Process Hacker 1.5 – A Worthwhile Windows Task Manager Replacement

As I have mentioned here previously, running on Windows 7 has loads of benefits over running on Windows XP Pro, including an improvement in the Windows Task Manager tool, which finally shows “running processes”. Still, Windows Task Manager continues to fall far short of providing you with all the information that you really need.

Process Hacker 1.5 is yet another free (open source), Windows Task Manager replacement which takes up the challenge where Windows Task Manager leaves off.

Installation and setup is simple – just follow the bouncing ball.

A very simple interface makes it easy to use Process Hacker 1.5, for both novices and pros, to manage computer resources, yet this application is packed with features.

Fast facts:

Presents information clearly – A simple, customizable tree view with highlighting which shows the processes running on your computer.

Comprehensive information for all processes.

Provides a range of process termination methods – Process Hacker can terminate, suspend, resume, restart and set the priority of processes. Processes are highlighted to provide additional information such as whether they are elevated or in a job. More interesting things you can do with processes include injecting DLLs and even replacing security tokens (XP only).

Detailed performance graphs.

A list of network connections – since I like to check my ports and connections frequently, I found this very helpful.

Finds hidden processes and allows you to terminate them. Process Hacker detects processes hidden by simple rootkits such as Hacker Defender and FU.

Modules – It can display the modules loaded by each process and their properties. It can also find the address of any exported function in a module, change page protection of the module’s memory region, and read the module’s memory.

Threads – It can also terminate, suspend, resume and set the priority of threads. Symbolic start addresses are provided, and double-clicking a thread will show its call stack.

Additionally, GUI threads (threads which have made at least one call to a GUI function) are highlighted.

Search – Process Hacker also supports saving memory search results and even intersecting (finding common items between) two sets of search results.

Handles – It can display the handles opened by processes and can close them.

Memory – It can display the memory regions in a process’ virtual memory space, and even read/write data using a built-in hex editor.

Token – It can display each process’ primary token and its user, source, groups and privileges. It even allows you to enable and disable privileges.

Systems Requirements: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 – 32-bit or 64-bit.

Additional Requirements: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

Note: Certain functionality including detection of hidden processes, full control over all processes and the ability to protect/unprotect processes is only available on 32-bit systems.

Recommendation: If you need information on what’s running on your system, system resource usage, or evaluating application performance, then Process Hacker is definitely worth taking a look at.

Overall I think this is a terrific free application and I have added it to my geek toolbox. Since malware can often restrict access to the Windows Task Manager, this application is good insurance to have handy.

Download at: PC World

Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 12, 2009

Is Google Evil? – How Google Coddles Consumers, Rips Microsoft, Rivals.

Attackers Improving Search Engine Optimization to Push Rogue Security Tools – In an analysis of a rogue anti-spyware scam, AVG Technologies noted that just 24 hours after a news event, attackers had already gotten their malicious links into five of the top 10 Google search results. The incident highlights the challenges faced by search engines such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Bing.

Lifehacker: Top 10 Reminder Tools for Forgetful Minds – Tweak your workflow and inboxes all you want, but your mental memory might always be the weakest link in your day-to-day life. These 10 tools take some of the workload off your brain, and prevent a few forehead slaps.

The Future Of Digital Forensics – Last week’s 10th annual IT Security Awareness Day at the University of Florida had IT workers from all over the state in attendance to hear experts from InGuardians, F-Response, Sunbelt Software, and Microsoft. Though I enjoyed every presentation, I keep thinking about one in particular — the future of forensics.

Microsoft Security Essentials Could Lower Threat Levels – Symantec and other traditional antivirus vendors were quick to dismiss Microsoft’s free antivirus suite. But it’s not a bad thing if Microsoft Security Essentials is even only marginally effective, free and widely available antivirus could do a lot to reduce malware threats to the overall Internet-connected community.

Could Keylogging Be Behind Webmail Attack? – Key-logging malware could be behind the recent web mail attack that saw thousands of email addresses and their associated passwords leaked online, according to one security expert. Amichai Shulman, from security firm Imperva, believes that the size of the scam shows that it is not a phishing attack.

Five super-secret features in Windows 7 – during our Windows 7 exploration, I also spotted some secret features that are hidden deep within the recesses of over 50 million lines of code. In fact, these features are so secret that I doubt even the most dedicated, deeply-experienced IT professionals will be able to find them. Yes, they are that mysterious.

MSI X340 Slim: The best laptop you’ve never heard of – …. there’s an alternative that is as thin as the MacBook Air, has nearly all of the features of the Dell Adamo, and has a price tag that is closer to a netbook. It’s the MSI X340 Slim and here is TechRepublic look at it from an IT and business perspective.

Criminals hijack Stephen Gately death news – Cybercriminals are using news reports about the death of pop star Stephen Gately to hide malware, security experts have warned.

YouTube used to host spammers’ adverts – Popular video-sharing site YouTube is being used by spammers to host unsolicited advertising, security experts have claimed.

Off Topic:

This Is It: New Michael Jackson song hits the web – This Is It, a previously unreleased Michael Jackson track, made its worldwide debut on Monday morning and you can hear it online. It features backing vocals from Jackson’s brothers. The album is being released to mark the launch of a film, also called This Is It, which features backstage footage of the star as he prepared for a series of sold-out concerts at London’s O2 Arena.

Two-year-old boy with same IQ as Einstein – Oscar Wrigley, a two-year-old with the same IQ as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, has become the youngest boy in Britain to be accepted into Mensa.

Frankencamera: A Giant Leap For Digital Photos? – Computer scientists at Stanford have developed a prototype they call the “Frankencamera” that may change the future of photography. It works a bit like an iPhone, in that it runs on an open source operating system, allowing photographers to change the electronic guts of the camera by downloading applications.

Perpetual war is here: Americans are getting used to it – A new poll shows a substantial majority of Americans have resigned themselves to the reality of our nation’s perpetual foreign wars. They don’t like it, but they see it happening and know there is nothing they can do about it.

Today’s Quote:

“There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes”.

- Doctor Who

Today’s Free Downloads:

Lifehacker: Five Best Windows Task Manager Alternatives – The Windows Task Manager is a functional but basic tool for keeping an eye on what your computer’s up to. If you want to go beyond the built-in tool and for more in depth information and control, check out these five alternatives.

Flash Drive Reminder – This is a small, freeware utility that pops up a reminder if you try and log off Windows without removing your flash drive. This program adds an entry to the AutoPlay dialog that pops up when you insert a flash drive into a computer.

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Be Safe – Write Down Your Passwords

The world is full of advice that on the face of it seems reasonable, responsible and accurate. You know how it is – if you hear it often enough then it must be true.

How many of us are ever likely to forget our Mother’s advice – dress warmly in the cold, or you’ll get sick? Advice, as it turns out, that has been debunked by the medical community. Despite this, most people, that I know, still believe Mom’s advice.

One piece of computer security advice that you’ve likely heard over and over again is – don’t write down your password/s. The problem is; this piece of advice couldn’t be more wrong. Just like Mom’s advice though, it seems reasonable, responsible and accurate.

Here’s the dilemma we face. Complicated, in other words, safe passwords are hard to remember, whereas easy passwords, in other words unsafe passwords, are easy to remember. No surprise then that most computer users’ employ easy to remember, and unsafe passwords.

You know the kind of passwords I’m talking about – obvious passwords, like your first name or your wife’s name, child’s name, date of birth date, etc. – passwords you’re not likely to forget. And that’s the problem – there’s no point in having a password at all if cyber-criminals will have no difficulty in figuring it out.

Cyber-criminals use simple processes, all the way to highly sophisticated techniques, to capture online passwords as evidenced by the Hotmail fiasco earlier this week, in which an anonymous user posted usernames, and passwords, for over 10,000 Windows Live Hotmail accounts to a web site. Some reports indicate that Google’s Gmail, and Yahoo’s Mail, were also targeted.

Not surprisingly, 123456 was the most common password captured, followed by (are you ready for this?), 123456789. Some truly brilliant users used reverse numbers, with 654321 being very common. Pretty tricky, huh? I’m being a little cynical, but..

I know that on the face of it, writing down your password seems counter intuitive and flies in the face of conventional wisdom, since the issue here is one of security and safety. But ask yourself this question – is your home, office, wallet etc., more secure than your computer? If the answer isn’t “yes”, then you have additional issues that need to be addressed.

While it may be true that you don’t want your wife, lover, room mate, or the guy in the next office, to gain access to your written list of passwords – and writing down your passwords will always present this risk; the real risk lies in the cyber-criminal, who is perhaps, thousands of miles away.

Computer security involves a series of trade-offs – that’s just the reality of today’s Internet. And that brings us to the inescapable conclusion, that strong passwords, despite the fact that they may be impossible to remember – which means they must be written down – are considerably more secure than those that are easy to remember.

Here are some guidelines on choosing a strong password:

Make sure your password contains a minimum of 8 characters.

Use upper and lower case, punctuation marks and numbers.

Use a pass phrase (a sentence), if possible. However, not all sites allow pass phrases.

Since brute force dictionary attacks are common, keep away from single word passwords that are words in a dictionary.

Use a different password for each sign-in site. This should be easy since you are now going to write down your passwords. Right?

There are alternatives to writing down your passwords of course, including Password Safe, an excellent free application. As well, a number of premium security applications include password managers.

If you have difficulty in devising a strong password/s, take a look at Random.org’s, Random Password Generator – a very cool free password tool.

As an additional form of protection you should consider the Firefox add-on KeyScrambler, which will protect you from both known and unknown keyloggers. Personally, I wouldn’t think of signing on to the Internet without KeyScrambler being active.

