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Study finds US adolescents are seriously sleep deprived
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Study finds US adolescents are seriously sleep deprived

Jean-Louis Santini | Washington, United States



29 March 2006 09:27

Most adolescents in the United States are sleep deprived, jeopardising their mental, emotional and physical growth and damaging their performance in the classrom, said a study published on Tuesday.

The problem could even be fatal, as adolescents learn to drive often without enough sleep, the study said.

Only 20% of children aged 11-17 get the nine hours' sleep recommended during the school week, while 45% get less than eight hours, according to the National Sleep Foundation survey.

Nearly 30% of adolescents doze off in class at least once a week and 14% are regularly late to classes because they over-sleep.

Sleep-deprived students are more likely to get poor grades, while 80% of those getting a good night's sleep report getting good or excellent grades, the study said.

The survey contacted 1 602 families by telephone from September 19 to November 29 2005.

Ninety percent of parents were not aware that their children were behind in their sleep.

"This poll identifies a serious reduction in adolescents' sleep as students transition from middle school to high school," said Sleep Foundation President Richard Gelula.

"This is particularly troubling as adolescence is a critical period of development and growth -- academically, emotionally and physically."

He added: "At a time of heightened concerns about the quality of this next generation's health and education, our nation is ignoring a basic necessity for success in these areas: adequate sleep."

He urged parents, educators and teenagers "to take an active role in making sleep a priority".

The survey noted that a child's circadian rhythms, their bodies' internal clocks, shift when children enter adolescence, toward feeling more awake at night and toward awakening later in the morning.

This natural tendency makes it difficult for adolescents to sleep before 11pm, according to the survey, which showed more than half of US students go to sleep at that hour or later during the school week.

The study also shows that nearly all US high school students arise at 6.30am or earlier to get to school by 7.30am, the usual start time for the school day that ends at 2.30pm or 3pm.

"A trick of nature, this 'phase delay' can make it difficult for them to fall asleep before 11pm more than one-half (54%) of high-school nights," said the co-chair of the foundation's sleep and teen task force, Jodi Mindell.

"However the survey finds that on a typical day, adolescents wake up around 6.30am to go to school leaving many without the sleep they need."

"In the competition between the natural tendency to stay up late and early school start times, a teen's sleep is what loses out," she said.

"Sending students to school without enough sleep is like sending them to school without breakfast," she said.

While sleep serves a restorative function for adolescents' bodies and brains, it also provides a time to process what has been learned during the day, she added.

However, catching up on sleep during the weekend is not an answer, said Mary Carskadon, who directed the research.

"Irregular sleep patterns that include long naps and sleeping in on weekend negatively impact adolescents' biological clocks and sleep quality, which in turn affects their abilities and moods," she said.

Keep it simple, she said. "Many teens have a technological playground in their bedrooms that offers a variety of ways to stay stimulated and delays sleep."

Caffeine disrupts sleep cycles, too said the study, which found three-fourths of adolescents consume at least one caffeinated drink daily, while nearly one-third drink two or more. - AFP

Loneliness increases risk of hypertension: study

www.chinaview.cn 2006-03-29 16:17:18


Feeling lonely and isolated may be harmful to one's health, a new study reveals. (file photo)

  Beijing, March 29 (Xinhuanet)-- In addition to obesity and lack of exercise, a recent study has found that Loneliness also poses a potential risk factor for hypertension.

  The new research, conducted by scientists at the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, shows that loneliness can add 30 points to a blood pressure reading for adults over the age of 50.

  The researchers found that lonely older people had blood pressure readings that were as much as 30 points higher than others -- even after other negative emotive states, like sadness, stress or hostility, were taken into account.

  A 30-point spread in blood pressure is equal to the difference between a normal diastolic pressure of 120 mm/Hg and stage 1 hypertension, measured at 150 mm/Hg, the researchers pointed out.

  What's more, the effect of loneliness in increasing hypertension appeared to get stronger with age, and the effect of loneliness on blood pressure in older individuals is similar to that of physical risk factors long targeted by physicians, such as obesity or sedentary lifestyles. the Chicago team found.

  "The take-home message is that feelings of loneliness are a health risk, in that the lonelier you are, the higher your blood pressure. And we know that high blood pressure has all kinds of negative consequences," said lead researcher Louise Hawkley, whose team published its findings in the April issue of Psychology and Aging.

