Computer security technologists are racing to find ways to block ever-more complex computer worms and viruses that burrow into computers -- usually via e-mail -- and wreak havoc on network systems.

The Santa Ana winds were already blowing hard when I ran the first worm simulation. I’m no hacker, but it was easy enough: Open a Terminal shell, paste some commands from GitHub, watch characters ...

In a bold move, a group of hackers launched a successful attack on the Web server of Russian computer security company Kaspersky Labs Ltd., managing to implant and distribute a copy of the recently ...