A U.S. District Court judge on Monday ordered the assets frozen for a Russian man, his company BroCo Investments and his co-conspirators. The defendants are accused of using stolen credentials to access online brokerage accounts to boost the share prices of thinly traded stocks, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission complaint. The 36-year-old ringleader, Valery Maltsev, and his cohorts purchased unauthorized stock orders on behalf of the victims, a move that inflated the share prices. Then, the defendants, who personally owned the same stocks, sold their positions at "artificially inflated prices." The scam resulted in $255,532 in ill-gotten gains and was a violation of federal laws, according to the SEC. — DK

Microsoft is now offering an automated workaround to mitigate the Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability it announced last week. The "Fix It" solution mitigates the bug "by disabling the peer factory class through the modification of a registry key," according to a Friday blog post. The flaw currently is being exploited in targeted attacks, the company said. The issue does not affect Microsoft's newest browser, IE 8. Even with the new workaround, Microsoft may release an out-of-band patch because its next scheduled security update is not due until April 13. — DK

An external hard drive containing the personal information about tens of thousands of Arkansas National Guard soldiers recently went missing.

The information security industry took a step back this week with news that the CISO of the state of Pennsylvania, Bob Maley, lost his job, likely over remarks he made during a panel discussion last week at the RSA Conference.