Apple releases iPhone 2.1 update
The highly anticipated firmware update for Apple's iPhone 3G is finally out and while most are hoping for better battery life and more stable third-party applicatioms, the update does bring a number of security fixes to the popular device. The most serious of the flaws could be exploited to run malicious code. iTunes 8.0 is required in order to get the 2.1 update.
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Four new patches from Unbuntu:

libxml2 (denial of service)

FreeType (multiple flaws)

Postfix (data leak, denial of service)

libxml2 (denial of service)
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Two new updates from Debian:

Linux 2.6.24 (multiple flaws)

FreeType (multiple flaws)
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Two new fixes from Mandriva:

libxml2 (heap overflow, denial of service)

rsh (file overwrite)
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Today's malware news:

What's The Latest Buzz?
The 2008 US Presidential Election is well on its way, and what news could be more enticing than an alleged sex scandal involving one of the candidates? The latest e-mail spam run on the loose contains a link to an supposed pornographic video of Democratic candidate Senator Barack Obama. F-Secure, 09/10/2008.
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From the interesting reading department:

Open phones are more vulnerable
The opening up of the mobile industry is great news for application developers but not so good for IT security professionals who want to sleep at night, executives from the security industry said Thursday. IDG News Service, 09/12/2008.

ITU plan to stop DoS attacks could end Net anonymity too
Finding ways to limit DoS attacks and SMS spam by making it harder to spoof the origin of electronic communications is on the agenda at a telecommunications standards meeting next week -- but civil rights advocates worry it could put an end to anonymity on the Internet. IDG News Service, 09/12/2008.

Hackers deface Large Hadron Collider Web site
Hackers have broken into the network of the Swiss particle-physics laboratory operating the Large Hadron Collider experiment that has just begun smashing atoms in the hope of finding the theorized Higgs particle, an elementary particle of mass. Network World, 09/12/2008.

Microsoft defends IE 'phone home' feature, clarifies privacy policy
Microsoft Friday defended the Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) tool that suggests sites based on the URLs typed into its address bar, saying that the browser "phones home" only a limited amount of information to Microsoft and that the company discards all user IP addresses almost immediately. Computerworld, 09/14/2008.

Jason Meserve is multimedia editor at Network World.