For additional info on password management, checkout Rick Robinette’s “PASS-the-WORD”… Basic password management tips” Many regular readers will remember that Rick is a very poplar guest writer on this site.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 11, 2009

Ubuntu 9.10 – Almost Perfect – Ubuntu 9.10 is only days away… and it is spectacular. Here’s a quick look and what makes this the best release of any Linux.

London Stock Exchange dumps Windows for Linux – When it comes to business computer systems, nothing is more mission-critical than the massive trading software systems that underlie stock markets.

Illegal Downloads 150x More Profitable Than Legal Sales – Unlike what most people might think, piracy is not necessarily a bad thing for copyright holders. In fact, German pirate-tracking outfit DigiRights Solutions shows that copyright holders can earn 150 times more money from illicit downloads than from iTunes and other legal stores.

Adobe Brings Photoshop.com To The iPhone – Adobe Systems on Friday introduced a new Photoshop app for iPhone users that lets them edit photos from both their phone and their online library on Photoshop.com.

Study: 54 Percent of Companies Ban Facebook, Twitter at Work – Planning on firing off a short missive on Twitter or posting an update to your friends on Facebook from the office? Better check the rules of your workplace first.

8 Awesome Mashups Made Possible by APIs – We here at Mashable are big fans of mashup services – it’s our name, after all! And at the heart of almost all of these mashups is a term you’ll see frequently thrown around related to web services: APIs, or application programming interfaces.

Telephone Company is Arm of Govt, Feds Admit in Spy Suit – The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: the nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying.

Click Fraud ring nets $ 3 million bucks in just 2 weeks – As long as advertisers pay for clicks, there will be click fraud. And the more people combat it, the more sophisticated the attacks become to get around the defenses that advertisers, search engines, and others put in place.

Off Topic:

A Third of Dinosaur Species May Never Have Existed – Young dinosaurs weren’t Mini-Me versions of their parents. New evidence suggests dino juveniles went through dramatic physical changes during their journey to adulthood. If that’s the case, many fossils of young dinosaurs (including many T.rex relatives) may have been misidentified as belonging to new species.

Scientists Identify Bacterium that Helps Formation of Gold – Australian scientists have found that the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans catalyses the biomineralisation of gold by transforming toxic gold compounds to their metallic form using active cellular mechanism.

Catfight Breaks Out on City Bus … Driver Keeps Driving – Video – The women, who have an all-out brawl on the bus, should have been arrested. Or something. You don’t do this on the bus. Or anywhere, for that matter.

Why France Telecom employees are killing themselves – Suicides at France Telecom SA have company officials worried that cost cutting led to workplace violence and an increase in suicide at the France communications giant. In their suicide notes, some of the 24 victims since February 2008 blame the workplace climate.

The chip that changed the world – When Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit, even he could never have imagined how it would transform the lives of everyone on the planet.

Today’s Quote:

“Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key”.

- Alan Bennett

Today’s Free Downloads:

KeePass Password Safe – This program offers a simple way to keep track of all your passwords while keeping them safe. It lets you store all of your passwords in a lightweight, simple-to-use database, and encrypts the database so that only you can access it. You can either lock it with a master password or file key.

Windows 7 Firewall Control Free (32-bit version) – Want fine-grained control over the firewall built into Windows 7 and Windows Vista–especially the way it blocks outbound connections? Good luck. Even if you manage to unearth the controls buried deep in Windows menus and applications, you’ll be baffled. Windows 7 Firewall Control Free solves the problem for you.

Pictomio – If you’re looking to create slideshows or carousel-style views of your photos –much like you can see them in Mac OS X Leopard–you’ll want the free Pictomio. It may be the best slideshow and carousel creator you’ll find.

Comodo Firewall Pro – ZoneAlarm may be extremely popular, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best firewall you can find. Many people believe that Comodo Firewall Pro takes that prize, largely because it was rated as the top firewall by the independent testing site Matousec.

Matousec found that it offered the highest level of “anti-leak” protection–in essence, a measurement of a firewall’s effectiveness. Comodo offers true two-way firewall protection, is extremely configurable, and unlike most other firewalls, gives you a great view into your system and Internet connection as well. It’s free, as well.

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Simple Backup With Free Mirror

We talk a lot on this Blog about how important it is to have a current backup of all of your critical data, and given the state of the Internet today with its epidemic of malware, there’s a good chance, that at some point, you’ll need this backup.

If you’re not too worried about the malware threat to your data, then consider this. Just like death and taxes are a certainty, the fact that your computer’s Hard Drive will crash one day and refuse to respond, is every bit as certain.

As I wrote here recently; in the last 18 months I have had to deal with three Hard Drive failures – not on the same machine of course. While this may be slightly unusual, it does illustrate that Hard Drives do fail.

So backups are important – critically important. Despite the critical importance of Hard Drive backups, most computer technicians will tell you that typically, computer users’ do not backup their irreplaceable data.

The best backup strategy includes imaging your Hard Drives and partitions, since that allows you to restore your important data, your complete operating system, as well as your installed applications, user settings, etc.

If you should suffer catastrophic Hard Drive failure and you are one of the few, out of the ordinary, computer users who regularly and faithfully backup, you will have a lot of work ahead of you but you will recover. If you do not have a backup plan, it’s time you though seriously about developing one.

Yes, I know there is effort involved in learning how to protect your data by developing and implementing a backup plan. But without a plan, your data becomes a hostage to fortune. Your Hard Drive might be damaged by malware – it might not. Your Hard Drive might fail – it might not. But why take the risk? At a minimum, you need to backup, or copy, your irreplaceable data to a partition (in case of malware infection), secondary Hard Drive, or a USB drive.

For now, let’s just focus on copying your critical data from your Hard Drive to another media.

Mirror is an interesting freeware application that will allow you to copy (mirror) a folder structure from one location to another – from a Hard Drive to a USB drive, for example.

Here’s the best part – once you have mirrored (copied), a folder and it’s structure to another media, rerunning Mirror on the same folder will only copy new or changed files – a sort of incremental backup.

The Mirror interface is as simple as an interface can be, as the following graphic illustrates.

Fast facts:

Free

Portable – no installation required

Compatible with – USB Keys, Removable Hard Drives, Zip Drives, Floppy Disks, Flash Memory Cards, MP3 Players

Synchronize

Very fast

Recommendation: Mirror is a fast and easy way to ensure you will not lose your irreplaceable data. In my view, this small free application is a “must have” for a typical user. Consider adding it to your utility toolbox today.

System Requirements: Windows 98/2000/Me/XP/Vista.

Note: I tested Mirror successfully on Win 7.

Download at: PCWorld

Note: October 11 @ 8:35 AM eastern time - a number of readers have advised that the developers site is down. Hopefully, this is temporary.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 10, 2009

Microsoft’s Newest Biggest Bug Patch Ever: Microsoft will use Tuesday Patches to fix two zero-day holes – Microsoft will ship 13 bug patches in next week’s “Patch Tuesday” drop — eight of them rated “critical” — the company’s most severe security ranking. Of those, seven fix problems in Windows, according to Microsoft’s advance notice sent out Thursday. Tuesday also carries a rather dubious distinction: It will fix the largest number of security holes ever, beating out June’s Patch Tuesday record of 31 holes fixed.

Turn Your iPod touch into an iPhone – The new iPod touch does almost everything the iPhone 3GS does, although it doesn’t have a compass or built-in GPS. But it runs almost all of the iPhone’s 75,000-plus applications – most notably, the VoIP apps Skype and iCall. These two apps turn your iPod touch into a phone, as long as you have Wi-Fi signal.

Comcast to Warn PC Users If They’re Infected – Comcast on Thursday launched a new security initiative that will provide in-browser notifications about possible virus infections.

Lifehacker: FluTracking Helps You Keep an Eye on Swine Flu Outbreaks – FluTracking certainly isn’t the first flu tracking map we’ve shared with you, but it is the easiest to read and packs the most information in. FluTracker allows you to view swine flu-related statistics on a global level or zoom right down to individual cities. The circular markers, a combination of yellow, orange and red, represent the type of cases: suspected and confirmed infections and suspected and confirmed fatalities.

New Adobe PDF flaw under attack; Patch coming Tuesday – Adobe has confirmed a critical, unpatched vulnerability in its PDF Reader/Acrobat software is being exploited by malicious attackers.

McAfee FOCUS 09: Anatomy of a Scareware Scam – McAfee peels back the skin of an infamous scareware company, exposing all the intricate inner workings from publicly available data.

Botnets Behind Most Modern Malware Infections – Command-and-control conduit in most malware makes infected machines bots,

Bahama Botnet Hurts Google, Too – While it’s easy to see how the recently discovered Bahama Botnet is cheating online advertisers out of free traffic and generating fraudulent fees for complicit parked domains and ad networks, it’s important to note that ad providers are being victimized as well.

Off Topic:

Researchers cure snoring with radiofrequency procedure – Researchers say snoring can be successfully treated using radiofrequency ablation, a minimally-invasive procedure that uses heat to shrink the tissue of the soft palate.

The biggest challenge in a one-person IT shop – What do you consider the biggest challenge in a small – or even one-person – IT shop, and how do you handle it?

First clown in space hosts show to save Earth’s water – Wearing a red clown nose, the Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil hosted an out-of-this-world performance event on Friday, saying he wanted to use his trip as a space tourist to highlight the scarcity of water on Earth.

Car that rides like a motorcycle – Incredible new vehicle can sway, swerve and sashay wildly from side to side.

Today’s Quote:

“History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools”.

