Todays security words of wisdom: don't open or save Word files that you receive from untrusted sources, or even ones that you receive unexpectedly from someone you trust.

Microsoft is warning of a serious vulnerability in Word, stemming from a new, unpatched memory corruption error in the word processor.

In case you haven't seen it yet, the SANS Institute has come out with an updated Internet Security Attack Targets report and, no surprise here, phishing has made the top 20 list. What is a bit of a shocker is one of the methods that is recommended to combat spear-phishing attacks.

Unfamiliar with the term? Spear-phishing is a targeted phishing attack; spear-phishers will target a group, fool you into thinking that someone inside sent an e-mail, and then try to get confidential information from you.

Ever wonder who is behind those spam mails that flood our inboxes?

Meet Alex "Blood" Polyakov, or a few of his other aliases, who tops off the Spamhaus stats as the world's most prolific spammer. The word unsavory does not begin to describe this Ukrainian who operates a large spam operation, including a child-porn spam ring, controlled through a massive botnet of infected PCs.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought on another win for the good guys in the battle against spyware.

ERG Ventures, along with one of its affiliates, was ordered by a U.S. district court to stop distributing what the FTC says is deceptive and unfair software downloads. They will also be requesting that the operation give up any ill-gotten gains.

Todays security news: Microsoft has released a new Security Advisory based on a vulnerability in part of the Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0, which could allow for remote code execution. The vulnerability is caused by an error in XMLHTTP 4.0 ActiveX Control.

Malicious hackers have reportedly already begun to exploit the flaw, which has not yet been patched.