Tim Cook offered liver to Jobs

13 March 2015 Last updated at 10:29

Apple chief executive Tim Cook offered a part of his liver to a dying Steve Jobs, according to a new book due to be released this month.

The book, Becoming Steve Jobs, excerpts of which have been published online, throws light on life inside Apple as it grew into one of the world's most powerful technology companies.

It also charts the relationship between Mr Cook and Mr Jobs.

According to the book, Mr Jobs angrily turned down Mr Cook's offer.

In 2004, Mr Jobs announced that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer and by 2009, the Apple chief executive was very ill, unable to come into the office and waiting for a liver transplant.

Mr Cook regularly visited Mr Jobs at home and after one visit he "left the house feeling so upset that he had his own blood tested", according to excerpts published by Fast Company executive editor Rick Tetzeli, who co-authored the book.

Fellow author Brent Schlender is a journalist who interviewed Mr Jobs several times throughout his life.

Transplant feasible

Mr Cook found out that he, like Steve Jobs, had a rare blood type, and guessed that it might be the same.

According to the book, he went through a series of tests and discovered that a partial liver transplant was feasible.

But when he shared the news with Mr Jobs, the dying Apple boss reacted angrily, according to the book.

"He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth," an excerpt says.

"'No," he said. 'I'll never let you do that. I'll never do that.'"

"Steve only yelled at me four or five times during the 13 years I knew him, and this was one of them," Mr Cook added.

TV contradiction

Mr Jobs did go on to have a liver transplant, in March 2009.

He resigned as Apple chief executive in August 2011 and died in October at the age of 56.

The book also reveals that Mr Jobs contemplated buying Yahoo as a way for Apple to get into the search business.

But parts of it contradict an earlier biography written by Walter Isaacson. In that book Mr Isaacson claims that Apple was contemplating creating a television - but according to Becoming Steve Jobs, the Apple founder had little interest in this.

He tells Apple designer Jony Ive in the book: "I just don't like television. Apple will never make a TV again."

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Swatch counter-attacks smartwatches

12 March 2015 Last updated at 18:46 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Swatch Group, the world's bestselling watchmaker, is to introduce models that can make contactless payments and display data sent by smartphones.

The Swiss company's chief executive said the first of the tech-enhanced timepieces would go on sale in May.

But he said he had no plans to sell the kinds of fully featured smartwatches being offered by Apple, Motorola, Pebble and others.

Swatch accounts for 18% of all watch sales, according to industry data.

The company, which makes devices under the Omega, Breguet, Calvin Klein, Rado and other brands, as well as its own, has consistently increased its market share over the past five years.

It recently reported 8.7bn Swiss francs ($9.2bn; £6.2bn) of sales for its last financial year, a 3% improvement on the previous period.

However, some observers believe it and other mainstream watchmakers face disruption from tech industry giants who have begun selling wearable products.

NFC and Bluetooth

Swatch's chief executive Nick Hayek said his company was planning to introduce two types of wireless communication tech to its wristwear:

• NFC (near-field communication) - a chip that can be used to trigger contactless payments and open hotel doors and other compatible locks. The first NFC-capable watches are set to be released in two months.
• Bluetooth - this chip will allow watches to send and receive data to smartphones. This could be used to show news updates, text messages and other notifications. Mr Hayek said the first Bluetooth-enabled models were due in "the summer"

Swatch said it had teamed up with China UnionPay, a Chinese credit card association, to provide touchless payments in that country. Reuters news agency reported that a similar deal with Visa is believed to be in the works for other parts of the world.

However, Mr Hayek indicated that Swatch would leave it up to others to unlock the full potential of its moves.

"Whatever usage you want, you ask some creative people to create some apps and then our chip has different layers that you can program yourself - we give it to you," he told a press conference in the Swiss town of Corgemont.

"You buy your Swatch, the one you like, and then you configure it."

He added that he believed that his company's expertise in manufacturing "ultra-low power" watches gave it an advantage over tech firms, whose products typically need to be recharged daily.

But he made clear that he had no intention of developing a product to go head-to-head with Android Wear or Apple's Watch OS.

"We are not a consumer electronics company," he said.

"We are not going to transform and put the mobile phone on the wrist. Let the others do it. Samsung did it, Sony did it. Everybody does it."

