Harry Potter is dead.

This is the rumor that malware authors are spreading together with their malicious program, which Trend Micro detects as WORM_HAIRY.A. Once again these authors capitalize on highly-anticipated events — in this case the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in July 21st — in order to spread their malicious codes to the public. Note that this was not the first Harry Potter-related malware TrendLabs has encountered recently: just a couple of weeks ago a Trojan-carrying email promising free premiere tickets for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie was discovered.

So to Harry Potter fans who got this news, don’t worry… It’s just a rumor. But then again, worry about what’s in your computer now. A worm may already be doing its own “magic” tricks — which include displaying a message (see image below) and redirecting your browser to Harry Putter and the Chamber of Cheesecakes (they probably want you to buy this book) — on your system.

Apple gears up to change the mobile arena with its iPhone launch last June 29 in the United States. Its features and design promise to edge out phones that are in the market today. However, days after its launch, Errata Security CEO Robert Graham reports that the iPhone contains one of the vulnerabilities found in the beta version of Apple’s Safari 3 browser, which is also included as a bundled application in iPhone.

The said vulnerability, when successfully exploited, may allow a remote user to take control of Safari 3 to execute code of choice.

Other researchers also found two passwords used for application root and mobile access. The said passwords were found by using a password cracking program.

The Safari 3 and iPhone vulnerability events seem to tell the computing world that Apple may become the next Microsoft - a prime target for exploits and bugs. This may be due to the popularity brought about by Apple’s releases, particularly the iPod. Researchers are predicting more bugs once they all have their hands on the expensive iPhone.

There is still no word if the said vulnerabilities have been patched.