Top 5 Optimizers technical rumors

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.

Eset antivirus company announced the beginning of beta-testing of their new products designed for Mac OS X and Linux which will go live in the beginning of 2010. New software is based on the fourth generation of ESET NOD32 antivirus core, using ThreatSense technology allowing to identify even the newest viruses no yet in the virus signature databases. The company will be adding the list of the Mac OS X and Linux harmful programs to their threats lists to be able to cope with all the problems their useres might be meeting. Mac OS X version currently supports Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) andMac OS X 10.6.x (Snow Leopard), while Linux version runs on RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora, Mandrivaand some others. You can get the full list on the download page if you decide to check it out.

News agencies now will be able to set special software to specify and limit free access to their content though Google. This is the result of the accusations that news agencies made towards Google for making profit on their news base. A number of such agencies even wanted to cut off Google at all and were talking with Microsoft in order to use software’s giant search engine Bing. As the result Google now redirects users who have already visited 5 free articles to the payment and registration page. Wall Street Journal already requires payment to watch, and Times and Sunday Times will soon follow.

The fourth beta of a new version of a popular web browser Mozilla Firefox 3.6, based on a new engine upgrade – Gecko 1.9.2. There has been a lot of new changes, and some of them are worth mentioning: add-ons integration order has been changed to improve Mozilla’s work with third party developed add-ons; a new service has been added – Persona, allowing users to change how browser looks with a single mouse click; full-screen video improved; browser startup boosted along JavaScript runtime speed; latest web-technologies CSS, DOM and HTML5 are now supported.

A Panda Virus that has caused widespread damage at a time when public knowledge about online security was low and caused first arrests for virus-writing in 2007 in China is now back. China’s national virus response center warned about apdated worn earlier this week, but they have only now made the connection between the new release and the old Panda Virus. The worm that is now spreading through the internet infecting html and executable files, disables users form deleteing infected files, turns off available antivirus protection and redirects webbrowser to certain website, downloading Trojan horses and other malware. It acts differently from 2006, but basics are the same, however McAfee Labs researchers say that the new variant adds a malicious component meant to make infection harder to detect. To sum it up: we advice you to keep your antivirus protection at highest levels for awhile at least, and don’t forget to update virus databases.

After it became known that automatically installed Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation Plug-in for a popular webbrowser Firefox opened a major security hole, Mozilla decided to block this plug-in completely, even though Microsoft released a patch to fix the problem. It is said that Microsoft agreed with this move. At the same time Mozilla let out a Plugin Check page designed to find outdated and vulerable plug-ins, it currently picks up only a few but will be constantly updated by Mozilla. If you are using Mozilla Firefox webbrowser you might also want to grab the 3.0.15 or 3.5.5 updates, which close some holes in security and enhance privacy protection.

Rumors say that in the beginning of 2010 Windows is preparing a beta version of its next mobile operating system Windows Mobile 7 for the mobile makers to get their devices ready, the official release is expected on the third quarter of the year, so the manufacturers will have enough time to prepare their products for the new OS. The Microsoft official position stays the same: no dates are told until the operating system will be ready, however the downfall of sales of the smartphones using Windows Mobile and the steps Google Android is taking will most probably make Microsoft to quicken the release. The main difference of the Windows Mobile 7 from its earlier versions is multitouch technology, as Android 2.0 is said to have it and Apple products already do.

Another mobile operating system to add to the list of the modern ones that are currently competing on the market, including Windows Mobile, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, Palm’s webOS, Apple’s iPhone, Symbian and Google’s Android. Samsung electronics announced the launch of their own open mobile platform by the name of bada, which is translated from korean as “ocean”, and is meant to “convey the limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform.” As third party application become an increasingly important factor in purchasing decisions, it is well understood why the new OS will be an open platform, which presumably refers to the open software development kit and the ability of developers to create applications for devices running on bada. Even though the company released it’s own OS, it still remains involved with the Windows Mobile, Java and Symbian operating systems. Where it will go – we’ll see.

Windows 7, being the newest operating system that Microsoft released to the world, survived its first few weeks on the market without needing any security fixes or updates. Microsoft plugged several security holes with recent fixes, but none were aimed at Windows 7, as expected as attackers will need more time to figure out how to get into this new system. Among the problems that have been fixed with this patch was a flaw that allowed an attacker to infect all computers in the local network after getting access to just one (not all of the school or office computer users can avoid clicking on suspicious links), some Word and Excel flaws that would give the attacker access to whole PC through some spreadsheet or document, and some problems with early versions of XP and Vista.