- Ambrose Bierce

Today’s Free Downloads:

Google Chrome – Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the Web faster, safer, and easier. Use one box for everything–type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and Web pages. Thumbnails of your top sites let you access your favorite pages…

QuickBooks Simple Start Free Edition 2010 – QuickBooks Simple Start is easy-to-use, free accounting software designed to help you manage your small business better. Simple Start makes estimating, invoicing, accepting payments, and keeping track of your finances quick and easy.

Plax Network Suite – Plax Network Suite is an easy to use collection of network tools which give you full control over the online activity of your computer. The Windows Firewall button provides an instant on/off switch for Windows XP Firewall. Plax Network Suite offers the possibility to block all Internet connections by the flick of a button, block all inbound ping connections, display all open TCP/IP and UDP ports, and the mapping to the owning application.

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AntivirusPro 2010 – PandaLabs Takes a Look

Courtesy of Panda Security.

PandaLabs’ report this week focuses on two banker Trojans and a fake antivirus.

This week, Panda Security takes a look at AntivirusPro 2010. Once the user is infected with this malware a warning appears informing the user that the computer is infected.

Soon after, a false scan is run.

The scan results claim that the PC is full of malware, and frequent pop-ups are
displayed. This fake antivirus tries to get users to register and for what it
claims is an ‘antivirus service’.

Since this antivirus is a fake antivirus, users end up paying for a product that does not exist, as well as revealing their bank details to cyber-crooks.

Removal help for this nasty is further on in this article.

Trj/Nabload.DNU is a banker Trojan designed to download several Trojans that steal the bank details entered by users on their systems. When the file is run, an image is displayed on the screen, so users do not see the malware being downloaded.

While a video related to the image is displayed on the screen, the Trojan attempts to download the other banker malware from a URL.

Banker Trojan, Trj/SilentBanker.D, modifies users’ bank transfer details, so that cyber-crooks receive the transfer instead of the intended recipient.

When being run, it is deletes itself and it appears that there have been no modifications to the system. It does not display messages or infection warnings on the computer. Once the computer is infected, it connects to several Windows APIs and uses them to fulfill its designed purpose.

While the Trojan intercepts bank transfers and modifies the details, users are displayed a false Web page that resembles the original, with the details they have entered. On confirming the operation, users are unwittingly sending the money to the cyber-crook’s account.

More information about these and other malicious codes is available in the Panda Security Encyclopedia. You can also follow Panda Security’s online activity on its Twitter and PandaLabs blog.

AntivirusPro 2010 Removal:

If you have become infected by AntivirusPro 2010, or other scareware (rogue software), have your PC worked on by a certified computer technician, who will have the tools, and the competency, to determine if the infection can be removed without causing system damage. Computer technicians do not provide services at no cost, so be prepared for the costs involved.

If you feel you have the necessary skills, and you want to try your hand at removal, then by all means do so.

The following free resources can provide tools and the advice you will need to attempt removal.

Click here to download free SUPERAntiSpyware to remove AntiVirusPro 2010.

Malwarebytes, a very reliable anti-malware company, offers a free version of Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, a highly rated anti-malware application which is capable of removing many newer rogue applications.

411 Spyware – a site that specializes in malware removal. I highly recommend this site.

Bleeping Computer – a web site where help is available for many computer related problems, including the removal of rogue software. This is another site I highly recommend.

SmitFraudFix, available for download at Geekstogo is a free tool that is continuously updated to assist victims of rogue security applications.

What you can do to reduce the chances of infecting your system with rogue software.

Be careful in downloading freeware or shareware programs. Spyware is occasionally concealed in these programs. Download this type of program only through reputable web sites such as Download.com, or sites that you know to be safe.

Consider carefully the inherent risks attached to peer-to-peer (P2P), or file sharing applications.

Install an Internet Browser add-on that provides protection against questionable or unsafe websites. My personal favorite is Web of Trust, an Internet Explorer/FireFox add-on, that offers substantial protection against questionable or unsafe websites.

Do not click on unsolicited invitations to download software of any kind.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 9, 2009

Web of Trust extension comes to Chrome - In the newest sign that Chrome’s extensions are becoming practical to use, Web of Trust has released its add-on for Google’s browser.

PhotoSketch: better than sliced bread, Photoshop – This is quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever seen a computer do. What if you could draw some stick figures on a screen and somehow magically create a beautiful image montage? Well, it’s possible. A group of students in China have created PhotoSketch, a project that does exactly what I just described: it takes a rough, hand-drawn sketch, scours the web for photos that match, and runs them through an algorithm, stitching it all together. Watch this video presentation, you will not regret it.

WordPress blogs at risk from worm – A worm is circulating that can post malware and spam to some WordPress blogs using outdated versions of the blogging software, according to a post by Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress.

Windows 7 zero-day reported – A security researcher has said there is a zero-day vulnerability affecting Windows 7 and Vista. The flaw in Windows 7 could allow an attack which would cause a critical system error, or “Blue Screen of Death”, according to researcher Laurent Gaffie. Gaffie wrote in his blog that the flaw lies in a Server Message Block 2 (SMB2) driver.

Microsoft mulling 128-bit versions of Windows 8, Windows 9 – Microsoft is working on 128-bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 and Windows 9 kernels. Consequently, the company is also forming relationships with major partners, including Intel, AMD, HP, and IBM.

10 Important Linux Developments Everyone Should Know About – Much too much has happened with Linux in the last 10 years to do anything like a complete job of listing the important events and technological advances surrounding this operating system. But nevertheless, in celebration of our 10th birthday, the Linux zone team looks back and presents to you some major milestones.

Death to PDF: Google Adds Quick View to Search Results – PDFs, the file format often used for “official” documents and typically opened with the frustratingly slow Adobe Reader, are starting to get much more manageable, thanks to companies like Scribd and Docstoc, which make them embeddable, and Google, who has built its own web-based PDF viewer into Gmail and Google Docs.

Hackers Target Xbox Live – Network security issues are now popping up for game console owners.

Attackers Improving SEO to Push Rogue Security Tools – In an analysis of a rogue anti-spyware scam, AVG Technologies noted that just 24 hours after a news event, attackers had already gotten their malicious links into five of the top 10 Google search results. The incident highlights the challenges faced by search engines such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Bing.

There are lots of cybersecurity experts. Who do you trust? – Robert Cringely thinks cybersecurity experts are thin on the ground, so we’re all doomed. They’re not. You just have to understand the term “expert” properly. Because you don’t hire one expert, or 1,000.

Nvidia Halting Chipset Development – Nvidia has confirmed that the company has essentially placed its Nforce chipset line on hiatus, given the legal wrangling between itself and Intel.

Off Topic:

ACLU Says Extracting DNA From Suspects Unconstitutional – California’s law requiring the authorities to take a DNA sample from every person arrested on felony accusations was challenged in federal court as an unconstitutional privacy breach.

Cast Away: Five Amazing Stories of Messages in Bottles – When a message in a bottle is discovered on a beach or floating in the ocean, it often feels like something out of a fairy tale….Here are 5 stories of remarkable connections that these messages have brought about.

Astronomers capture spectacular meteor footage (w/ VIDEO) – Astronomers from The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada have released footage of a meteor that was approximately 100 times brighter than a full moon. The meteor lit up the skies of southern Ontario two weeks ago and Western astronomers are now hoping to enlist the help of local residents in recovering one or …….

20 Tattoos You Don’t Want To Get Especially If You’re A Guy – We’re not sure why guys get elaborate, over-the-top tattoos (like these 5 Crazy Ronald Regan Tattoos). We just know the people who get them have serious issues we don’t even want to know about (especially, if you got this Patrick Swayze tattoo).

Oops! Somali Pirates Fire on French Military Ship by Mistake – Somali pirates in two skiffs fired on a French navy vessel early Wednesday after apparently mistaking it for a commercial boat, the French military said. The French ship gave chase and captured five pirates.

Today’s Quote:

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young”.

- Henry Ford

Today’s Free Downloads:

PrimoPDF – PrimoPDF converts just about any file type to a PDF, using the print command from the source program the file was created in. In the latest version, the program comes with desktop icon that you can drag and drop files onto for quick conversion, as well as performance improvements and minor changes throughout the program.

IObit Security 360 – IObit Security 360 is an free malware & spyware removal utility that detects, removes the deepest infections, and protects your PC from various of potential spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers, bots, worms, and hijackers. With the unique “Dual-Core” engine and the heuristic malware detection, IObit Security 360 detects the most complex and deepest spyware and malware in a very fast and efficient way. IObit Security 360 has a real-time malware protection and frequent automatic updating for prevention of zero-day security threats. IObit Security 360 can work with your Antivirus for a superior PC security.

LimeWire – From its start as a post-Napster clone to its leading role as the quintessential Gnutella client, LimeWire is the highest-profile P2P application. Version 5 re-envisions LimeWire for a Web 2.0 world, with an emphasis on sharing with friends, square buttons with rounded corners, and overall a cleaner interface.

mIRC 6.35 – Internet Relay Chat is not as well-known as ICQ, even though it successfully combines chat and messaging without annoying ads. The IRC network is a virtual meeting place where people from all over the world can meet and talk. With mIRC, you can choose from an unlimited number of existing chat rooms based on personal interests, or you can create your own channels with family and friends.

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Webmail Phishing Attacks – The True Cost

MessageLabs points out in this timely report, the true cost of webmail phishing attacks, and the impact such attacks can have on the victims of this cyber-criminal activity.

Courtesy of MessageLabs:

In the wake of the news reports this week of the large-scale webmail phishing attacks, much of the coverage has surrounded the compromise of email accounts which, according to the numbers, affected a massive amount of webmail users.

