BOSTON (Reuters) – Software makers Microsoft Corp and Symantec Corp said they disrupted a global cyber crime operation by shutting down servers that controlled hundreds of thousands of PCs without the knowledge of their users.

The move made it temporarily impossible for infected PCs around the world to search the web, though the companies offered free tools to clean machines through messages that were automatically pushed out to infected computers.

WASHINGTON/BOSTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve
said on Tuesday that one of its internal websites had been
briefly breached by hackers, though no critical functions of the
U.S. central bank were affected by the intrusion.

The admission, which raises questions about cyber security
at the Fed, follows a claim that hackers linked to the activist
group Anonymous had struck the Fed on Sunday, accessing personal
information of more than 4,000 U.S. bank executives, which it
published on the Web.

By Jim Finkle and Sayantani Ghosh

(Reuters) – Software maker Oracle Corp will buy Acme Packet Inc for $1.7 billion (1.0 billion pounds) net of cash as billionaire CEO Larry Ellison expands into the networking equipment market long dominated by Cisco Systems Inc.

Acme is best-known for selling hardware that telecommunications companies and big corporations buy to manage the transmission of phone calls using the same technology as Internet communications.

By Jim Finkle and Sayantani Ghosh

(Reuters) – Software maker Oracle Corp will buy Acme Packet Inc for $1.7 billion net of cash as billionaire CEO Larry Ellison expands into the networking equipment market long dominated by Cisco Systems Inc.

Acme is best-known for selling hardware that telecommunications companies and big corporations buy to manage the transmission of phone calls using the same technology as Internet communications.

BOSTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Homeland
Security urged computer users on Tuesday to disable a common
networking technology feature, after researchers warned that
hackers could exploit flaws to gain access to tens of millions
of vulnerable devices.

The U.S. government’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team
advised consumers and businesses to disable a feature known as
Universal Plug and Play or UPnP, and some other related features
that make devices from computers to printers accessible over the
open Internet.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Bugs in widely used networking technology expose tens of millions of personal computers, printers and storage drives to attack by hackers over the regular Internet, researchers with a security software maker said.

The problem lies in computer routers and other networking equipment that use a commonly employed standard known as Universal Plug and Play or UPnP. UPnP makes it easy for networks to identify and communicate with equipment, reducing the amount of work it takes to set up networks.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Bugs in widely used networking technology expose tens of millions of personal computers, printers and storage drives to attack by hackers over the regular Internet, researchers with a security software maker said.

The problem lies in computer routers and other networking equipment that use a commonly employed standard known as Universal Plug and Play or UPnP. UPnP makes it easy for networks to identify and communicate with equipment, reducing the amount of work it takes to set up networks.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Symantec Corp, which completed a strategic review in January, plans to lay off a significant number of managers and reorganize internally into 10 main business areas, but has decided not to sell off major assets for now.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Bennett told Reuters in an exclusive interview that Janice Chaffin, consumer business president, will leave the company as part of the restructuring, which will usher in 10 product-focused divisions including security, cloud and backup software.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Symantec Corp reported quarterly earnings that beat expectations and said it is splitting the chief executive and chairman jobs ahead of a Wednesday meeting to unveil a strategy it hopes will end years of investor disappointment.

For the second quarter in a row, Symantec beat estimates under new CEO Steve Bennett, a former head of Intuit Inc and a longtime General Electric Co executive.

BOSTON (Reuters) – A computer virus attacked a turbine control system at a U.S. power company last fall when a technician unknowingly inserted an infected USB computer drive into the network, keeping a plant off line for three weeks, according to a report posted on a U.S. government website.

The Department of Homeland Security report did not identify the plant but said criminal software, which is used to conduct financial crimes such as identity theft, was behind the incident.