  Hawkley's study was inspired by previous work, published in 2002, that discovered profound and lingering effects of loneliness on the blood pressure of undergraduate college students.

  In this latest study, Hawkley's group interviewed 229 people aged 50 to 68 years of age. They used standard questionnaires to determine each participant's perceived level of loneliness, as well as other psychosocial and cardiovascular risk factors.

  If loneliness can raise blood pressure, then the solution seems easy: strengthen existing relationships and make new ones. But Hawkley -- who has studied loneliness for years -- said it's usually not that simple.

  "Remember, people can feel lonely even if they are with a lot of people," she said. "You can think of Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana -- there was certainly nothing lacking in their social lives, yet they claimed to have felt intensely lonely."

  "They may want to go out and make friends, and yet they have a nagging lack of trust with whomever they want to interact with, or they may feel hostile. So they end up behaving in ways that force the potential partner away," Hawkley said.  

  Targeted interventions that break that cycle might help change things, she said. Enditem

  (Agencies)


Editor: Yang Li

Greenspan's successor uses first meeting to raise US interest rates

WXIA-TV   http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=77927
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1741687,00.html

America faces housing boom and high debts
? Higher borrowing cost than UK puts pressure on pound

Ashley Seager
Wednesday March 29, 2006
The Guardian


The US Federal Reserve, under its new chief Ben Bernanke, last night raised interest rates by a quarter point to 4.75%, their highest level in nearly five years, as it sought to head off inflationary pressures and cool the economy.
The move is the 15th the US central bank has made since former chairman Alan Greenspan began raising rates from a 46-year low of 1% in mid-2004. It takes the cost of borrowing in America above British levels for only the second time in the past two decades, which financial analysts say could push the pound down against the dollar.


Article continues

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Mr Bernanke, chairing his first meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee since succeeding Mr Greenspan last month, had been widely expected to continue tightening monetary policy both to ensure inflation did not take off and to establish his inflation-fighting credentials on world financial markets, which hang on every utterance of the Fed chief.
The central bank's move seemed amply justified by data released earlier yesterday showing confidence among American consumers had jumped to its highest level in nearly four years this month. The rise was much bigger than Wall Street analysts had predicted and left them thinking the Fed would not stop tightening policy.

"This ... will boost hopes that activity in the first half of 2006 will remain robust. It will also increase talk of the Fed raising rates again in May, to 5%," said James Knightley, economist at ING Financial Markets.

The US economy now seems to have shrugged off the blow it took from the hurricanes of last autumn and is growing robustly and starting to push up inflation. The challenge for Mr Bernanke, however, is to apply the brakes without causing the world's biggest economy to stall.

Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at consultancy Global Insight, expected the Fed to raise rates another notch to 5% at its next meeting on May 10 and said a further rise was possible over the summer, taking rates to 5.25%, particularly as Mr Bernanke said recently there was little sign that the economy was slowing down.

"The only thing that might give the Fed pause would be a sharp correction in the housing market - a possible, but unlikely event," he said.

The US housing market has been one of the Fed's biggest concerns. Like Britain, the US has experienced a property boom driven by low interest rates and rising incomes. Average price rises are still in double digits and house sales excluding new homes jumped last month after having fallen for the previous five months. The market has cooled a little compared with last year but is still far from being weak.

As happened in Britain, Americans have borrowed against the inflated value of their homes, allowing them to carry on spending faster than their incomes have grown, leading to fears that a sharp slowdown in the housing market could cause a sharp drop in consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the US economy.

Analysts are also keeping a nervous eye on US petrol prices which are rising again in response to stronger oil prices.

Sterling has been buoyed in recent years on the foreign exchanges both by Britain's relatively strong economic performance and the fact that interest rates in the UK were higher than most other countries, making sterling assets attractive. In the past when UK rates have been lower than US ones, the pound has tended to fall.

But the US is running a large current account deficit, itself a pull on the dollar so this time could be different, said currency traders.

Ben Bernanke

Ben Bernanke, the new Federal Reserve chairman, might not be a household name yet but he is already respected in academic and policy circles. Bernanke, 52, took over the US central bank from the legendary Alan Greenspan at the start of last month and yesterday chaired his first meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee, which he served on before becoming head of President George Bush's council of economic advisers last year. Although filling Mr Greenspan's shoes is no mean feat, the new man has the backing of world financial markets as he tries to rein in inflation and the housing market.





