HP chooses SAP vet as CEO

In today's podcast: HP chooses SAP vet as CEO; US busts dozens in Zeus criminal ring; and India reportedly unsatisfied with RIM's efforts.

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Hewlett-Packard has named former SAP CEO Leo Apotheker to be its new president and chief executive. The announcement on Thursday came as a surprise, since the company had reportedly been focusing on internal candidates and Apotheker's name had not been raised by industry pundits as a likely successor. The HP board also appointed Ray Lane, a former Oracle president, to be its non-executive chairman. Apotheker will likely be seen as a controversial choice; he left SAP unexpectedly in February after the company’s board opted not to renew his contract. According to Ray Wang, a partner with technology consulting company Altimeter Group. "HP needed a tech leader, someone who has run a billion-dollar business, someone who has a global perspective and a software perspective to help the company get more into the software business, and there aren't too many people like that walking the street.” HP has looked outside the company for its two previous CEOs -- both of whom were ultimately edged out by the board.

U.S. authorities won a victory against a hugely successful computer crime organization this week, but it's unclear whether the masterminds behind the Zeus malware will ever be brought to justice. On Thursday federal and local authorities in New York announced charges against 92 people thought to be involved in online attacks against consumers, small businesses and other organizations that resulted in more than $200 million stolen over the past four years. The action follows a Tuesday raid in the UK that led to 20 arrests. The arrests are part of an international effort to bring an end to one of today's worst computer crime problems: the Zeus Trojan. Thursday's charges deal a grave blow to the money mule system that the Zeus criminals had set up to move cash out of the U.S., but don’t touch the people who developed the code, run the back-end servers, and generally set up the scam in the first place. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledged Thursday that there is still more work to go. "It remains an ongoing investigation," said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson.

India's Department of Telecommunications is reportedly unsatisfied with the access Research In Motion is providing to security agencies for interception of communications on both its instant messenger and enterprise services. Earlier, it had threatened to block BlackBerry services offered by Indian operators.

The government is worried that online and mobile communications are increasingly being used by terrorists to plan their attacks. The Economic Times of India now reports that the telecom department's security wing claims that security agencies have been unable to intercept or monitor secure email communication made through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server in readable format. Law enforcement agencies have also failed to intercept chats on the BlackBerry messenger platform, according to the report. The Indian government has said that it will also ask Google, Skype and other companies providing communications services in India to make provisions for interception of messages by India's security agencies.

And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I’m Elizabeth Heichler in Boston. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.