But Swatch is releasing an update to its existing fitness tracker.

The new waterproof Swatch Touch Zero One is targeted at beach volleyball players and can track their number of footsteps and measure how hard they smack the ball with their hands.

It uses one of the company's standard batteries, which Swatch says lasts months between needing to be swapped.

Lesson from history

Earlier this week, Elmar Mock - one of Swatch's original engineers, who now heads the Creaholic consultancy - said his former employer risked underestimating the threat it faced from Silicon Valley

"It's understandable why [luxury brands] Breguet, Rolex, Cartier or Patek Philippe are disinterested," he told the Swissinfo news site.

"Swatch, on the other hand, should be taking a leading role.

"Swiss watchmakers seem to have forgotten how they underestimated Japanese quartz watches in the 1970s as mere gadgets and not real watches. That mistake led to the near-collapse of the watch industry."

However, one industry analyst told the BBC he thought that Swatch was relatively well placed to maintain its lead.

"I like that Swatch has its own strategy - we have seen so many me-too products over the past year, and it's good that Swatch is putting a very strong focus on battery power," said Pascal Koenig, of the Smartwatch Group consultancy.

"It also has desirable strong brands, a very good retail network - especially in Asia - good production and impressive hardware know-how.

"I do think, however, that Swatch is not good on the software side. It needs to do more on apps.

"But it has a lot of cash on its balance sheet that could be used for an acquisition to help with that."

Other leading watchmakers, including Fossil and Tag Heuer, are expected to outline their smartwatch strategies at the Baselworld trade show in Switzerland next week.

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Antivirus labels itself as malware

12 March 2015 Last updated at 18:03

An antivirus program labelled itself as malware, causing some computers it was running on to stop working.

After an update, essential components in two Panda Security antivirus programs became corrupted, leading them to be mistakenly identified as malign and quarantined.

Panda said a fix had been released and warned that rebooting affected systems could exacerbate the issue.

It asked those affected to get in touch so it could help fix their machines.

One security expert noted the irony. "People's first response is to turn [their computer] off and back on again, but in this case it seems like the wrong thing to do," said Prof Alan Woodward, of Surrey University.

The "last thing" people would expect to cause their computers to break down was its security software, he said.

Corrupted files

Panda Security said that the signature file in both its PCOP and its Retail 2015 packages became corrupted.

"The signature file was repaired immediately. Additionally, a solution for all affected products has been automatically deployed. However, in certain environments it is possible for the incident to persist."

It added a list of steps that affected users could take to ensure that their system was clear of the issue.

Prof Woodward said the episode was "not a great advert for Panda". He said he had heard of some companies losing the use of multiple computers to the issue. He added that data loss was a risk if machines were rebooted.

But Panda Security said it was helping people whose machines had stopped working to restore them and that it had no evidence anyone had experienced permanent data loss as a result of the issue.

A Panda Security spokeswoman said: "We have solved 90% of the incidents, and support is being given in real time to the ones that still have some issues."

The company said that only 8% of the "millions" of PCOP and Retail 2015 customers were affected by the issue. A spokeswoman refused to be more precise about the figures.

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Destiny shocks at Bafta games awards

12 March 2015 Last updated at 23:45 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Destiny has been named as best game at 2015's British Academy Game Awards.

The post-apocalyptic first-person shooter was developed by Bungie. It was the US studio's first release after quitting the Halo series.

The title attracted mixed reviews, and its relatively bare-bones plot continues to divide gamers.

The award surprised many in the audience at the London ceremony as it had not won any of the other categories it had been nominated for.

However, Bungie's skill at crafting alien-slaying gunfights appears to have helped it seize the top prize.

Accepting the award Bungie's president thanked Destiny's players.

"It's always a labour of love that we do because of the passion of the fans," said Harold Ryan.

"They really are the ones who drive you to put the energy and time into putting the game together."

Several other biggest-budget nominees - including Assassin's Creed Unity, Mario Kart 8 and Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare - walked away without a prize.

Big name losers

In fact, many of the winners managed to secure what might be seen as David-and-Goliath battles.

OlliOlii - the low-budget skateboarding video game from London-based studio Roll7 - beat both Fifa 15 and Forza Horizon 2 for the best sport video game.

