Microsoft finally allows some user control of cookies with Internet Explorer. Napster appears on tens of millions of PCs, and security experts wonder if hackers could use it to invade a system.
Advocacy groups express alarm at the amount of user profiling on many corporate sites.
Of course, but don't shrug them off. Client security has become the most neglected and vulnerable link in the corporate IT infrastructure. Since most home PCs aren't configured to detect and repel such advances, the chances are significant that the more criminally minded could take over such machines. Software such as Napster or Gnutella actually invite outsiders onto a hard drive to swap MP3 files. Betting on the invulnerability of code is like using the lottery as a sole form of retirement planning.