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IT'S ALL CHANGE on the Intel server gravy train during this year and next, as the chip firm re-aligns its microprocessors to fit the changing market. As we've written previously, the "Nocona" processor is a die shrink for the Xeon from .13µ microns to 90 nanometers, while the Potomac processor is a different fish altogether.

Intel is telling its customers that the "Prestonia" 3.06GHz 1MB processor will be introduced in the third quarter of this year and claims this will give a big performance boost, while it will introduce the Nocona 533 in the fourth quarter.

But it's in the first half of next year that the spark will start to fly with the introduction of the Lindenhurst chipset which will give a faster bus, support more memory, give direct connect LAN and storage, and support PCI Express, a seachange for all PCs in 2004.

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News source: The Inq

Microsoft has touted Passport as a technological centerpiece in the company's Web services future. Passport accounts are central repositories for a user's online data and can include personal information such as birthdays and credit card numbers as well as acting as the single key for the user's online accounts.

Microsoft moved quickly to prevent online vandals from exploiting the issue. The advisory was posted just before 8 p.m. PDT, and by 11:30 p.m., the software giant had essentially turned off the vulnerable feature. "We have shut down all ability to reset passwords," said Sean Sundwall, spokesman for the company.

The flaw allowed a single Web address--or URL--to be used to request a password reset from the Passport servers. The URL contains the e-mail address of the account to be changed and the address where the attacker would like to have the reset message sent. By entering the single line into a Web browser an attacker can cause the Passport servers to return a link that allows an account's password to be reset. By following the link returned in the message, the attacker can change the password for the victim's account.

Danka claims to have found the issue after a friend's account had been hacked.

"Later, my friend gave the 'attacker' my passport address as a challenge, and mine was compromised as well," he wrote in the e-mail. Not long after, he figured out how the attacker had compromised the accounts.

The security consultant also said that he had repeatedly sent e-mail warnings to Microsoft's abuse and security addresses at Hotmail.com to no avail. However, he didn't send an e-mail to Microsoft's standard security contact point, secure@microsoft.com.

It wasn't clear Wednesday night whether the flaw affected all Passport accounts, or a smaller subset of accounts. Several security experts confirmed that the flaw could be exploited in the manner described by Danka.

"I tried it on my own account and I tried it on my friends' accounts, with full permission; it worked on all occasions," said Wayne Chang, a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "This is definitely a big security flaw."

The issue couldn't be confirmed by everyone. In some cases, security experts didn't get an e-mail back from the server.

"I just tried again, and have not yet received an e-mail with the change password link in it," Marc Slemko, a Seattle-area software engineer, wrote to CNET News.com in an e-mail. "That either means it is much slower now or has been disabled."

The engineer believed Microsoft would rally the security teams to handle the vulnerability, as the issue had enormous implications for customers.