Attackers exploiting unpatched Adobe flaw

In today's podcast: Attackers exploiting unpatched Adobe flaw; Amazon.com ships Kindle 2; and Micron lays off 2,000 workers.

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A dangerous and unpatched vulnerability in Adobe's PDF-reading software has been around a lot longer than previously realized. The bug, first reported late last week, has caused concern because it is easy to exploit and it is not expected to be patched by Adobe for several weeks. Symantec told Adobe about the flaw, which lies in the Acrobat and Reader software, on Feb. 12, but on Monday security vendor Sourcefire said that an analysis of its database of malicious software shows that attackers have actually been using the attack for more than six weeks. To date, the bug has been used in small-scale attacks against specially targeted individuals, but attacks have been increasing as attack code that exploits the flaw has been made public. The bug affects both Mac and Windows users.

Amazon.com on Monday began shipping its Kindle 2 e-book reader a day earlier than originally planned. Amazon said Monday that Kindle 2, introduced two weeks ago for preordering, is already the number-one seller on its Electronics Web site. Amazon unveiled the second version of the Kindle on Feb. 6 at an event in New York that featured Amazon Chairman, CEO and founder Jeff Bezos and best-selling fiction writer Stephen King, who wrote a novella called "Ur" exclusively for the Kindle to mark the launch. The first version of the Kindle had been out of stock since November, its sales bolstered by an October endorsement from U.S. talk-show host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey. Amazon originally unveiled the Kindle in November 2007.

Micron Technology will lay off as many as 2,000 additional people as demand for DRAM products continues to decline. Micron plans to phase out 200-millimeter wafer manufacturing operations at its Boise, Idaho, facility. That will initially result in layoffs of 500 employees, but as many as 2,000 people could lose their jobs by the end of Micron's fiscal year, the company said. In a statement, Micron Chairman and CEO Steve Appleton said that he had hoped that demand for 200mm speciality DRAM products would have stabilized and started to improve, but that hasn't happened. The layoffs are in addition to cuts to 15 percent of Micron's global workforce, announced in October.

Microsoft will let about two dozen laid-off workers who were overpaid severance keep the money, the company's head of human resources said Monday afternoon. The decision was a quick turn-about for the company, which last week sent letters to some of the 1,400 employees who were laid off in late January, asking them to return some of their severance because of an "administrative error." Of the 25 people who were overpaid, Ba Microsoft human resources manager said she had reached 17 by telephone as of mid-afternoon on Monday, and left messages for the others, telling them that they could keep the money

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