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Olmert's bloc claims victory in Israel vote

Home News Tribune Online 03/29/06
STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Central Jersey Jewish leaders were not surprised by the victory of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centrist Kadima Party in yesterday Israeli election, nor were they surprised that voter turnout was the lowest in the nation's history.



"The whole atmosphere was subdued," said Rabbi Eliot Malomet of the Highland Park Conservative Temple.

"We've become very, very sober about the realities of politics in Israel, and very, very cautious about the steps that need to be taken for peace," said Malomet.

"The people of Israel are disillusioned," said Rabbi Yahuda Spritzer of the Chabad House of Monroe. "The vote was the lesser of two evils."

Olmert declared victory for his party hours after the polls closed, vowing to act on his own if necessary to draw Israel's final borders and "painfully" uproot Jewish settlers if negotiations with the Palestinians are not possible.

Standing below a massive portrait of his mentor Ariel Sharon, Olmert addressed chanting Kadima members after exit polls and media reports of early results predicted the party would have enough seats in parliament to form a ruling coalition.

Olmert has said his party, founded by Sharon before his debilitating stroke, only would govern with parties supporting his plan to separate from the Palestinians and establish Israel's borders by 2010. Projections showed a center-left coalition capturing 61 to 65 seats in the 120-member parliament. With results in from 96 percent of the polling stations, Kadima was winning 28 seats, Labor 20 and Likud 11.

The hawkish parties fell far short of their plan to win enough seats to block Olmert's program.

Olmert has said he supports the road map but will not wait indefinitely for a peace deal and would move unilaterally after a reasonable period of time.

Turning to the Palestinians, Olmert said: "We are prepared to compromise, give up parts of our beloved land of Israel, remove, painfully, Jews who live there, to allow you the conditions to achieve your hopes and to live in a state in peace and quiet."

"The time has come for the Palestinians . . . to relate to the existence of the state of Israel, to accept only part of their dream, to stop terror, to accept democracy and accept compromise and peace with us," he said.

Israeli officials have ruled out talks with Hamas unless the Islamic group renounces violence and accepts Israel's right to exist, demands Hamas has so far rejected. It remains unclear whether Olmert would negotiate with Abbas without a change in Hamas' position.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the PLO is ready to negotiate immediately the implementation of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan with the next Israeli government.

Malomet said he does not believe the Palestinians are trustworthy negotiators.

"What we have been shown is there really is no negotiating partner," said Malomet. "Their government is clearly out to destroy Israel."

"After Hamas victory (in January), we took a real deep breath ― the will of the Palestianian people is not something that favors the existence of Israel." said Malomet.

"I hope that Hamas would become a real political party and not a terrorist organization, that it would stop saying "Do away with Israel,' " said Harry Bernstein, co-chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County.

"What's really needed is a change of heart of the Palestinian people," said Bernstein. "The Palestinians have suffered enough. The Israelis have suffered enough."

Another sobering effect, according to Malomet, is the vow by Iranian leadership to destroy Israel. He termed Iran's position "a much deeper global challenge."

The vote was billed as a historic referendum on Olmert's vision of the future of the West Bank after 39 years of military occupation.

Under Olmert's plan, Israel's partially completed West Bank separation barrier, expected to swallow about 8 percent of the area, would become the new border within four years, with some alterations.

To Spritzer the yielding of any land to the Palestinians is unacceptable. "My thoughts has always been every inch of land is precious. It is not Biblically or historically correct."

The Labor Party, which favors a negotiated settlement with the Arabs, came in a strong second.

The hard-line Likud, which dominated Israeli politics for three decades and opposes Olmert's plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank, came in a distant fourth, according to polls broadcast immediately after voting ended.

Under Olmert's plan settlement blocs on the "Israeli" side of the barrier would be beefed up, while tens of thousands of settlers living on the other side would be uprooted.

"We will determine the line of the security fence, and we will make sure that no Jewish settlements will be left on the other side of the fence. Drawing the final borders is our obligation as leaders and as a society," Olmert wrote yesterdayin an op-ed piece published in the Hebrew-language Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Islamic militant group would resist Olmert's plan.