The actress Ashley Johnson defeated the Hollywood star Kevin Spacey to win the best performance award for Ellie in The Last of Us: Left Behind.

And the puzzle game Lumino City - which was created using real-world models made out of paper, card, miniature lights and motors - beat Ubisoft's Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed Unity for artistic achievement.

Monument Valley won British game of the year. Its developers, UsTwo Games sparked a brief backlash in November after charging £1.49 for extra levels - a fee many gamers thought justified after trying them out.

The title also took the mobile and handheld category.

Alien: Isolation, by Sussex-based The Creative Assembly, only walked away with the audio achievement prize despite entering the ceremony as the favourite with six nominations.

Return winner

The awards were hosted by the comedian Rufus Hound - his first time in the role.

His opening monologue poked fun at the rising number of video games that sell expensive downloadable content in the months following the original title's release.

However, that did not stop last year's big winner, The Last of Us, from also scooping up the best story award for its add-on tale, Left Behind.

Analysis: Adam Rosser, presenter of Radio 5 live's Game On

There was an audible ripple of surprise in the press room as Destiny took the best game Bafta.

Destiny has been criticised in many quarters for being the epitome of "grind", suffering from a sparsely populated game world and repetitive gameplay.

In many people's minds the game has struggled to integrate two genres: the first-person shooter and the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.

That was always going to be a tall order.

As was following the well-thought of Halo series, which Bungie built its reputation on.

Destiny took the template that Halo established and spun a similar aesthetic out into a different kind of universe.

One in which Earth is threatened by "the Darkness", a nebulous adversary that wouldn't be out of place in a Luc Besson film, and the central "character" in the game, The Traveller is a mute orb in whose shadow the last safe city on Earth is founded.

There are good ideas scattered through the game but at present, several DLC (downloadable content) releases in, it still manages to feel unfinished.

In a strong category - up against Alien: Isolation, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and even Mario Kart 8 - the decision to give the most high profile award to Destiny looks, to many, like an eccentric one.

Listen to Game On's weekly podcast

Paying respects

The awards this year introduced a new category - best persistent game, representing titles whose action continues even when the player is not taking part.

Destiny had been nominated for the prize, but it went instead to Riot Games' hugely popular League of Legends.

Following the announcement, Mr Hound paused to pay tribute to the fantasy author Terry Pratchett, whose death had been announced hours earlier, and the late Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, who voiced several video games.

There was also a sombre moment following the award for "original property" when the team behind Ubisoft Studio's Valiant Hearts paid their respects to the Word War I soldiers who had inspired its puzzle adventure.

This year's winner in the "ones to watch" category was Overly Kinetic, a development team made up of students from the University of Southern California.

They created the distinctive "stealth-deathmatch" multiplayer game Chambara, in which four players camouflage themselves in the game's environment while trying to sneak up on and attack each other.

The category is linked to the Dare to be Digital competition run by Abertay University, which gives contestants nine weeks to create a prototype, and is intended to bring attention to new talent.

Another American team, albeit a more experienced one, celebrated taking the "multiplayer game of the year" prize - Blizzard Entertainment for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

The developer beat Destiny for the prize.

The creators of the strategy card game revealed during their acceptance speech that some in their studio were dubious about its prospects before its release.

The title - which is a spin-off from the role-playing game World of Warcraft - recently revealed it had attracted 25 million registered players.

Fellowship

David Braben - the creator of Elite and its most recent sequel Elite: Dangerous - received a standing ovation when he took to the stage to be given the Bafta fellowship by another British gaming legend, Ian Livingstone.

Mr Braben suggested that we are on the "cusp of a golden age for video gaming".

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WATCH: David Braben spoke to the BBC shortly before being presented his award

"The rise of the indies is truly amazing," he said. "It's the best time there has been to be in this wonderful industry."

He thanked members of the public who had crowdfunded his latest title and his colleagues at Frontier Developments.

At one point it had seemed that Elite: Dangerous would not raise its target of £1.25m on Kickstarter, which would have meant it would have missed out on the seed money.

Microsoft recently revealed that the title would soon be released for its Xbox One console following its success on PC.