However, what has been glossed over is the potential impact on the other aspects of the victims’ online lives. The bad guys likely now have more than just access to users’ email accounts, they have access to a host of other online services the victim uses.

“A user’s unique email address is often used to authenticate a number of web sites, including social networking sites and Instant Messaging on a public Instant Messaging (IM) network,” said Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Symantec. “If your email address has been compromised, not only should you change the password there, you should also change it on any other site that uses that email address as a log in ID.”

Once the bad guys have email account information and the will to take over a related social networking accounts, all they need to do is try the password reminder links from the login pages. They can then not only use your email to spam, they can also gain access to other personal information stored online.

Over the last year, MessageLabs Intelligence has tracked a number of phishing attacks using Instant Messaging whereby the bad guys collected real IM user account information and passwords and used them to send commercial messages to everyone on the user’s buddy list.

An invitation to view a funny video or embarrassing pictures by clicking on a link in an IM was the bait and the landing site would then ask the victim to log in with their IM user name and password. For public IM networks, the user name is often the same as the web-based email account.

Phishing isn’t the only way the bad guys can gain access to webmail accounts. MessageLabs Intelligence has been aware of an increase in the number of “brute-force” password breaking attempts, where dictionary attacks are used against online webmail accounts to break in, perhaps using POP3 or webmail to conduct the attacks.

Users with simple or weak passwords are the most vulnerable. On the website, an attacker will be asked to solve a CAPTCHA puzzle to prove they are a real person. CAPTCHAs can be easily bypassed using a variety of CAPTCHA-breaking tools.

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Probe Your PC’s Secrets With Free Belarc Advisor

Do you have a detailed profile of your computer system including hardware and installed software? What do you know about your computer’s motherboard, CPU and GPU, remaining drive space, or your operating system security hotfixes?

To effectively maintain your computer and proactively deal with problems that may occur, it is essential that you have as much information about your system as possible.

If you need help from a computer support group, from a tech support line, or from a computer knowledgeable friend, you will need to provide specific and accurate details of your computer. Without these details, it can be very difficult for even the most knowledgeable computer tech to be time efficient.

So it is important for you to create a detailed profile of your computer system before problems occur, and retain a printed copy of the report. Normally, creating such a profile can be very time intensive. But all is not lost!

Belarc Advisor is a free program that automatically generates a detailed audit report of the hardware and software on your computer. It records essential information such as, operating system and processor details, the amount of RAM installed, and drive specifications.

The report also includes a comprehensive list of the software installed on your system, as well as software license numbers and product keys. In addition, it lists the status of the Microsoft hotfixes on your system. If any hotfixes need reinstalling, you will be advised of this.

Critically important is the category in which your computer is given a security rating, based on the Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmark test which involves testing for: System Security Status, Virus Protection, and Microsoft Security Updates.

The results are displayed in a formatted HTML report. The report is clearly formatted for ease of understanding and divided into appropriate categories. Hyperlinks within the report allow you to quickly navigate to different parts of the document, find out more about a particular hotfix entry, or see where a listed software product is installed.

I have been using this program for 5+ years and find it invaluable for troubleshooting and diagnostics.

System Requirements: Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, 2000, NT 4, Me, 98, and 95. Both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows support. Note: I have not tested this on Win 7 x64.

Browser Requirements: Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla, and FireFox.

Download at: Download.com

Belarc Advisor is free for personal use only.

To read a review of another great free computer audit application WinAudit, checkout “What’s is really under the hood of that computer?” on fellow Blogger Rick Robinette’s site, What’s On My PC.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 8, 2009

Stolen Hotmail Passwords Show that Crooks like Webmail – Tips for staying secure after hotmail (and possibly gmail and yahoo) accounts were publicly exposed.

Crimeware: How it works – Michael Kassner speaks to Joe Stewart, a highly-regarded malware researcher with SecureWorks, to get more information on how crimeware works.

Google: It’s not me, it’s you – Ah Google. How I used to love your search functionality. You found so many little ways to complete me in the way that you provided me information. Alas, as with every fiery romance, ours must come to an end. I have found someone else.

Bankers Gone Bad: Financial Crisis Making The Threat Worse – Seventy percent of financial institutions in the past 12 months have had cases of insider fraud, new survey says.

New Trojan Evades Banks’ Anti-Fraud Systems – ‘URLZone’ calculates how much money to steal from a victim’s account without raising suspicion.

U.K. Account Takeover Attacks Increased 207 Percent Last Year, Report Says – Online banking fraud increases 132 percent as cybercriminals shift tactics

The Web Browser Turns 15: A Look Back – Here is a look back at 15 years of wars, lawsuits, and standards the Web browser has brought us.

Amazon Takes Kindle Global, Cuts Price in U.S. - The online retailer moves to keep pace with the increasing competition on the digital book market.

Off Topic:

Canadian Study Shows Air Pollution May Trigger Appendicitis – What? How? We all know that air pollution is a bad thing. Not good for your lungs, not good for your heart. Asthmatics, children and older folks are particularly at risk. But a new Canadian study claims that air pollution is also increasing the risk of appendicitis in adults. Even short-term exposure to air pollution could have an effect.

Brain Waves Surge Moments Before Death – A study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of “out of body” experiences reported by people who survive near-death ordeals.

Canadian Prostitutes Sue for Right to Open Bordellos – Three young Toronto women who describe themselves as feminist activists and “sex trade workers” on Tuesday launched a legal challenge of Canada’s prostitution laws.

6 things about games that aren’t true – The common misconceptions and nauseating half-truths that tarnish our lovely hobby.

Today’s Quote:

“The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid”.

- Art Spander

Today’s Free Downloads:

Belarc Advisor – This super-handy hardware/software enumeration utility will even list your installed software keys.

Secunia PSI – Identify program security leaks and batten down the hatches with this free software.

WizMouse – WizMouse has a single function–if you hover your mouse over an inactive window, and use the mouse scroll wheel, it will scroll that window while keeping it inactive. This can be a boon for anyone copying text manually from an inactive window to an active one, or who needs to see data in one window while reading or working in another. It even scrolls applications that don’t offer mousewheel support.

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Boost Your Anti-malware Resources With FreeFixer

I’m a big fan of programs that I like to call “system snoopers”. This type of application has the power to dig into areas of the operating system including drivers, registry startups, registry keys, running programs and processes, browser plug-ins, and home page settings, etc., searching for malware infections.

Experienced and advanced computer users are almost sure to be familiar with HijackThis, a very popular tool that does just that. But, if you are an experienced or advanced computer user, and you’re looking for a free program as an alternative to HijackThis, then FreeFixer is a free application that’s worth taking a look at.

The program operates as a detailed system analysis tool that can help you in the detection and removal of Hijackers, Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Worms, and other malware. It doesn’t offer live protection but instead, it examines your system, determines if it’s been infected, and then allows you to eradicate the malware.

FreeFixer setup is simple, following which you will be taken to the start scan screen which explains in clear language, what the program does and equally as important; what it does not do.

The following screen shots are from my test system:

On completion of the scan the results will be presented, broken down into categories, and you will then have the opportunity to remove entries that you consider unwanted, or malware.

The real benefit in running FreeFixer rather than HijackThis is; the option you have of following a “more info” link to FreeFixer’s database for information on a specific item. Available information includes, digital signature data, and other users’ experience with the specific item and more.

Known software and trusted Windows components are excluded from the scan, which reduces the workload substantially. You can now focus on the potential nasties.

As an added benefit, you can turn for advice to an active FreeFixer Group or online forum, where skilled users’ will analyze your submitted log file, and then guide you accordingly.

Recommendation: If you are an experienced or an advanced computer user and you’re looking for a program to strengthen your anti-malware resources, then FreeFixer is one that’s worth taking a look at.

System requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7

Download at: Download.com

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 7, 2009

Hotmail users: change your password NOW – Hotmail users are being urged to change their usernames and passwords after thousands of details were published online.

Gmail, Yahoo Mail affected by password leak – A leaked database of passwords and login information for Hotmail accounts also contains details of Gmail and Yahoo Mail users. Gmail and Yahoo Mail users have been warned to reset their passwords after it emerged that accounts from both webmail services have been compromised in a phishing scam.

Teens too open online: privacy watchdog – Canadians need to take more responsibility for internet privacy in an age where increasing openness is being exploited by online fraudsters, according to Canada’s privacy commissioner.

Lifehacker: Why Life Without Cable or Satellite May Be Easier than You Think – If you’re interested in dropping your overpriced monthly cable bill but aren’t sure how you’d survive without your TV favorites, the gadget gurus at Gizmodo turn an eye toward their pocketbooks and discover life without cable isn’t as hard as you’d think.

Most Popular New Versions of Old Favorites in Q3 2009 – Usually we look at the most popular downloads of a month, but sometimes it’s good to take a broader view. These new versions of old favorites made impressive debuts from midsummer through early fall 2009. Some are easy, some are expert-level. Almost all are security-oriented, and all but one are free (and even that one offers a free trial).

Facebook Reports Access Problems, Again – Some users have experienced difficulty logging into the site for several days, Facebook said. Affected users get an error message that says the site is undergoing maintenance.

Handy Tips for Window Media Center and More – Tweak Windows Media Center to save hard-drive space, make files open in the right programs, and force apps to launch full-screen.

Do Uninstallers Uninstall? – The uninstallers that come with Windows programs are, for the most part, notoriously sloppy. A typical application’s installer will sink its talons deep into Windows. Then the uninstaller clips those talons, leaving them in the operating system’s wounded flesh.

