** UPDATE: Firm Warns of Toxic Blogs ** At Least 11 Are Killed in Twin Suicide Bombings in Baghdad; Olympic Bomber Pleads Guilty; HSBC Warns of Possible Card Fraud

Firm Warns of Toxic Blogs

Websense Security Labs is warning computer users to beware of malicious code that is hidden in some blogs. According to The Register, Websense has discovered “hundreds of instances” where blogs have been used to store and deliver harmful code. Websense says that some hackers create a blog on a legitimate site, then post bad code or keylogging software. Hackers then send spam to drive traffic to such blogs. “These arent the kind of blog websites that someone would stumble upon and infect their machine accidentally. The success of these attacks relies upon a certain level of social engineering to persuade the individual to click on the link,” said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security and technology research for Websense.

For more details, read the full article in The Register.

At Least 11 Are Killed in Twin Suicide Bombings in Baghdad

Two suicide car bombers attacked a police convoy in Baghdad Thursday, killing at least 11 people and injuring 38. According to The New York Times, a third, unexploded bomb, was also found at the scene. The police were escorting empty oil trucks from a refinery in southern Baghdad to a city near the Jordanian border. No one in the convoy was killed, the Times reports. In a separate attack, insurgents killed four police officers in Kirkuk.

For more details, read the full report in The New York Times. (Registration required.)

Olympic Bomber Pleads Guilty

Eric Rudolph, the serial bomber who set off explosions at Olympic Park in 1996, two other Atlanta sites and an Alabama abortion clinic, pleaded guilty to those crimes Wednesday. The Associated Press reports that with the pleas, Rudolph, 38, will be spared from the death penalty. He is expected to be sentenced to four consecutive life terms. The four explosions killed two people and wounded more than 120.

For more details, read the full Associated Press article in the Washington Post.

HSBC Warns of Possible Card Fraud

Another day, another company makes an announcement about possible fraud. As first reported by the Wall Street Journal Thursday, HSBC Holdings is notifying at least 180,000 people who used MasterCard credit cards to buy merchandise at Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. that thieves may have obtained customer credit-card information. Card holders were told to replace their cards. A Reuters report said that HSBC’s UK office was not available for comment.

For more details, read the full Reuters account in the Boston Globe.