Category	Winner
Best game	Destiny (Bungie)
British game	Monument Valley (UsTwo)
Debut game	Never Alone (Upper One Games)
Story	The Last of Us: Left Behind (Naughty Dog)
Performer	Ashley Johnson for The Last of Us: Left Behind
Artistic achievement	Lumino City (State of Play)
Audio achievement	Alien Isolation (The Creative Assembly)
Family game	Minecraft: Console Editions (Mojang/4J Studios)
Game design	Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor (Monolith Productions)
Game innovation	The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (The Astronauts)
Mobile and handheld game	Monument Valley (UsTwo)
Multiplayer game	Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)
Music	Far Cry 4 (Cliff Martinez, Tony Gronick and Jerome Angelot)
Original property	Valiant Hearts (Ubisoft Studios)
Persistent game	League of Legends (Riot Games)
Sport game	OlliOlli (Roll7)
Ones to watch	Chambara (Overly Kinetic)
Bafta fellowship	David Braben (Frontier Developments)

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BBC in school computer giveaway

12 March 2015 Last updated at 11:27 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

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Rory Cellan-Jones explains what Make it Digital is all about

The BBC will be giving away mini-computers to 11-year-olds across the country as part of its push to make the UK more digital.

One million Micro Bits - a stripped-down computer similar to a Raspberry Pi - will be given to all pupils starting secondary school in the autumn term.

The BBC is also launching a season of coding-based programmes and activities.

It will include a new drama based on Grand Theft Auto and a documentary on Bletchley Park.

Digital visionaries

The initiative is part of a wider push to increase digital skills among young people and help to fill the digital skills gap.

The UK is facing a significant skills shortage, with 1.4 million "digital professionals" estimated to be needed over the next five years.

The BBC is joining a range of organisations including Microsoft, BT, Google, Code Club, TeenTech and Young Rewired State to address the shortfall.

At the launch of the Make it Digital initiative in London, director-general Tony Hall explained why the BBC was getting involved.

"This is exactly what the BBC is all about - bringing the industry together on an unprecedented scale and making a difference to millions," he said.

"Just as we did with the BBC Micro in the 1980s, we want to inspire the digital visionaries of the future. Only the BBC can bring partners together to attempt something this ambitious, this important to Britain's future on the world stage."

It is hoped that the Micro Bit will encourage children to get involved in coding and programming.

The BBC Micro, launched in the 1980s, played a big role in making computing mainstream but it was not without controversy.

The broadcaster's decision to link up with Acorn Computers angered Sir Clive Sinclair as he prepared to launch a rival machine, the ZX Spectrum.

Meet the Micro Bit

The BBC does not see Micro Bit as a rival to similar computing devices such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Galileo and Kano, but rather hopes it will act as a "springboard" to these more complex machines.

The tiny programmable machine is still a prototype and the BBC is working with several partners, including chip-designer Arm, Microsoft and Samsung, to get the end product right.

When it launches in September it will be compatible with three coding languages - Touch Develop, Python and C++.

The device is tiny - fitting easily into the palm of a hand. Children will be able to create text via a series of LED lights and they will also be able to use it to create basic games.

The final version will have a Bluetooth link enabling it to be hooked up to other devices such as a Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is helping to develop learning resources for it and the BBC is being careful not to repeat the mistakes of the BBC Microcomputer launch, which angered rivals such as Sinclair.

BBC Learning's Gareth Stockdale, who is developing the device, said: "The BBC's role is to bring focus to the issue, and then we will withdraw from the market."

After the first million Micro Bits go out to schools, there will be no more.

One day they might become a museum piece like the BBC Micro, which is now housed at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley.

'Get creative'

As part of its Make it Digital programme, the BBC has also launched an apprenticeship scheme for 5,000 young unemployed people to boost their digital skills.

The scheme is the first of its kind to be developed in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions.

Radio 1, which is closely involved in the initiative, will offer top-performing trainees the opportunity to go on to an apprenticeship at the station.

The nine-week traineeship, which will include training from the BBC Academy, aims to teach basic digital skills such as creating websites and short videos for the web.

The BBC is also drawing on its vast vault of content to bring digital content into shows such as Doctor Who, EastEnders and the One Show. Radio 4 will have a series of programmes that look at the history of coding, digital content and future technologies.

