Conficker
Researchers mused over the likelihood of Conficker exploding on April 1, but others think it's a storm in a teacup.
Code
Security projects including Tor, NMap and OpenSSH are to mentor students taking part in Google's Summer of Code project.
Scareware (which dupes users into thinking they are infected so that they will purchase fake anti-virus protection) is now being used to encrypt files and hold them to ransom, say researchers at FireEye.
Pen-testing toolkit Metasploit is to add software-as-a-service features including password cracking.
Congress
Susan Collins, a senator on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is asking the head of the Department of Homeland Security how it spent money meant to support the Department's National Cyber Security Center, and quizzing her over alleged marginalization of the Center.
Cyber-crime
AT&T security head Ed Amoroso argued that revenues from cybercrime exceeded those of the drug trade. That's right, said Finjan. Nonsense, said Richard Stiennon, before elaborating here.
Hackers are using hijacked accounts on file sharing systems like RapidShare to help jihadists distribute large files, including movies of attacks on western forces.
Israeli hacker Ehud Tenenbaum, already arrested for hacking $1.5m from Canadian banks, may be responsible for hacks into credit and debit card payment processors, along with $10m of losses from hacked US banks.
Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour will participate in a musical protest in support of hacker Gary McKinnon, who still faces extradition to the US.