Month: September 2010

Ever wonder if the free virus protection or free real-time protection of AVG, AntiVir, Avast, Panda Cloud and other free AV is enough? Do you think cloud-based protection will beat traditional antivirus solutions? I think Symantec is wrong to say you can’t rely on free AV for protection.  Check out this comparison of the Top 10 Free Antivirus programs. Next article that I hope to publish this month is a comparison of rootkit, rogue and trojan removal by free antivirus programs.

From Microsoft Blog by Brad Smith, a Microsoft General Counsel/SVP A story in yesterday’s New York Times reports on anti-piracy enforcement actions in Russia that have been used for more nefarious purposes than protecting intellectual property rights.  As General Counsel for Microsoft, it was not the type of story that felt good to read.  It described instances in which authorities had used piracy charges concerning Microsoft software to confiscate computers and harass non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others engaged in public advocacy.  It suggested that there had been cases when our own counsel at law firms had failed to help clear … Continue reading Anti-Piracy Enforcement and NGOs

One of the most popular posts I wrote in 2008 was a set of step-by-step instructions to help you do what Apple doesn’t want you to do with iTunes for Windows (see Slimming down the bloated iTunes installer). Now that iTunes 10 has been released, it’s apparent that nothing has changed in Cupertino. Apple still gives its customers a monolithic iTunes setup program with absolutely no options to pick and choose based on your specific needs. Why is that important? When you run the iTunes setup program, it unpacks six Windows Installer packages and a master setup program, which then … Continue reading The unofficial guide to installing iTunes 10 without bloatware

"Own Your Space–Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online" Digital Book for Teens Parents and teens now have access to a free downloadable e-book from Microsoft called “Own Your Space,” which aims to instruct teens and other new internet users how to stay safe while online. Specifically, the book addresses common security threats like phishing scams as well as modern-day social issues like cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking. http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/Get-a-Free-Cyber-Security-Book-from-Microsoft/ Download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=87583728-ef14-4703-a649-0fd34bd19d13&displayLang=en

You install Microsoft Silverlight in Internet Explorer 7 or later.  Next, you open the Manage Add-ons feature in Internet Explorer and view the Silverlight add-on information.  The publisher is listed as “(Not verified) Microsoft Corporation”. This behavior occurs because while the installation package of Microsoft Silverlight is digitally signed, the add-on file npctrl.dll is not digitally signed. Internet Explorer checks the digital signature of the control’s binary file when it determines the publisher. If the signature is missing, the publisher information will be listed as “Not verified”. This is a behavior by design. The installation package of Microsoft Silverlight is … Continue reading "FAST PUBLISH" article: The Microsoft Silverlight add-on is listed as Not Verified in Microsoft Internet Explorer

The end may be near from an internet service provider that has brought more than 20 lawsuits seeking millions of dollars for alleged spam abuses. Asis Internet Services abruptly abandoned its case against Subscriberbase citing a “negative judgment in an unrelated case that threatens to place Asis in either bankruptcy or corporate dissolution.” That suit, against defendant AzoogleAds.com, backfired when Asis was ordered to pay almost $807,000 for filing "groundless claims" that mired the companies in years of costly litigation. Life hasn’t always been so tough for Asis, which is described as a four-employee ISP from Garberville, California, that spent … Continue reading Veteran spam suit troll plaintiff calls it quits

We are currently processing several thousand messages in yet another email spam campaign, this time related to Skype and all its goodness. Unlike the other malicious campaigns we have seen recently, this one does not make use of an attachment, but instead provides the unsuspecting user with a URL to download add-ons for Skype, which are malicious.  The URLs themselves are fairly new: the domains being used are no more than a month old.  As a result of this they do not appear suspect, and with enticing and legitimate-enough names, a user could easily be misled into thinking these are … Continue reading Yet another "Skype Themed" malicious spam.

Police in Nashua, New Hampshire, have arrested a group of men suspected of being part of a burglary ring that targeted Facebook users who had reported they were away from home. According to local news reports, between $100,000 to $200,000 of stolen property has been recovered so far after 50 homes in the city were burgled during the month of August. Investigators believe that careless homeowners attracted criminal attention after posting on social networks that they would not be home at certain times. Police arrested Mario Rojas, Leonardo Barroso and Victor Rodriguez in connection with the burglaries, and anticipate making … Continue reading Facebook burglary gang suspects arrested by police

As Phishing emails continue to get sent out with subject lines containing financial transaction services like Western Union, PayPal or similar, we are so used to it that we mostly ignore those emails; they get marked as Spam or Phishing anyways by our email filters. A Phishing email usually works like this: The potential victim receives an email which tells to follow a link inside the mail to review the banking account, the address or something else. These web sites are most of the times very good copies of the original web site. There the cyber criminals try to catch … Continue reading Fake Western Union Spam leads to Malware

IMDDOS, which is mainly based in China, has grown to become one of the largest active botnets, Damballa says The security firm Damballa is warning of a large and fast growing botnet created specifically to deliver distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on demand for anyone willing to pay for the service. The IMDDOS botnet is operated out of China and has been growing at the rate of about 10,000 infected machines every day for the past several months, to become one the largest active botnets currently, Damballa says. Gunter Ollman, vice president of research at Damballa, said that what … Continue reading Security firm warns of commercial, on-demand DDoS botnet