"We view this plan as a very dangerous one because it represents a real liquidation of the Palestinian cause," he said.

The vote came the same day Hamas' 25-member Cabinet was approved by the new Palestinian parliament. Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said he opposes Olmert's border plan, but he toned down Hamas' militant ideology, saying he was not interested in perpetuating the cycle of violence with Israel.

Abbas, attending the Arab Summit in Sudan, appealed to voters to back candidates who support a peace deal.

"We hope that the Israeli voters will direct their vote to peace, for parliament members who are looking for peace, who want peace, because there is no future for us and for them, there is no security for us and for them, without peace," he told The Associated Press.

Israel began the "disengagement" process last summer with its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but yesterday's vote marked the first time the leading candidate has laid out a concrete vision for the future of the West Bank, captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The area is home to 2.5 million Palestinians.

"This is perhaps the most important election in all of Israel's life," said Mordechai Aviv, 76, of Jerusalem. "We are going to separate between us and the Arabs. This is very important for us to continue having a Jewish state."

Election Day is a state holiday in Israel, where many of the 8,276 polling stations serving 4.5 million eligible voters are set up in schools.

Contributing: Staff writer Rick Malwitz, The Associated Press

Ex-Liberian Warlord Disappears in Nigeria

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1778073

Former Liberian Warlord Charles Taylor Disappears in Nigeria Before Handover to War Crimes Tribunal

By MICHELLE FAUL

ABUJA, Nigeria Mar 28, 2006 (AP)― Former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor slipped away just after Nigeria reluctantly agreed to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal, and the White House suggested Tuesday that President Bush may cancel a meeting with Nigeria's leader.

The Nigerian government said Taylor vanished Monday night from his villa in the southern city of Calabar, where he had lived in exile since being forced from power under a 2003 peace deal that ended Liberia's civil war.

The announcement came three days after President Olusegun Obasanjo under pressure from Washington and others agreed to surrender Taylor to a U.N.-backed tribunal. He would be the first African leader to face trial for crimes against humanity.

"Right now we're looking for answers from the Nigerian government about the whereabouts of Charles Taylor," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

He refused to speculate about whether somebody within the government was involved. "It is the responsibility of the Nigerian government to see that he is conveyed to the special court in Sierra Leone," McClellan said. "We expect the government of Nigeria to fulfill this commitment."

The U.S.-educated Taylor has been indicted by the tribunal on charges of committing crimes against humanity while in office by aiding and directing a rebel movement during Sierra Leone's 1991-2001 civil war. He was accused of trading guns and gems with the insurgents, including child fighters, who terrorized victims by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips.

The former warlord also plunged Liberia into years of civil war in 1989 when he led a small rebel band that invaded from neighboring Ivory Coast, and he is subject to arrest if he returns to his home country.

Taylor also has been accused of harboring al-Qaida suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing 12 Americans and more than 200 Africans.

The Nigerians promised on Saturday to hand over the 57-year-old ex-Liberian president but made no moves to arrest him.


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Bush swap may not satisfy GOP
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002896401_bushanalysis29.html
By Dick Polman

Knight Ridder Newspapers

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CHARLES DHARAPAK / AP

President Bush, right, is followed by departing chief of staff Andy Card, center, and his replacement, Joshua Bolten, on Tuesday.


PHILADELPHIA ―

By one key measure, it is clear George W. Bush is no Ronald Reagan.

Plagued by an unpopular war and big domestic headaches, and peppered with demands from Republican allies that he pierce his White House bubble and bring in new blood, President Bush responded Tuesday by making one move. He replaced chief of staff Andrew Card, a veteran loyalist insider, with budget director Josh Bolten, a veteran loyalist insider.

Flash back to 1987. Peppered with similar demands after the Iran-contra scandal, President Reagan responded by cleaning house. He installed as chief of staff Howard Baker, a former senator popular on Capitol Hill. He brought in a team of new advisers, including Maj. Gen. Colin Powell. He fired or eased out the big scandal players, notably Oliver North and John Poindexter. And he shared national-security documents with Congress, waiving all claims of executive privilege.

Reagan's shake-up is prominent in the history books; the more minimal Bush response won't resonate nearly as much. After John Hinderaker, a lawyer and conservative blogger, heard the news, he headed his online remarks with one word: "Yawn." And he wrote: "I doubt that the change will make any difference, except maybe cosmetically."

