Top 5 Optimizers technical rumors

Experts agree that Windows 7 has enhanced security to ward off attacks on vulnerabilities in old software. But what if a money-minded online scammer can persuade you to download malware onto your PC? Social engineering attacks try to trick you into downloading and installing bot malware that poses as a useful program or video. Some attacks combine tactics, as when a scammer sends an e-mail message encouraging you to open an attached PDF file, only to trigger an exploit buried in the file that then hunts for a flaw in Adobe Reader. Social engineering ruses include using a hijacked social network account to send malware lures to friends of the owner, sending a link to a supposed video taken of a friend, and hiding a poisoned URL in a shortened link of the type commonly used on Twitter. Toss in other tried-and-true scams such as videos that instruct you to in­­stall a codec file (but instead lead you to a malware download), and phony documents attached to e-mail messages that appear to come from coworkers, and it becomes clear why Windows 7 users can’t let their guard down.

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.

Adobe has released beta versions of it’s AIR 2 and Flash Player 10.1 software for Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems. At some point in 2010 the 10.1 Player will also be available for smartphones and other mobile devices, and you can already update it on x86-based netbooks. The player  can take advantage of new content-protected, streaming media delivery, and of hardware decoding for H.264 video among some other things, while AIR enables the development of applications for both the browser and the desktop, using the same code, assets, tools and other aspects.

A test of this free antivirus form Microsoft showed very good results. Being tested under Windows Xp SP2, Windows Vista and final version of Windows 7, Security Essentials was able to detect all the suggested viruses from the fresh WildList, 98.4% of harmful code peaces and 90.9% of spyware. Lastly it was able to find all the 25 cases of rootkits. However the main drawback of this program is lack of any type of heuristic analisys, so the antivirus will not be able to detect new viruses until theywill be added to the database. Overall, Microsoft Security Essentials showed great results.