Fake anti-virus proclaims to be your Facebook friend – It is being reported by AVG that there is an attack in progress against Facebook again. Things have been quiet recently on the Facebook front with much of the attacks against social media focusing on Twitter. This time Roger points out that they have found a way to break the captcha’s of Facebook accounts and create a mass of new “friends” to try to join your social network.

Get Company of Heroes (PC) and other games for $5 each – If you’ve got five bucks to spare, you can grab one of the most popular PC wargames of all time. And you won’t have to wait long to start playing: The game downloads right to your PC.

Items to address with a PC tune-up – How often do you perform periodic maintenance on the PCs you support? My guess is that most answers will fall between once a year and never. Nonetheless, what maintenance steps do you perform? Here’s my list.

Off Topic:

Nobel Physics Winners Changed Our Lives – Like the Internet? Own a digital camera? If so, please take a moment to thank today’s three Nobel prizewinners for their discoveries.

FTC’s New Rules for Bloggers: A Quick Guide – Not clear what the FTC will require of bloggers and social network users? Here’s what you need to know.

Why we should teach programming to all students – Justin James believes that teaching programming to students at an early age provides them with skills that will serve them well in the job market.

Wild child girls explained – Study finds link between aggressive females and exposure to a common chemical.

Bragging about sex life lands man in jail for five years – The lawyer of a Saudi man who appeared to be bragging about his sex life in a TV talk show says his client has been sentenced to five years in jail over the frank comments.

Today’s Quote:

“If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t understand the technology”.

- Bruce Schneier

Today’s Free Downloads:

Commander – In the beginning, there was the Command Line. Then came all kinds of replacement programs. One of the best was Norton Commander. Thus we come to Commander, which is, basically, Norton Commander for Windows.

Omega CE Beta – Omega CE helps get rid of files from malware infections that might hide or protect themselves from normal deletion. The program doesn’t run from within Windows. Instead, you burn it to a CD and then boot the infected PC from that CD. Omega then sifts through all the files on the hard drive(s) and displays them in an Explorer-like interface. In the hands of an expert the tool could prove useful.

Sophos Free EncryptionProtect – Securely sending or storing data can be tricky if you don’t have a robust security infrastructure. We make encryption easy for you with Sophos Free Encryption.

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Secure Cam Motion Detection Surveillance Software – Free

We live in a hyper surveillance society. Walk down the street, visit your favorite shopping mall, drop in at your local convenience store, or withdraw cash from an ATM machine and (smile), you’re on camera.

The theory behind all this surveillance is crime control on the one hand, and as an aid in apprehending the perpetrators of crime, on the other hand. Despite the fact that I’m very leery of surveillance technology, I must admit, I can’t find fault with the legitimate use of surveillance technology to reduce, or prevent crime.

In my neighborhood, the only form of crime where we have seen an appreciable increase is Burglary. Apparently, this increase in Burglary is being driven by those addicted to drugs, since a successful break and enter provides the funds needed to feed the habit.

From a personal perspective I’m concerned with this increase – since electronic equipment seems to be a favorite target during a break and enter. Being a Techno geek, I suspect I have far more electronic equipment, and toys, than the average person, and this increases my risk of loss.

Given this higher than average risk factor, in the last year or so, I have increased my perimeter security, windows, doors, and so on, very substantially. To supplement this increase in physical security, I have added a number of Web Cams strategically located both inside, and out.

Since I’m conservative in my spending habits (I’m cheap!), I searched for and found, a more than adequate software solution to my next question – how do I drive these cameras? The software question was easily solved by Secure Cam an open source application that met all my needs.

The hardware solution was just as easy, since I had an old Pentium 4 (1.6 GHz, 60 GB HD, 384 Mb Ram, etc.), which has proven to be ideal for this purpose – driving the cameras and saving the captured images to the Hard Drive.

In case you’re wondering, this machine is well concealed, and the cameras are only activated when my residence is not occupied.

Setting up Secure Cam is a breeze since the interface is minimal. Simply launch the application, and from the main menu select your device, select the device format and then initialize the device.

You will then need to set the application options – click on the image in the Secure Cam window to bring up the options dialog box. Choose your options and you’re good to go.

Fast facts:

Automatically captures images when motion is detected

Adjustable motion detection trigger level

Supports up to 99 cameras

DVR card capable

Multiplexing capable

Capture Images when motion is detected, or continuous

Image sensitivity adjustment

Image Archiving (1,000s of images)

Dynamically expanding and contracting archive

Archive images from minutes, to years

Application viewer for image playback

Image playback at various speeds

Low processor and memory usage

Adjustable Jpeg Quality

Text Overlay

Timestamps

Image Rotating, & Flipping

If you’re looking for a no cost Web Cam surveillance solution, Secure Cam may be just what you have been searching for.

System requirements: Windows (all), DirectX 9 or greater, 600Mhz Pentium 3 with 128MB Memory, Web Cam or DVR PCI card

Download at: SnapFiles

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 6, 2009

MS Security Essentials test shows 98% detection rate for 545k malware samples - According to recent tests conducted by AV-Test.org aiming to measure the performance of Microsoft’s Security Essentials, the freeware application achieved 98% detection rate for 545k malware samples including viruses, bots, trojan horses, backdoors and Internet worms, also achieving 90.95% detection rate for 14,222 adware/spyware samples it was tested against.

Naked Emma Stone pictures iPhone warning – Emma Stone, star of new movie Zombieland, is being used as bait by cybercriminals in a naked picture scam. Security experts have warned surfers not to search for pictures of Zombieland actress Emma Stone naked.

Lifehacker: NirLauncher is the Ultimate Flash Drive Toolkit – Portable application NirLauncher bundles 100+ of the best NirSoft utilities into a single launcher window, and even allows you to add your own utilities to make a killer flash drive toolkit.

10 Must-Have Apps on Windows 7 Launch Day – Microsoft’s Windows 7 is coming soon and for many that means deciding what software to install to augment the experience. Everything from security software to fun, photo-editing tools should make that list.

Congress Weighs P2P File-Sharing Rules – The House Energy and Commerce Committee of the U.S. Congress last week passed passed the Informed P2P User Act , which is designed to make it safer for consumers to use peer-to-peer, or P2P, file-sharing software.

Record screencasts with open source Webinaria – Webinaria allows you to create either AVI or Flash videos of the activity on your PC screen. Jack Wallen shows you how it works.

Browser Toolbars, Plugins a Growing Attack Vector – Internet users are conditioned to accept downloads of toolbars and plugins on the promise of a better experience and easier access to resources. The recent PayChoice attack reveals how hackers can use these tools to steal data and compromise systems.

Off Topic:

Geothermal gives West a clean energy advantage – Those of us in the East marvel at the ambitions of California and other western states, when it comes to alternative energy. Do they care more or do they have a secret weapon? They have a secret weapon.

Can the x86 Just Keep Going? – Few technologies last 30 years, let alone become more dominant with each passing one, but the x86 architecture has done just that.

Why your kids and dog may live to 100 – Health care keeps getting better, and researchers are finding new ways of slowing aging, like blocking the action of a protein that controls food intake, allowing a calorie-restricted diet without pain.

10 public speaking traps and how to avoid them – You can sail past most problems that pop up during a presentation if you’re ready for them. These strategies will help you finesse common public speaking pitfalls.

Today’s Quote:

“Seeing ourselves as others see us would probably confirm our worst suspicions about them”.

- Franklin P. Adams

Today’s Free Downloads:

Astroburn – Astroburn (free for home users), is a fairly robust file burning program, with some useful features for those who regularly burn a lot of different data sets.

VLC – For several years, the free, third-party media player of choice for many video connoisseurs was the open-source VLC media player. It worked on multiple operating systems, it worked on a bare install of Windows without any special codecs, and it was light and fast. All that is still true. Now, VLC finally hits an important milestone: version 1.0.0 (given the James Bond-referencing nickname of Goldeneye), and with this version comes a pile of useful new features.

IObit Security 360 – IObit Security 360 is an free malware & spyware removal utility that detects, removes the deepest infections, and protects your PC from various of potential spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers, bots, worms, and hijackers. With the unique “Dual-Core” engine and the heuristic malware detection, IObit Security 360 detects the most complex and deepest spyware and malware in a very fast and efficient way.

Defraggler defrag hard disk utility – Defraggler has a number of features that allow users to tailor defragmentation decisions to best suit their needs and conditions.

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Optimize Win 7 and Vista Services With Vista Services Optimizer

One of the most popular articles on this site is – “Speedup Your PC – Turn Off Unnecessary Services in XP”. It’s no wonder really – reducing the number of running services can often turn a sluggish PC around.

There’s no magic to it. Running with fewer services, especially a service that you don’t use, or need, puts less strain on both the CPU and system memory.

Tweaking services however is not without its hazards. For example, if a particular service is disabled, any other service/services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start. Worse, adjusting a service setting incorrectly has the potential to leave a computer in an unbootable condition. I know – I’ve managed to do just that, a time or two, over the years.

Recently, a free application that promises to allow a user to tweak Windows services in a safe and easy way, caught my attention. Vista Services Optimizer, an open source Windows tweaking utility, which despite its name has been optimized to run in Windows 7, makes good on this promise.

The casual user with a few mouse clicks can easily optimize Windows services to increase performance and security, automatically. A more experienced user gets a little more leeway, and can manually tweak using a more in-depth feature list. In case your tweaking goes a step too far, recovery is just a mouse click away by simply using the built in Smart Rescue Center.

I don’t think it could be any easier to tweak Windows services than this. All the user needs to do is tick the appropriate check boxes, and Vista Services Optimizer takes care of the rest.