"With a dedicated season of programming on the BBC, 5,000 digital trainees, one million children who take their first steps with a Micro Bit, and a host of educational activity, we hope to inspire a new generation to get creative with digital," said Jessica Cecil, controller of Make it Digital.

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EU plans to target cyber-terrorism

12 March 2015 Last updated at 12:11 By Kevin Rawlinson BBC News

Plans for a new Europe-wide counter-terrorism unit are being presented to European ministers.

The Internet Referral Unit would be part of law enforcement agency Europol and would seek to remove jihadist content from the internet.

EU policy makers want to pool member states' resources to deal with the "sheer volume" of such material.

The Paris terror attacks had pushed the item up the EU's agenda, said a senior official.

"The internet is a major facilitator for radicalisation to terrorism. Addressing this matter poses a number of different challenges," a briefing document detailing the plans says.

It adds: "The sheer volume of internet content promoting terrorism and extremism requires pooling of resources and a close cooperation with the industry."

Extremist content

The proposal from European security officials is for an extension of an existing Europol tool used to store information on Islamist extremist websites into a continent-wide referral unit.

It will be presented to ministers from the governments of EU member states at a meeting of the EU's Justice and Home Affairs Council.

The new unit will be expected to flag "terrorist and extremist online content" and to support investigations by law enforcement agencies.

Under the proposals, which have come from the Latvian presidency of the council, each member state would be expected to nominate a partner authority to work with the new unit.

"This can be the national cybercrime or internet safety department, or a dedicated unit dealing with terrorist content on-line," the document says.

The council wants the unit to be operational by 1 June this year, with the funds being provided by member states.

'Urgency'

The news follows the attacks in Paris and the unmasking of Jihadi John as Mohammed Emwazi, who has appeared in numerous Islamic State propaganda videos posted online.

According to the Financial Times, Gilles de Kerchove - the EU's counter-terrorism chief - said: "[The Paris attacks] have added... urgency to countering the extremism problem. Dealing with material online is the first item on the agenda."

The newspaper reported that the EU unit would be modelled on the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), which was set up in 2010 by the UK's Home Office and Scotland Yard to prevent the spread of extremist content online.

The Home Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Star Wars stand-alone film is named

12 March 2015 Last updated at 17:35

Star Wars producers have announced the name of the new stand-alone film, to be directed by Brit Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones.

Rogue One is the title of the first film in a series of big-screen adventures exploring characters from the core Star Wars saga.

No details have been released on the character to be played by The Theory of Everything star Jones.

Rian Johnson has been asked to write and direct Star Wars: Episode VIII.

The film - which will follow on from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, out later this year - will be released on 26 May 2017.

That date and the Rogue One title was revealed on Thursday in San Francisco by Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger at a shareholders meeting.

Edwards' film begins shooting this summer in London and is due for release on 16 December 2016.

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Genetics company plans research unit

12 March 2015 Last updated at 17:39

Personal genetics firm 23andMe is planning to use its database of health information to research possible cures for a range of diseases.

Its new research group has appointed a head and will begin recruiting scientists next month.

They will use the genetic data to help identify new therapies for common and rare diseases.

Around 80% of 23andMe's 875,000 customers have agreed that it can use their health data for medical research.

It will eventually share its research with drug companies, although the details are yet to be worked out.

The company already has deals with 14 pharmaceutical companies, allowing them to trawl its database for specific health information.

It hopes that mutations and other genetic information in the database will reveal potential drug targets for a range of diseases. Healthy carriers of mutated genes may offer insights into why some people do not develop disease.

Dr Richard Scheller, former vice-president of research at biotechnology firm Genentech, will head up the new group.

He said: "I have dedicated my life to research aimed at fulfilling unmet needs for very sick people. I believe that human genetics has a very important role to play in finding new treatments for disease. I am excited about the potential for what may be possible through 23andMe's database. It is unlike any other."

FDA ban

23andme attracted half a million customers after it launched in 2007. Users could order its $99 test (which costs £125 in the UK) and send back a sample of saliva to receive a health report about what genetic conditions they may be predisposed to.

But the test proved controversial and, in November 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulator ordered the company to halt selling its kits for medical or diagnostic use, saying it had failed to comply with requests for more information about the service.