It's questionable whether restive congressional Republicans will be satisfied by this move to where they will be eager to identify themselves as Bush loyalists as they run this year for re-election. They have long thought that this White House is too secretive; yet here is Bolten, as described in a Business Week profile: "[His] penchant for secrecy befits the son of a career CIA officer."

As commentator Craig Crawford noted Tuesday of Bolten, "He is inside the bubble of this White House and lacks the background and friendships on Capitol Hill that GOP leaders were hoping for in a new chief of staff."

The Rove factor

Conservatives on the Hill have long complained the Bush team spends too much money, and they remember Bolten's defense during one crucial episode in the battle over the Medicare drug-prescription plan. The original administration price tag for the plan was $400 billion over 10 years; after passage, it turned out to be roughly $535 billion. Yet Bolten testified last year that the old estimates were "completely consistent" with the new.

There is no outsider element in this personnel shuffle. Card, a longtime Bush family favorite, will be replaced by a guy who has served the president since his first stint as a candidate.




There are other parallels. Card is strongly identified with the Bush agenda; he was a founding member of the White House Iraq Group and helped advance the arguments for war.

In September 2002, when asked to explain why Bush was suddenly planning autumn speeches about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, he replied: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

Bolten is similarly tied to the Bush agenda; he was a forceful advocate for Social Security privatization, writing guest columns even as the public ― and Republicans on the Hill ― were being scared off by the price tag.

As conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne noted Tuesday: "There is no new blood in this 'shake-up.' It's more like Andy Card put aside a vial of his own in the event the White House needed a transfusion."

Bush's move is less than sweeping for one big reason: In this White House, the chief of staff is not the most important bureaucratic player, job title notwithstanding. The real power is Karl Rove, the political strategist and policy deputy, and many observers say that unless or until he departs, there can be no substantive changes.

Bruce Buchanan, a veteran Bush watcher at the University of Texas, said Tuesday: "Rove's leaving would signal a major sea change, but there's no solid evidence that he expects to be shown the door, or brought on the carpet by the special prosecutor," a reference to Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of Rove's possible role in the outing of a CIA employee married to an Iraq war critic. The employee, Valerie Plame, has since left the agency.

But, Rove aside, a serious reshuffling would involve some key Iraq war planners. Even Fred Barnes, a conservative commentator and Bush defender, wrote last week that Bush should set aside his "admirable but unrealistic" loyalty code and replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Barnes also called for Vice President Dick Cheney to quit.

We are more likely to see continuity; indeed, we have seen it. When Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, quit in October after his indictment in the CIA outing scandal, he was replaced by his deputy, David Addington, an outspoken advocate of wartime presidential power known in some circles as "Cheney's Cheney."

A "reasonable voice"?

Some conservatives hope for the best from Bolten. Many long viewed Card with suspicion; they assigned him the blame for a number of debacles, notably the Harriet Miers nomination and the Dubai Ports World flap.

They think Bolten, despite the Medicare drug dispute, will be "a reasonable voice willing to control spending," someone who can cure Bush's "lame-duck syndrome," in the words of redstate.org.

But Card/Bolten was not the most important event at the White House on Tuesday. Note, instead, that Bush brought his entire Cabinet to the Rose Garden to stand with him while he assessed Iraq. It was a signal that there will be continuity, for good or ill, on the signature issue of his tenure.

As Texas analyst Buchanan put it: "Bush's future hinges on what happens in Iraq, not on who his top staffer is. It's the war that will really determine whether we will have a failed presidency spinning in the wind for the next three years."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002896405_eclipse29.html

Eclipse to put on show in Turkey ― but it won't be visible in U.S.

By Kwasi Kpodo

The Associated Press

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ACCRA, Ghana ― Tourists and scientists are gathering at spots around the world for the first total eclipse in years, a solar show that will sweep northeast from Brazil to Mongolia and blot out the sun across swathes of the world's poorest lands.

The last such eclipse, in November 2003, was most visible from Antarctica, said Alex Young, a NASA scientist involved in solar research.

Today's eclipse will block the sun in highly populated areas, including West Africa. NASA said it will not be visible from the United States.