Fast facts:

System analysis highlights services that can be turned off

Automatic tune-up based on user’s system requirements

Restore function to restore to system defaults

Profile building

Automatic service state snapshots

Gaming mode

System requirements: Windows Vista with SP1 or higher (32-bit or 64-bit), Windows 7 Beta build 7000 or higher (32-bit or 64-bit), Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1

Download at: Download.com

For those who need a portable tweaker you’re in luck – a portable version is available. However, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1, must be resident on the host machine.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 5, 2009

Anti-Wi-Fi paint keeps your wireless signal to yourself – Don’t like the idea of your neighbors rudely snooping on the wireless signal you slaved to pay for from the lazy comfort of their living room? It’s not just about slowing down your connection; while they’re downloading Mad Men via bittorrent, you could be on the hook for their actions.

Spyware Sneaks Past Facebook Safeguard – Facebook’s CAPTCHA bot-catcher proves no match for a spyware attack

‘Free’ Win 7 Upgrades Have Fee – The free Windows 7 upgrades that Microsoft has promised buyers of new PCs powered by Vista are not always free, a consumer watchdog Web site says. “To me, whether it’s $12.99 or $17.03, the charges are all outrageous,” said Edgar Dworsky, the editor of Consumerworld.org and Mouseprint.org. “It’s just a single disc they’re sending, and with media mail rates, it costs just over a dollar to mail.”

MouseExtender Puts a Program Launcher Underneath Your Cursor – This terrific new freebie puts your favorite apps and folders right under your middle fingertip.

5 Top Operating Systems For Your Business – The choice a business owner makes in operating systems is integral, as their costs vary as enormously as their capabilities. An operating system is the behind-the-scenes warrior of your computer — it’s the host of the computer that sets the standards for all application programs and handles the details of the operation of the hardware. Here are the pros and cons of the top five operating systems.

Fight Back Against Spammers – Now you can fight back against their robots! All you have to do is link to this page so that whenever a spammer’s robot scans your page, it will be sucked into this one. These links will redirect email harvesting bots to trap sites that will feed it with an almost infinite loop of dynamically generated fake email addresses, mostly on known spammer owned domains! This will render their harvested lists practically useless and of no commercial value.

Off Topic:

10 Seriously Ridiculous Hacks – Use a rubber band to hold your phone on your head? Why not? But we’d caution against stringing an extension cord to the swimming pool to power your gadgets.

Holiday Tech Gadget Preview – It may still be October, but tech firms are gearing up for the holidays. Last week in New York, tech firms pulled the curtain back on their holiday parade of gear.

Actual (?) Questions About Canada – from an International Tourism Website.

The Best and Worst of YouTube in Four Minutes – Want to get caught up fast? Once you’ve learned how to work that PC, go ahead and Google (you’ll figure it out) a video called “100 Greatest Hits of YouYube in 4 Minutes.” With one minute for every year YouTube has been in existence, this video has it all: Obama Girl, the Dr. Pepper guys, Matt’s funny dance and an absurdly low-flying 747.

Today’s Quote:

“The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand”.

- Lewis Thomas

Today’s Free Downloads:

Vista Services Optimizer Updates to Support Windows 7 Tweaking – If you liked the ease of use and wizard-driven tweaking found in Vista Services Optimizer and miss it now that you’ve upgraded to Windows 7, you’ll definitely want to check out the new Windows 7-friendly version.

Partition Wizard Home Edition – Partition Wizard Home Edition creates, deletes, moves, resizes, and copies with no fuss–or error messages. In my tests it also recreated a master boot record, wiped a disk, and even searched for, found, and recovered a deleted partition with nary a failure.

FreeFixer – If you suspect your PC has been invaded by malware, FreeFixer can help you find it. It shows you a wealth of information about what’s running on your PC. FreeFixer can also reverse some malicious system changes put in place by some malware. In knowledgeable hands it can help get rid of a malware infection.

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The Only Anti-Malware Strategy That Works

I just finished setting up a new computer system for a friend; an average user, and as I was tinkering with the system, one though kept bouncing around in my head. “What do I need to do to keep her protected on the Internet?”

I started with the usual things of course, including installing the following security applications.

PC Tools Firewall – PC Tools Firewall is definitely worth considering as a new Firewall installation, or as a replacement for a current Firewall that is not meeting expectations.

SUPERAntiSpyware Professional Edition – Thanks to Mike Duncan of SUPERAntiSpyware, I had a spare lifetime license.

Avira AntiVir Personal – Offers on demand scans for viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers and other malicious programs. As well you can repair, delete, block, rename and quarantine programs, or files.

Firefox – I then installed the most effective security add-ons, including NoScript, KeyScrambler, Adblock Plus and BetterPrivacy.

WOT – Web of Trust, a browser add-on which offers Internet users active preventive protection against Web-based attacks, online scams, identify theft, and unreliable shopping sites.

Winpatrol – This program uses a simple yet effective method of fighting all kinds of malicious programs.

GesWall – An isolator which dynamically isolates Internet applications including Web Browsers, Chat Clients, Email Clients, and so on.

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware – A simple, intuitive, and easy to use interface, makes Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware straightforward to setup, customize and run, for both less experienced and expert users alike. This application was installed as a secondary on demand scanner.

So what could go wrong with this kind of armor against the pack of jackal-like cyber-criminals who prowl the Internet? The short answer is – plenty.

She still faces substantial risks while surfing the Internet regardless of the antispyware, antivirus, and the other Internet security applications I installed.

Malware evolves so rapidly today, that staying ahead of the curve has proven to be all but impossible for security software developers, despite their best efforts.

While it may be true that reputable Anti-malware software is often capable of detecting harmful and malicious attempts to compromise a computer, this is not always the case. Anti-malware programs that rely on a definition database (most anti-malware programs), can often be behind the curve in recognizing the newest threats.

You might be wondering just how many new malware threats circulate on the Internet – and here’s one answer. Over the last three months alone, PandaLabs has recorded five million new strains of malware.

On the face of it, it may appear that this huge number of new malware strains presents an insurmountable problem. But malware itself is only part of the problem.

The method used to deliver the malware – social engineering – that’s the most significant problem currently, for an average user. Social engineering, which relies on, and exploits our natural curiosity, is a sure winner for the bad guys.

Cyber-criminals are increasingly relying on this aspect of social engineering to create an opportunity designed to drop malicious code, including rootkits, password stealers, Trojan horses, and spam bots on our computers.

So the problem I found myself having to deal with was “If all these security applications I installed won’t offer her absolute protection against cyber-criminals, what, or who will?” The only plausible answer was – she must take on this responsibility herself. The inescapable fact is – she must become her own best protection. In my experience it’s the only strategy that works.

My friend, from a physiological perspective, had a need to believe, and desperately wanted to be able to trust, that the installed security applications would totally protect her on the Internet.

She, like the rest of us, needed to become convinced that a mild case of paranoia when using the Internet, was in her own best interest. Being paranoid, suspicious, and untrusting while surfing the web, might not make her invulnerable to malware infections or worse, but it will certainly reduce her odds enormously.

It took considerable effort to finally convince her that mild paranoia would play an important role in preventing her from becoming a victim of cyber criminals.

Particularly, overcoming the instinctive human response (and we all have it), to just “click” while surfing the Internet. That instinctive response, if she continued, would pose one of the biggest risks to her online safety and security.

Security experts argue (including me), that a significant number of malware infections could be avoided if users stopped “just clicking haphazardly” or opening the types of files that are clearly dangerous.

At the end of the day I finally managed to get her agreement that she would not engage in any of the following unsafe surfing practices.

Downloading files and software through file-sharing applications such as BitTorrent, eDonkey, KaZaA and other such programs.

Clicking links in instant messaging (IM) that have no context or are composed of only general text.

Downloading executable software from web sites without ensuring that the site is reputable.

Using an unsecured USB stick on public computers, or other computers that are used by more than one person.

Opening email attachments from unknown people.

Opening email attachments without first scanning them for viruses.

Opening email attachments that end in a file extension of .exe, .vbs, or .lnk.

Regular readers of this site are very familiar with the following recommended security strategy to protect their computer system, their money and their identity:

Don’t open unknown email attachments

Don’t run programs of unknown origin

Disable hidden filename extensions

Keep all applications (including your operating system) patched

Turn off your computer or disconnect from the network when not in use

Disable Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX if possible

Disable scripting features in email programs

Make regular backups of critical data

Make a boot disk in case your computer is damaged or compromised

Turn off file and printer sharing on the computer

Install a personal firewall on the computer

Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software and ensure it is configured to automatically update when you are connected to the Internet

Ensure the anti-virus software scans all e-mail attachments

Be proactive when it comes to your computer’s security; make sure you have adequate software based protection to reduce the chances that your machine will become infected. Most of all, understand that you are your own best protection.

If you are unsure if you have adequate software based protection on your computer, then check out “The 35 Best Free Applications – Tried, Tested and Reliable! ”, on this site, and download free security software that is appropriate for your personal circumstances.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 4, 2009

FBI issues Facebook friend warning – The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned surfers to be on their guard when using social networks.

Social Networks Fight Back – How major social networks MySpace and Facebook are building up security — and where their weakest links remain.

Lifehacker: Top 10 Web Collaboration Tools (That Aren’t Google Wave) – You’ve probably heard about a hard-to-get, hugely new service called Google Wave. Lest ye forget, there are plenty of web-based collaboration tools that don’t require learning a new way of speaking. Here are a few of our (mostly free) favorites.

Video: Energy Sector in Danger of Cyberattack – A former Department of Homeland Security official is warning that the nation’s energy grid could be opening itself up to crippling cyberattacks.