It meant that the explosive growth the service had seen slowed considerably.

The company was allowed to continue selling its kits for non-medical purposes, such as ancestry discovery, and the FDA recently approved a version of the test that can check whether a healthy person carries a rare genetic mutation for Bloom syndrome, a rare disorder.

It expects the regulator to approve other specific tests and hopes to have a new version of its original test available for sale in the US by the end of this year.

It recently launched in the UK but has not disclosed how many customers it has.

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Gamers targeted by ransomware virus

13 March 2015 Last updated at 11:17

Gamers are being targeted by a computer virus that stops them playing their favourite titles unless they pay a ransom.

On infected machines, the malicious program seeks out saved games and other files and encrypts them.

A key to unlock encrypted files is only supplied if victims pay at least $500 (£340) in Bitcoins.

The malware targets 40 separate games including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Minecraft and World of Tanks.

Dark web cash

The malicious program looks similar to the much more widely distributed Cryptolocker ransomware that has caught out thousands of people over the last couple of years.

But analysis of the malware, called Teslacrypt, reveals that it shares no code with Cryptolocker and appears to be have been created by a different cybercrime group.

Researcher Vadim Kotov from security firm Bromium said the file was catching people out via a website its creators had managed to compromise. The site involved is a Wordpress blog that is inadvertently hosting a file that abuses a loophole in Flash to infect visitors.

One a machine is infected, wrote Mr Kotov, the malware looks for 185 different file extensions. In particular, it seeks out files associated with many popular video games and online services such as Steam that give people access to them.

"Interestingly, although these are all popular games, none of them matches any particular 'Top Sellers' or 'Most Played' chart, " said Mr Kotov. "They could just be games the developer loves to play."

Files holding gamers' profiles, maps, saves and modified versions of games are all sought by Teslacrypt, he said.

He said anyone who tries to outwit the malware by uninstalling a game they obtained via an online service may end up disappointed.

"Often it's not possible to restore this kind of data even after re-installing a game via Steam," he wrote.

Once target files are encrypted the malware pops up a window telling victims they have a few days to pay up and retrieve their data.

To decrypt, victims can either pay $500 in Bitcoins or $1,000 in Paypal My Cash payment cards. The virus tells victims to send payment details to an address located on the Tor anonymous browsing network.

The encryption system used by Teslacrypt has yet to be cracked meaning victims would have to turn to back-ups to restore scrambled files.

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Jamie Oliver site hit by virus again

13 March 2015 Last updated at 15:33

The website of Jamie Oliver has been found to be harbouring malicious software for a second time.

Two security companies have independently found evidence that hackers put malicious code on the site.

Anyone visiting using a vulnerable browser risks losing login names, passwords and other data, said the security firms.

A spokesman for Jamie Oliver confirmed the site had been hit and said it had now cleaned it up.

Web attacks

"We have taken measures to clear the offending code and the site is now safe to visit," said the spokesman. "We are now running a forensic audit to find out more information."

The site first fell victim to hackers in mid-February and that breach was quickly cleaned up after administrators were told about the problem.

However, said Maarten van Dantzig from Fox-IT, cyber-thieves have returned to the site and planted the virus in the main part of the page.

"We are wondering if it has been compromised in other ways," he said.

Anyone visiting the site using the Internet Explorer browser that did not have up-to-date plug-ins for Java and Flash would be infected, he said.

The malicious code lurking on the site helps to install a virus on compromised machines called Dorkbot.ED and it watches what people do online and grabs copies of any login or password information. It also blocks security updates and can use victims' machines as proxies for other web attacks.

The Jamie Oliver website is visited by about 10 million people per month. Mr van Dantzig said a high-traffic site like this was a "goldmine" for cyber-thieves.

Jerome Segura from Malwarebytes said the second infection was similar to the first one seen on the site.

"This leads us to believe this is the same infection that was not completely removed or perhaps that a vulnerability with the server software or Content Management System still exists," he said.

He said it was "quite common" for servers that have been hacked once to retain vestiges of the infection that attackers can use to keep re-infecting a site.

Mr van Dantzig said his company spotted the infection via security monitoring systems it runs for several large Dutch companies. It traced the source of one infection back to the cooking website and found other records which suggest the malware had been present since 5 March.

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