All Blog Posts from Tech Talk

It's the worm that just won't die. In fact, quite the opposite -- it's come back to life. The "Conficker" computer worm has baffled security experts for months and spread to millions of machines worldwide. On April 1 -- because of clues found in the coding -- some people thought it would spring to action after lying dormant for so long. It did not, and the internet survived. But that didn't mean "Conficker" was a dud. Rather, the clever creators appeared to be biding their time. This week the infected computers began receiving new instructions, and it seems this digital assault is far from over. Tune in tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric to see the latest chapter in this case of cyber thievery.

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Working late tonight as we finish a segment for tomorrow's Early Show. The story is pretty alarming, especially for people with a certain type of epilepsy. According to the Epilepsy Foundation, within the last two weeks hackers broke into its site and planted flashing pornographic images and patterns on some message boards that were clearly designed to trigger headaches or seizures with people who have photosensitive epilepsy. It's a type of epilepsy experienced by about 3-5% of people with the condition. And it may be the first computer attack solely designed to cause physical harm.

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Botnets. You may not have heard of them, but their invisible nature makes them all the more dangerous. And you may already be both a victim and an accomplice in a botnet operation. Because everything in the high-tech world needs an acronym or abbreviation, a botnet is actually short for a robot network. Think of it as a massive super-computer army with your computer one of the many conscripted ranks.

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