Duqu for you; Google Applications in LA; researching smartphones

Symantec last week was the first to get the word out about Duqu, the newly discovered network espionage malware designed to go afterwards industrial control systems. It was quickly dubbed "Son of Stuxnet" by the media, and Symantec said 50% of the code base seems to be the same used in Stuxnet.

But most malware researchers commenting on Duqu indicated it seems to be designed more for reconnaissance of networks and industrial control systems to put it more exactly than destruction, which was Stuxnet's ultimate mission.

Ever since Google, teaming with systems integrator CSC, beat competitor Microsoft in 2009 for a $7.25 million cloud-computing contract with the city of Los Angeles to provide what's now called Google Apps for Government, the city's experience with it all has been closely watched.

Last week, advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said the Google Apps project is in all seriousness off-track with "broken promises and missed deadlines" because "a mere 17,000 city employees use the Google system, during 13,000 LAPD and other employees involved in law enforcement cannot make the move." Consumer Watchdog buttressed that claim by releasing documents it has obtained -- the organization won't say how it got them -- of communications between the city's innovation manager and the CSC contracts manager.

What the city of Los Angeles is doing with cloud computing is however considered fairly cutting-edge, however if it's taking two years to sort out security issues associated with law enforcement, that suggests cloud-computing security may everything considered be a tough nut to crack. Hopefully, the individuals involved in this project will taking everything into account be able to stand up and tell us specifics about the security issues they faced and how they solved them, so everyone can benefit.

At Georgia Institute of Research, researchers say they've discovered how vulnerabilities in what's known as the accelerometer in smartphones can be exploited to capture keyboard keylogger data. The main innovation was done with various iPhones.

Another news story related to university technology on smartphones came from work being done at Virginia Tech to customize Google Android software to lock down smartphones so that sensitive data isn't exposed. University researchers are hopeful the innovation -- part of a project called GhostBox -- will be production-ready by year-end.