In brief: Top wi-fi, zombie attack, paradise lost, malware costs

London is the world's top wi-fi city, eclipsing New York, according to research from RSA.

In the past year wi-fi hotspots in the capital grew by 160 per cent to 7,130, overtaking New York's 6,371.

The FBI is to contact more than one million PC users who have been infected by Trojans and had their computers hijacked by criminals for the sending of spam and viruses.

The move is an attempt to crack down on the number of zombie PCs at large in the world as such compromised machines - known en masse as botnets - are the major source of rogue and malicious email and the US is the worst affected country.

The news comes as research group Computer Economics reveals the findings of a new study which claims the damages related to malware have fallen for a second consecutive year. Last year malware attacks cost business $13.3bn, down from $14.2bn the previous year. However, this is attributed to the fact malware has become more covert and less obviously destructive. Secondary losses are increasing, as criminals have a long game now which involves making money, not wreaking havoc.

Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics, said: "The cost of cleaning up a spyware infection might be a few thousand dollars in terms of labour. But if a hacker was using that piece of spyware to sniff passwords and gain access to the corporate network, the indirect or secondary damages could be enormous."

Popular Cornish tourist attraction the Eden Project has confirmed that a laptop containing the names, addresses, bank details, national insurance numbers and salary details of 500 employees has been stolen from the car of its payroll partner.

Meanwhile, Houston has a problem. Nasa is blaming a power feed for "potentially catastrophic" computer glitches aboard the $100bn International Space Station, according to Reuters.

The problem has occurred in the Russian segment and a Nasa spokesman said Russia will try to reboot the computer as it travels over Russian ground stations today (Friday).

Back on Earth, and blazing an entirely different trail, Lesley Cowley, CEO of web names company Nominet, has scooped the First Woman of Technology 2007 award, organised by the CBI.

Cowley beat off competition from BT and Sun Microsystems.