In Togo, authorities imported hundreds of thousands of pairs of special glasses that consumers cleared rapidly from shelves in the capital, Lome. Villagers in the interior will not have access to the eyewear, and officials called on them to stay home.

Day will turn to night in the eclipse's route and a corona ― the usually invisible extended atmosphere of the sun ― will glow around the edges of the moon as it comes between the Earth and the sun.

In Ghana, where the effect will be particularly visible, people were spending about $1 for "solar shades" ― paper-rimmed glasses with dark plastic lenses that resemble eyewear used for viewing three-dimensional movies.

NASA said Turkey will be the best spot to view the eclipse, and tens of thousands of tourists were expected along the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Astronomers from NASA and Britain's Royal Institute of Astronomy were also going to an ancient Roman amphitheater in Turkey to view the phenomenon.

The moon is expected to first begin blocking out the sun in the morning in Brazil before the eclipse migrates to Africa, then on to Turkey and up into Mongolia, where it will fade out with the sunset.

Superstition will follow around the world, as it has for generations.

One Indian paper advised pregnant women not to go outside during the eclipse to avoid having a blind baby or one with a cleft lip. Food cooked before the eclipse should be thrown out afterward because it will be impure, and those who are holding a knife or ax during the eclipse will cut themselves, the Hindustan Times added.

Total eclipses are rare because they require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and Earth to line up exactly so that the moon obscures the sun completely. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2006/03/29/label_says_apples_out_of_harmony_with_pact/

Label says Apple's out of harmony with pact

By Associated Press | March 29, 2006

LONDON -- Two legendary firms in the music industry will meet today in a London courtroom to fight it out over one of the world's most recognizable logos: a simple piece of fruit.

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Boston.com
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Apple Corps., the Beatles' record label and guardian of the band's business interests, is suing Apple Computer, claiming the firm violated a 1991 pact by entering the music business with its iTunes Music Store online.

The case will be heard by Judge Martin Mann, who has said in pretrial hearings that he owns an iPod, which is used with iTunes software.

At issue is a 1991 pact between the two Apples in which each agreed not to tread on the other's toes by entering into a ''field of use" accord over the trademark.

Apple Computer said that ''unfortunately, Apple and Apple Corps. now have differing interpretations of this agreement and will need to ask a court to resolve this dispute."

Apple Corps. -- founded in 1968 and owned by surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr; John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono; and George Harrison's estate -- is seeking an injunction to enforce the 1991 agreement and damages for the alleged contract breach.

http://www.informationweek.com/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=184400777

Security Firm Releases Patch For Zero-Day IE Flaw
eEye's patch is meant as a placeholder until Microsoft releases a permanent fix, which is expected by April 11.

By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb.com

 28, 2006 06:26 H

EEye Digital Security has released a temporary patch for a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer that is being used by malicious Web sites to install spyware on users' computers, officials said Tuesday.

The eEye patch is meant as a placeholder until Microsoft Corp. releases a permanent fix, which is expected by April 11, Marc Maiffret, co-founder and chief hacking officer of eEye, based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., said. At that time, users of the eEye patch are advised to use the add/remove program in Windows to delete the fix before installing the Microsoft patch.

Meanwhile, Websense Inc. said Tuesday that the number of Web sites exploiting the vulnerability has declined from the 200 reported Monday. However, Dan Hubbard, senior director of security at the San Diego-based company, said he has seen an increase in the number of different exploits, indicating that more people or groups are writing code to take advantage of the flaw. As a result, the number of malicious Web sites was expected to increase.

The vulnerability, called the CreateTextRange bug, enables hackers to exploit active scripting in IE to install keystroke loggers and other malicious software. Active scripting is a Microsoft technology that allows different software components to interact over the Internet.

The eEye patch analyzes a computer for the vulnerability, which is in IE 5.01, 6.0, and the January version of IE 7 Beta 2 Preview. The application makes a backup of the flawed code, patches the vulnerability in the original and deploys it.

EEye released the patch at the request of customers, the majority of whom use the company's vulnerability assessment product, Maiffret said. EEye also makes software for detecting and blocking malicious Web sites.

"We decided it would be crazy not to provide a work around, since we already have a product that protects against the flaw," Maiffret said. "The patch is a slimmed down version."

The IE vulnerability allows for remote code to be executed on the computer visiting a malicious Web site. Experts believe people are most likely being lured to the sites through spam.