According to Netcraft company, whose main activity is global network monitoring, the number of websites in Internet is now apporaching 234 million. Only in last year 47 million of new websites have emerged, and 7 million of them are active – meaning they have regular visitors. The leader in web-servers among all of these websites is still Apache web-server, which is used in 109 million websites.
We understand that this is not entirely software news, but it involves one of the biggest players on the software market and should be mentioned especially with the holiday’s time. Google, always being innovative and original, has made a present to the world by donating 20 million USD to the charity organizations. It was motivated by the fact that with the economy in such state, charity organizations have had one of the worst years. “Our present to you – is a present to them” as the company itself said.
With this said, I too will be happy to wish you all Marry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Over the past week, hackers have exploited flaws in popular open-source advertising software to place malicious code on advertisements on several famous Web sites. Using a pair of bugs in the OpenX advertising software the attackers logged in to advertising servers and placed malicious code on ads being served on the sites. Web based attacks are a favorite way for cyber-criminals to install their malicious software and this latest round of hacks shows how ad server networks can become useful conduits for attack. However OpenX said that it was aware of “no major vulnerabilities associated with the current version of the software in either its downloaded or hosted forms,”, but we still recommend to keep an eye out for updates.
U.S. authorities linked a well-known group involved with malicious software, hacking, child pornography and spam known as Russian Business Network gang to the theft of an estimated tens of millions of dollars from Citibank which occurred mid-year. It was not known whether the money had been recovered and a Citibank representative said the company had not had any system breach or losses, according to the report. The report left unclear who the money was stolen from but said a program called Black Energy, designed by a Russian hacker, was one tool used in the attack. The attackers also targeted a U.S. government agency and one other unnamed entity, the report said, adding that it was unknown if the attackers accessed Citibank systems directly or through other parties.
A dangerous vulnerability in Internet Explorer became known to publicity before a fix was available, raising the probability of zero-days attacks. The new bug involves the way IE handles Cascading Style Sheets objects(CSS is currently the most popular web-design technique), and could allow an attacker to execute any type of code on a targeted Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, or Server 2008 computer. Internet Explorer 8 was not affected by this bug, and currently you can аix the vulnerability with a patch.
A small Missouri design company that includes a word “Bing” in its name filed the case to the St. Louis circuit court this week, accusing Microsoft for branding its search engine with the same word, alleging trademark infringement and unfair competition. The design company, which offers computer-related illustrations and other services, has used the name Bing since 2000, and is now seeking damages including corrective advertising paid for by Microsoft to eliminate confusion between the brands. However Microsoft denies possible relation with the trademark: “We believe this suit to be without merit and we do not believe there is any confusion in the marketplace with regard to the complainant’s offerings and Microsoft’s Bing product,” the spokesman said.
Back in December 2007 Opera Software made a request to the European Commission to investigate the strategy that Microsoft uses to promote Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser using the dominating position as the operating system developers. Since then Mozilla and Google also joined the antimonopoly investigation, and as the result from today European Windows users will be able to choose which browser to install when installing Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.
Adobe started investigation on new reports about hacker attacks using previously unknown bug in the latest version of Reader and Acrobat software. It is said that Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and some earlier versions are exploited in the wild. Adobe stated that this vulnerability has been found by partners in the security community, and no public reports of the issue have been reported yet. With Adobe Reader and Acrobat along with Flash Player software installed on a great amount of computers all over the world they have recently become a very attractive target for cyberthieves. We will have to wait for the investigation to end before actually doing anything though, but keep in mind that you might need to update Adobe programs in near future.
99 percent ofInternet-connected desktops have Adobe’s Flash Player software installed, offering up multimedia and video capabilities on a multitude of popular Web sites. But lately Adobe Flash Player technoligy has become a preferred vector for cyberthieves. There are two versions of possible causes – first stands besides the Flash populary, with such a large amount of users using the system it gets attention from hackers. The second version implies that Adobe simply lacks tight security practices in its internal development procedure, giving those with bad intentions more space to move in. Adobe says its security practices are up to snuff, but still we would recommend you keep an eye on all updates of the product since they can easily be crucial to your privacy.
Hewlett-Packard has issued a number of patches for its OpenView software package. Given the severity of vulnerabilities it is advised to apply these patches immediately. The HP OpenView Network Node Manager has 12 buffer overflow holes, which could be exploited to execute arbitrary code, or even gain control. Each of the vulnerabilities has been given a rating of 10 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System scale, the most severe rating possible, and all of them are currently being reviewed by Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures editorial board.