Adobe Systems has released updates for Acrobat and Adobe Reader 8 & 9 closing the security breaches that could allow computer access, and fixing a but that might have caused emergency program shutdown. This updates is for Acrobat 8 and 9, and the finale version of the software now are 8.2.1 and 9.3.1.
Based on a survey of 50,000 people, new Census Bureau data shows that the poor, the elderly and minorities continue to lag behind other groups. About 64 per cent of households have an Internet connection, which is more than the 51 per cent that did in 2007. Those who didn’t have access either claimed it wasn’t needed or was too expensive. Some Americans insisted that they were still trying to adopt the wheel, while others said that using fire was proving trickier than they had thought and a small minority were still having difficulty with using opposable thumbs. Only 11 per cent of people said the reason they didn’t use the Internet was because they lived in a rural area where banjo picking interfered with broadband signals.
Kaspersky has announced successful patenting of a new hardware-based antivirus system that effectively combats rootkits. The new technology makes use of a hardware-based antivirus solution whose primary function is to neutralize the most widespread type of threat – malicious programs that store themselves or infect files on a computer’s hard drive. The patented antivirus program scans data that is written to the hard disk, identifying and blocking malicious programs. Since it is implemented on the hardware rather than software level, the technology is not dependent on the operating system’s configuration and can effectively combat malicious programs that elevate their privileges in the system, e.g., dangerous malware such as rootkits. Rootkits hook the operating system’s functions, enabling them to actively resist their detection and removal by software antivirus solutions that operate in the same environment. Specifically, rootkits can block an antivirus application from being started, track its actions and recover the malicious processes removed by the antivirus application, modify removal settings in the system registry, etc. Such activity will be ineffective in the case of a hardware solution that does not operate in the infected operating system’s environment, and the rootkit can be quickly neutralized.
The new microblogging service from Google has received a lot of criticism lately, for the lake of confidentiality protection. Since the account in Buzz is connected to Gmail account, with certain knowledge one is able to access your whole address book and even get your geographical location(through the GPS navigation systems in iPhone and Nexus one mobile phones. Google is reacting quickly to the outrageous report last week from a woman, whose husband got to know about all her friends through this system. They also claim that the weakness in integration with RSS will be closed in a few days? making the security protection even stronger.
After the last week security update from Microsoft, their support service has been flooded with reports from customers, saying that their computers had been rendered unusable with a blue-screen-of-death. After the investigation, Microsoft has come to the conclusion that this might be caused be the malicious software, and claims to have proof that removing malware will allow the system to boot. Confirming this an unrelated Windows XP user has traced the problem to the atapi .sys file, which turned to have a TDSS rootkit in it. Stand-alone tools to remove the rootkit can now be found over the Internet, but to do so, you will still have to remove your hard-drive and scan it using another computer.
Later this month users worldwide will automatically start to receive this update that will verify if the operating system is genuine later this month, however Chinese users will not receive it until summer, as Microsoft tries a softer approach to fighting software piracy in China. It has been a long time since foreign companies started complaining about poor protection of intellectual property rights in China, but the problem is pretty much not just with the users, but with low government regulations as well. In late 2008 Microsoft has caused backlash among Chinese users, when it released an update that turned the screens of computers with pirated versions of Windows XP black. The update for Windows 7 will be much softer, as while detecting the known methods to activate unlicensed copies of the operating system, it will simply change the background picture to black and give regular messages about the problem, leaving the operating system working. At the same time Microsoft is launching a series of marketing campaigns in China to explain the risks of counterfeit software and how users can tell if their Microsoft software is genuine and is hoping to get better results then with the campaign in 2008.
26 vulnerabilities in 13 security bulletins have been fixed with the recent big patch by Microsoft. 11 of these bulletins effected Windows, and the rest affected the older versions of Microsoft Office. Although the server-side vulnerabilities become less and less common, they may become a golden goose for an attacker if discovered, as it may allow full access to the computer or the entire network without any user involvement required. It is highly advised to get the updates as soon as possible for your own safety.
There have been a lot of speculations about the battery lifetime being reduced by Windows 7 operating system. However Microsoft position on this topic is: Battery problems on Windows 7 machines are not caused by the operating system. Tests have shown that in every case of this occurrence the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement, but it has not been caused by the operating system – Windows 7 simply accurately detected a failing battery, meaning that the customers who have upgraded their PCs to Windows 7 just weren’t aware that they needed a battery replacement until the message from the operating system popped up (if the battery performs at less then 40% of it’s designed capacity the recommendation to consider battery replacement appears).
Police in central China have shut down a hacker training operation that openly recruited thousands of members online and provided them with cyberattack lessons and malicious software. Police in Hubei province arrested three people suspected of running the hacker site known as the Black Hawk Safety Net that disseminated Web site hacking techniques and Trojan software, the China Daily newspaper said. Trojans, which can allow outside access to a computer when implanted, are used by hackers to illegally control computers. This recent anti-hacker activity of Chiniese government however seems a bit suspicious as it only started after China has been accused of cyber attacks on a number of companies, including Google.
The assumption that an Internet user can be recognized by his IP address and his Cookie files only was proven to be incorrect. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Organization has launched their own online-test Panopticlick(http://panopticlick.eff.org/) which is designed to demonstrate how easy it is to recognize the needed machine profile among hundreds of others on the Net. It all comes down to “digital hand-prints” – the data which is left over on the visited resource by the users computer, especially his Internet browser. When taken together, the information about users plugins, time zone, display settings, etc can form a unique profile which will lead back to the original user, even if his cookies were erased and the IP address changed. It is quite easy to see the possible practical applications of this, EFF states that advertisement companies have been using this methods of profiling for a long time now.