on an unpatched version of Internet Explorer. All versions of Internet Explorer, even IE6 and IE9, need to be patched.

The DNS Server patch fixes two vulnerabilities, of which the most severe one would result in remote code execution if the attacker sets up a malicious DNS server to send a specially crafted Naming Authority Pointer query to an unpatched server to obtain a DNS record. Windows servers that don’t have DNS turned on are not at risk, Gunn said.

The DNS vulnerability could result in a “complete system compromise,” said Joshua Talbot, security intelligence manager, Symantec Security Response. “Because no user interaction is needed, a vulnerable service simply needs to be up and running for the vulnerability to be exploited,” Talbot said.

“The fact that vulnerabilities such as these continue to be so common is one reason why web-based attacks are so prevalent,” Talbot said.

It’s rare, Talbot said, that half of all the vulnerabilities patched this month are “low-profile” issues relating to information disclosure and denial of service attacks.

The information disclosure flaws in Remote Desktop Web Access Login and Microsoft Chat Web control are cross-site scripting issues, said Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys. The issue in Report Viewer Web control could be used to reveal contents of files stored on the web server, Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, said.

Microsoft also fixed a Data Access Components issue that would have allowed attackers to link an Excel file with a maliciously modified library located on the same network directory. When opened, the library would load and execute on the system with the same privileges as the user opening the Excel file. Another remote code execution flaw was patched in Visio this month.

For the Excel vulnerability, “we will be monitoring for related exploit inclusion in underground market exploit packs like BlackHole, NeoSploit and Phoenix,” Baumgartner said.

Even though Microsoft didn’t rate the denial of service issues in Windows Vista and Windows 7 patch as “Critical,” administrators should pay “special attention” to the MS11-064 bulletin, according to Andrew Storms, director of security at nCircle. Attackers can remotely reboot a Windows system by sending malicious TCP/IP packets, even if it is running a local firewall, according to Storms, adding that the bug used to be called the “ping of death” in the early 1990s.

“Although these are not remote code execution issues, they could be used in conjunction with other attacks or just for playing pranks,” said Kandek.

Main Specifications

Product Description ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101 – tablet – Android 3.0 – 32 GB – 10.1″ – espresso

• Product Type Tablet – espresso
• Operating System Android 3.0
• Dimensions (WxDxH) 10.7 in x 0.5 in x 6.7 in
• Weight 1.5 lbs
• Display 10.1″ IPS TFT – LED backlight – 1280 x 800 – Multi-Touch
• Processor NVIDIA Tegra 2 1 GHz ( Dual-Core )
• RAM 1 GB
• Memory 32 GB integrated
• Supported Flash Memory Cards microSD, microSDHC
• Wireless Connectivity 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR
• Digital Camera 5 Megapixel rear + 1.2 Megapixel front
• Sensors Ambient light sensor, three-axis gyro sensor, digital compass
• Run Time (Up To) 9.5 hours
• Manufacturer Warranty 1 year warranty

On Sale Now

• 16GB – $399.00
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• Tablet Dock – $149.00

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The breach exposed the names, account numbers, and contact information of account holders, but not other personal information such as Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, and card expiration dates, according to the report.

Citigroup declined to provide further information on the attack, citing an on-going investigation. The company has thus far failed to explain how the breach occurred and how the company plans to keep such breaches from occurring in the future, prompting criticism from Connecticut Attorney General, George Jepson.

The New York-based financial services company initially disclosed the breach last week, claiming that only 210,000 accounts had been compromised. The company acknowledged a 20-day gap between when it became aware of the breach and when notification letters were sent to those affected.

Citi is the latest in a growing line of financial and e-commerce companies to suffer such breaches. Back in May, Finnish authorities arrested 17 individuals in connection with an attack in Nordea Finland’s online banking system. Other financial companies have suffered breaches in recent years as well, as hackers focus their energy on high-value targets to yield the more lucrative data.

As with banking itself, much of the fraud has moved online according to a 2011 study by the Business Banking Trust. The issue of attributing blame in these compromises is proving to be a contentious one as well, with a number of cases making their way through Federal and state courts questioning whether customers or the banks are to blame lapses in security.

On Thursday, BITS, a group made up of executives of leading financial services firms, published a report on malware that urged financial services companies to share more information about attacks and breaches with their counterparts, and to adopt better methods for detecting and responding to malware and other security incidents.

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One of the most important features to be added to the core operating system will be the introduction of disk level XTS-AES 128 data encryption. Apple claims that the initial encryption will be “fast and unobtrusive — it encrypts everything in the background while you work” and FileVault will also encrypt your external drives, and provide the ability to wipe all the data from your Mac instantaneously. This is an added benefit to all the Road Warriors that carry company sensitive data around with them in busy airports. There may also be a remote wipe feature via the Apple iPhone or iPad in the future (I am guessing).

Read more at Apple.com…

Read further in order to find out exactly how to prevent this and other programs like it from installing on your computer.

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