Flaw Found in Yahoo E-Mail Security.... In October, only moments afier the newYahoo Mail Service was released - it is a free service for accessing e- mail from any net-connected PC wherever you go - bugs were found in the design. The security short- coming allowed others to get at your ernail feed without your knowledge. Apparently, the problem derives Erom the authentication methods used. Yahoo responded saying that the security flaws did exist and they would shortly include a fix to pre- vent external account information from being cached. It re-iterated that users should always follow proper procedures when leaving the PC. Moreover, users of public PCs should always purge the browser cache upon leaving.

. . ..Jabadoo in Explorer 4 Browser The first major security flaw - dubbec Jabadoo - in the Microsoft Internel Explorer 4 browser was found However, it was promptly fixed after being discovered by Ralf Hueskes, ; German computer consultant. He found it in IE4’s implementation o JavaScript and it allows a hacker to reac - but not modify - text and HTML filer on someone else’s PC. The flaw war called “Jabadoo” after Hueskes’ compa- ny and is like the “hidden window” sce- nario aimed against Netscape’! Navigator browser which occurred ; few months ago. By making a “sp) page”, an IE4 user accesses a page con- taining the JavaScript code or opens thr e-mail message with an HTML-capable e-mail package, so that the prograrr then loads this onto this spy frame - these can then be sent to any Web serv- er anywhere. So in worst case this coulc be used to access data on an intranel even behind a firewall. Microsofi responded by reaffirming that securiq zones in IE4 prevent data from being sent to an external server without thr user being queried. Nevertheless, il promised to post a fix at its site only 24 hours after its discovery.

Internet Faxing - Survey Shows Strong Demand for Internet Fax Solutions As new products and services enable companies to more efficiently route their fax traffic over the Internet and intranets, the number of pages rerouted away from the public switched tele- phone network (PSTN) in the USA will grow from 44 m pages in lW7 to

5.6 bn fax pages in 2000, says Dataquest. A new study from Dataquest shows

strong demand for Internet fax products and services that save companies money on their fax charges because these fnxes will not have the long distance fees that accompany traditional faxes. Based on a survey among selected US companies, Dataquest said the strongest demand for Internet fax solutions is within large businesses. Medium-size and large busi- nesses are forecast to represent 74X‘of all Internet fax traffic by 2000.

“51% of all outbound faxes are sent to destinations within a company,” said Dataquest. “This intra-company faxing can very easily be routed over the com- pany’s intranet to save thousands of dol- lars in long distance telephone charges. Two out of 3 respondents expect their fax usage to increase over the next 2

years. Companies surveyed said that it is this increase in the use of faxing that is driving their plans to implement intranet and Internet faxing in the near future. “Larger companies are already adopting this technology, and we see it filtering down to mid-size and smaller companies very quickly”.

41% of the survey respondents who said they plan to have Internet access are currently using, or plan to buy, Internet fax products or services in the next two years.

Dataquest and Gartner Group sur-

vey is titled the “Internet Fax: Multiclient Study.” and provides detailed analysis of end-user awareness and purchase intentions for Internet/intranet fax products and ser- vices. This end-user survey measures market demand and identifies key issues among SOHO, small, medium, and large sized businesses. This report is available to purchase for $12 000.

Contact: Walter Johnson, tel: 408/468-8139, or visit www.dataquest.com

Sentry Year 2000 Survival Guide The Westborough, MA, USA, based Sentry Group’s new quarterly publica- tion forYear 2000 project managers, will debut with a January 15th, 1998 issue date. Dedicated to Year 2000 business topics, this publication says that it will depart from conventional “gloom-and- doom editorial” and focus on the proac- tive ways companies can move forward _ and in many ways, already have - in addressing the Year 2000 challenge. Distribution will include the 110,000 IS subscribers to Software Magazine, Fortune 1000 CIO’s andYear 2000 pro- ject managers from Sentry’s database, 10,000 IT executives in Europe, and key conferences.

The Year 2000 Survival Guide will also leverage the significant Year 2000

knowledge resources of Sentry Consulting Services and Sentry Research & Analyst Group.

“Sentry has considerable editorial and research resources,” said Mike Bachman, Sales manager, Sentry. “These, along with Sentry’s strong rela- tionships with IT management, Year 2000 industry experts and the IT ven- dor community, will enable the Year 2000 Survival Guide to quickly become a very authoritative and respected publication.” Contact: Mike Bachman,

tel: +l 610 254 4183.

E-mail:

mbachman@sentrytech.com

Computer Audit Update l December 1997 0 1997, $17.00 Elsevier Science Ltd. q