Wi-Fi signals used to see through walls – The researchers say that the variation of radio signals in a wireless network can reveal the movements of people behind closed doors or even a wall.

10 reasons why Windows XP will be around a while – Windows XP continues to demonstrate formidable staying power. Here are some reasons why many organizations want to hang onto it.

Bing Ads Warn About Online Scams – If you’re looking for information on how to fix your credit score through Microsoft’s search engine Bing, you might get warned that many of the links you’ll encounter are, in fact, scams.

Off Topic:

Half of women would ban games consoles – A study has found that many women would ban their partner from having a games console if they had the chance.

11 Things Wal-Mart Has Banned - Retail giant Wal-Mart is the world’s largest public company, and whether or not you’re a fan of shopping at the House that Sam Walton Built, you’ve got to admit that the store stocks just about everything. But not quite, though. There are a number of things that Wal-Mart has banned from its stores at some point. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

7 Secrets Only Two Living People Know (For Some Reason) – What do you suppose are the most well-kept secrets in the world? The launch codes for the American nuclear arsenal? The location of Jimmy Hoffa’s bones? Not even close. Below are secrets that only two people on planet Earth know. Sometimes they have very good reasons to keep these secrets so fiercely. Other times, not so much.

Today’s Quote:

“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain”.

- Mark Twain

Today’s Free Downloads:

YouTube Downloader – This simple freeware application works pretty well, given how basic the interface is. It has two main features: to download FLV files from YouTube, and to convert them to most major formats. If there’s a YouTube URL in your clipboard, it will automatically paste it for you when you click on the dialog box.

PhotoScape – Add another name to the roster of feature-rich freeware image editors: PhotoScape. Although it eats and leaks about as much memory as Firefox, this editor is perfect for those making the jump between JPEG and am-pro dSLR work.

Glary Utilities – This powerful application offers extensive utilities to improve your system’s performance and protect your privacy. Glary Utilities’ well-organized interface allows users to easily choose from several tools. It cleans unwanted junk files and removes invalid and broken shortcuts, freeing up valuable disk space.

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5 Million New Threats in Three Months – PandaLabs’ Quarterly Report

Courtesy of Panda Security.

PandaLabs’ Quarterly Report – Record-breaking quarter for hackers.

PandaLabs has released its quarterly report detailing cyber-threat activity from July to September. The full report can be downloaded from Panda.

The major story this quarter is that hackers have broken all records when it comes to creating new threats: Over the last three months, PandaLabs has recorded five million new strains of malware. Most of these were banker Trojans, although adware and spyware have also increased.

“We are currently receiving some 50,000 new examples of malware everyday, this compares to 37,000 just a few months ago. There is no reason to believe that the situation will improve in the coming months,” explains Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs.

In terms of the number of computers infected, there has been a 15% rise compared to the previous quarter. In more than 37% of cases, the culprits were Trojans, while adware was responsible for 18.68% of all infections. This category in particular has been expanding largely due to the major proliferation of fake antivirus programs, or rogueware.

This report also notes the trends analyzed over the last quarter. PandaLabs has detected a major growth in the distribution of malware through spam, social networks and search engine optimization techniques, which draw users to spoof Web pages from which malware is downloaded.

These methods for propagating malware often use social engineering, exploiting a range of current issues such as swine flu, Independence Day, forest fires or speeches of Barack Obama.

More information about these and other malicious codes is available in the Panda Security Encyclopedia. You can also follow Panda Security’s online activity on its Twitter and PandaLabs blog.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 3, 2009

Review: Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera – The Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera marries a 5-megapixel camera to a printer, so you can reasonably think of it as either a camera that prints 2- by 3-inch photos or a photo printer that takes pictures. Either way, it’s fun to use.

Digital Cameras Service & Reliability Survey 2009 – Digital cameras are one of the most consistent areas of our survey, with the same leaders among PCMag readers rising to the top year after year. 2009 once again is lead by Nikon and Canon, both with a significantly better than average overall score of 8.6 out of 10.

Microsoft to Launch Windows 7 Compatibility Site – On Thursday, Microsoft said it will launch a Windows 7 compatibility Web site in a bid to help consumers determine which of their products will be supported under the new operating system.

Lifehacker: TinEye Adds Reverse Image Lookup to Firefox – Last year we introduced you to TinEye, an image-based search engine that helps you find other instances of the image in question across the web. TinEye is now available as a Firefox plugin, making it much easier to use.

Windows 7 XP Mode Hits RTM Status – Microsoft on Thursday unveiled the release to manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 7 XP Mode.

Fake PayChoice e-mails deliver malware – Payroll processor PayChoice said Thursday it is investigating a breach in which customers received targeted e-mails purporting to be from the company but were designed to trick people into downloading malware.

Is Ubuntu becoming the generic Linux distro? – Has anyone else noticed an increasing number of Linux newbies who seem to think that Ubuntu is Linux and Linux is Ubuntu?

Small Botnets Cause Big Security Problems for Enterprises – Research from Damballa shows the biggest botnets are not always the most threatening when it comes to swiping corporate data. In a study of more than 600 active botnets, security researchers discovered that the smaller networks were often used in highly targeted, more dangerous attacks, Damballa says.

Password-Stealing Malware Spikes – McAfee’s recent report on malware has staggering numbers that are simply hard to believe, yet because I’ve been battling daily the very bots, Trojans, and scareware they researchers are talking about, I can’t help but agree.

Off Topic:

UK Serves Court Order Via Twitter – Britain’s High Court ordered its first injunction via Twitter on Thursday, saying the social website and micro-blogging service was the best way to reach an anonymous Tweeter who had been impersonating someone.

Scientists develop nasal spray that boosts memory – German scientists have developed a new nasal spray that promises to improve memory.

Meet ‘Ardi,’ the hottest fossil on the international scene – Scientists in the U.S. and Ethiopia have unveiled fossils from a 4.4 million year old human ancestor. Her name: Ardi. The revelation: The early ancestors to humans were more modern than today’s apes and chimps. Ardi represents a middle ground in human evolution and bumps “Lucy,” the fabled 3.2 million year old fossil, out of science’s limelight.

Today’s Quote:

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing”.

- William James

Today’s Free Downloads:

Download Accelerator Plus – Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) 9.3 is the world’s most popular download manager with over 180 million installs worldwide. DAP accelerates your download speed so you can get all your favorite files, applications, and videos as fast as possible. Additionally, DAP features powerful privacy, security, and file management tools letting you download with confidence and flexibility.

Fresh HTML 3.32 – FreshHTML is a software to create and edit pages for the Web. FreshHTML's WYSIWYG interface makes editing HTML pages as easy as using your favorite word processor.

SqueezeBox Server 7.4 (Mac) – Logitech introduces SqueezeCenter 7.0, powerful and free Open Source software. Not only will it power any Squeezebox or Transporter, but also any software MP3 player on your network.

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Alpha Antivirus – PandaLabs Takes a Look

Courtesy of Panda Security.

PandaLabs’ report this week focuses on a worm, a fake antivirus, a Trojan and a traditional virus.

The new fake antivirus we are looking at this week is called Alpha Antivirus. Like many of its kind, it tries to fool users by displaying fake infections, false remote connections, or non-existent vulnerabilities.

It then encourages users to buy a fake security suite. Since this antivirus is a
fake antivirus, users end up paying for a product that does not exist, as well as revealing their bank details to cyber-crooks.

Removal help for this nasty is further on in this article.

JokR.A is a script worm which leaves a visible indication of infection for users to see. In order to spread, this malware copies itself under the name Th3_jOkEr.vbs together with the autorun.inf file (hidden) to all drives and the Windows folder.

This way, it runs whenever users access these drives. It also copies itself to removable drives to increase its chances of propagation. This malware makes a series of entries in the registry, to ensure it runs on every system start-up,
displaying the following warning: “Thanks for your participation”, “My
virus is now on your computer, so thank you for your the participation
with your friends !)”.

It also inserts the following text in the Internet Explorer header: “Hacked By Yassine [Th3_jOkEr] …:::… Fuck You …:::…” It’s difficult to see in the following image, but the IE header has been changed.

Finally, we want to mention a Trojan and a virus associated with an email with the subject Convocatoria en la Audiencia (Summons to the Central Criminal Court). This message has an attached file which looks like a pdf file, but in reality it has the “scr” extension.

On opening the file which supposedly contains the summons, users are taken to the official website of the Spanish National Police, while another connection is made to a page from where it downloads and installs the Banker.LYI Trojan and
the Induc.A virus.

Banker.LYI is a banker Trojan that targets a specific Spanish bank. This Trojan steals the bank details entered by users, and uses the Outlook address book to redistribute the same message among all the infected user’s contacts.

Induc.A is a virus written in Delphi. The first thing the virus does is search for versions of the Borland Delphi compiler (4,5,6 or 7) installed on the computer. If it finds a version, the virus inserts a code to infect all the files compiled with these versions.

More information about these and other malicious codes is available in the Panda Security Encyclopedia. You can also follow Panda Security’s online activity on its Twitter and PandaLabs blog.

Alpha Antivirus Removal:

If you have become infected by Alpha Antivirus, or other scareware (rogue software), have your PC worked on by a certified computer technician, who will have the tools, and the competency, to determine if the infection can be removed without causing system damage. Computer technicians do not provide services at no cost, so be prepared for the costs involved.

If you feel you have the necessary skills, and you want to try your hand at removal, then by all means do so.

The following free resources can provide tools and the advice you will need to attempt removal.

Malwarebytes, a very reliable anti-malware company, offers a free version of Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, a highly rated anti-malware application which is capable of removing many newer rogue applications.

411 Spyware – a site that specializes in malware removal. I highly recommend this site.

Bleeping Computer – a web site where help is available for many computer related problems, including the removal of rogue software. This is another site I highly recommend.

SmitFraudFix, available for download at Geekstogo is a free tool that is continuously updated to assist victims of rogue security applications.

What you can do to reduce the chances of infecting your system with rogue software.

Be careful in downloading freeware or shareware programs. Spyware is occasionally concealed in these programs. Download this type of program only through reputable web sites such as Download.com, or sites that you know to be safe.

Consider carefully the inherent risks attached to peer-to-peer (P2P), or file sharing applications.

Install an Internet Browser add-on that provides protection against questionable or unsafe websites. My personal favorite is Web of Trust, an Internet Explorer/FireFox add-on, that offers substantial protection against questionable or unsafe websites.

Do not click on unsolicited invitations to download software of any kind.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 2, 2009

Lifehacker: First Look at Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta – The beta release of Karmic Koala, the next version of Ubuntu Linux, just arrived on the net. Wondering what’s new inside the open-source operating system? We took a tour and brought back these screenshots.

10 ways to detect computer malware – In the ongoing war against malware threats, you need tools that will baseline your system, detect vulnerabilities, and remove existing malware.

10 pieces of hardware you should replace rather than repair – It might be cheaper to repair a failed component in the short term, but replacement may offer longer-term benefits. See which ones you’re better off replacing.

Here’s How: Use Facebook and Twitter Safely – Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks have quickly become an integral part of the online culture, and with them comes a whole new array of potential security threats. I’ll identify some of the key dangers of social networking and offer a few easy steps that you can take to stay safe online.

Scareware Sellers Poison ‘iPhone MMS’ Search Results – Criminals have poisoned major search engines for terms related to the new MMS capability of Apple’s iPhone, and are using the results to steer users to fake Windows security software downloads, a researcher said today.

Microsoft Keeps Pirates Away From Security Essentials – Microsoft will block users running counterfeit copies of Windows from installing the free Security Essentials antivirus software, the head of the company’s anti-piracy group said yesterday.

Aussie power grid threatened by virus – Australian power utility Integral Energy has been infected by a virus which affected executable Windows files across its fleet of desktops, but the company says the power grid is safe.

Build It: A Core i7 Desktop – What do you do when you get your hands on Intel’s latest, most powerful desktop processor? If you’re us, you build an edgy, powerful yet still affordable system around it. We walk you through the process.

Spear Phishers Go Casting in Google Wave – Google’s new communication and collaboration platform — which is limited to just 100,000 beta users — is generating so much interest that hackers and spear phishers are setting up rogue sites that lure users with the promise of access credentials.

Off Topic:

Is death on Mars a fair trade-off to get life on Mars? – Dr. Lawrence Krauss proposes that we save money on Mars exploration by sending astronauts to the red planet on a one-way ticket instead of round-trip.

Texting and Driving Contributed to 6K Deaths in 2008 – Distracted drivers – including those sending and reading text messages from behind the wheel – caused the deaths of nearly 6,000 people in 2008, according to Wednesday data from the Department of Transportation.

Oldest hominid skeleton found, pushes back history of humankind a million years – The story of humankind is reaching back another million years with the discovery of “Ardi,” a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia.

Today’s Quote:

“Sanity is a madness put to good use”.

- George Santayana

Today’s Free Downloads:

FeedDemon 3.0 – The easy-to-use interface makes FeedDemon 3.0 a snap to stay informed with the latest news and information. Customize the way feeds are organized and displayed and set up custom news watches based on keywords.

Evernote 3.5 beta – Use Evernote to jot notes, create to-do lists, clip entire Web pages, manage passwords, and record audio. Everything added is automatically synchronized across platforms and devices and made searchable.

The 11 Best Free Photo Editing Programs – These 11 made the list because they all brought something extra to the table, be it superior functionality, ease of use, or strong customer support.

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Microsoft Security Essentials – Is it Worth Installing?

I get my dose of daily humor by reading certain other tech writers and reviewers, and yes, I know it sounds somewhat sacrilegious. But there you have it.

The ones that make me laugh the loudest, are those who will never admit that Microsoft EVER does anything right. The ones I like to call – the Microsoft haters and baiters. The sense of arrogance they display is truly mind numbing. People who couldn’t write a line of code on a bet, are operating system experts!

Equally as funny, at least to me, are the so called security experts who run a security application in a one time 30 minute test, and then pontificate as to the strengths and weaknesses of that particular application. As if real world conditions have no place in a review!

A case in point is the latest security application, Microsoft Security Essentials, just released by Microsoft as a freebie; a free replacement application for the late, and unlamented, Windows Live OneCare. Since it’s Microsoft, and for all the usual silly reasons, the reviews of Microsoft Security Essentials, by well known reviewers, are all over the place.

I’ve been running Security Essentials as a beta tester for months on my Win 7 machine, backed up by my usual, on demand, security applications, including Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware and I’ll state, without any hesitation, I’m impressed.

I contrast my own experience, the experiences of other beta testers, known to me, as well as the experiences of beta testers I read in online forums, which have been overwhelmingly positive, with these shoddy reviews which in some cases contain incorrect information. Information, which would not have been included, if the reviewer had actually tested Security Essentials under real world conditions, or for more than 30 minutes.

In my view these nonsense reviews, and the dissing of Microsoft, is not unlike the unflattering reviews that surrounded Vista on its release. Frankly, I have yet to meet an average user, running Vista, who is dissatisfied with Vista as an operating system. Go figure!

Her are the Microsoft Security Essentials facts, as I see them:

Easy to set up and run, particularly for new users.

The interface is positively simple offering Quick Scan, Full Scan, or Custom Scan.

Scans all drives including removable drives, and creates a system restore point

Full real time protection against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

The Dynamic Signature Service (DSS), a technology that helps ensure users are protected by the most current virus definitions available, without having to wait for the next scheduled download, is a major positive step for the average user.

Using DSS, Security Essentials validates suspicious files in near real time – a huge advantage for average users.

Actions from unknown sources such as unexpected network connections, attempts to modify privileged parts of the system or the downloading of known malware, all trigger requests for updates from DSS – another major advantage for the average user.

Runs unobtrusively in the background with an easy to understand warning system. Green – you’re good to go. Yellow – caution. Red – action required.

Very lightweight in terms of system resource usage – as opposed to some security applications that are well known resource hogs.

Malware identification and removal, in my experience, has been much better than average in real time extended testing, and not just in a 30 minute wonder test!

Quick scans are very fast, but full scans are slightly slower than average. However, if I’m infected, fast or slow is not a personal consideration – detection and removal of malware is.

Conclusion: Microsoft Security Essentials is a no cost viable alternative to overhyped and overpriced more familiar security applications.

System requirements: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 7

Download at: Microsoft

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 1, 2009

FCC: Broadband Up to 50% Slower Than Claimed – If you run around bragging about your cable or fiber broadband speeds, you might just stop after you read this report. According to the FCC, we’re not getting all that we pay for. This is not good. Read the story for more amazing findings.

Tsunami news used to hide rogueware – Cybercriminals are using news reports about the deadly tsunamis that have struck in the Pacific Ocean.

A Networking Primer: What’s a MAC Address? – When you think about networking, IP addresses are probably the first things that come to mind. But there’s another type of network address called a MAC address that actually forms the foundation upon which IP address communication is built, at least where local area networks are concerned.

New Trojan Evades Banks’ Anti-Fraud Systems - ‘URLZone’ calculates how much money to steal from a victim’s account without raising suspicion – A next-generation Trojan recently discovered pilfering online bank accounts around the world kicks it up a notch by avoiding any behavior that would trigger a fraud alert and forging the victim’s bank statement to cover its tracks.

Five Reasons Why You Need a Wireless Router – I know that there are still some people out there who plug their broadband connection right into their PC. This is, of course, a mistake. There are also others who live with the wired-only modem their broadband provider gave them. This is also a mistake. Here are five ways you can improve your online experience with one single piece of hardware.

New botnet hides commands as JPEG images – Security researchers have stumbled on a new botnet that uses an interesting technique to mask its nefarious intentions. The Monkif/DIKhora botnet, which is pushing out Trojan downloaders to infected machines, is encoding the instructions to appear as if the command-and-control server is returning a JPEG image file, according to SecureWorks researcher Jason Milletary.

10 things you should do to a new PC before surfing the Web – A Microsoft Windows PC that has not been updated for security vulnerabilities will be compromised by some from of malware within minutes of connecting to the Internet. Take steps to protect yourself before you start Web surfing.

Windows SMB2 exploit now public; Expect in-the-wild attacks soon – Fully functional exploit code for the (still unpatched) Windows SMB v2 vulnerability has been released to the public domain via the freely available Metasploit point-and-click attack tool, raising the likelihood for remote in-the-wild code execution attacks.

Off Topic:

How Twitter may influence your next hiring decision – The supply and demand of the job market tilts in one direction or another. In tough times, individuals are scrambling to demonstrate their value to employers. In flush times, employers are scrambling to attract talent. Social media may help smooth out these extremes.

A netbook story or the failure of computers in education – One reason I’m a writer is because I can’t write. It’s called dysgraphia. My parents dealt with it by getting me a typewriter. Flash forward 35 years. My son is dysgraphic. But there are no typewriters.

Britain asks Schwarzenegger to close prostitute web site – A British government minister asked California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday to shut down a U.S. website that allows men to rate prostitutes, including many working in London.

Today’s Quote:

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”

- G.K. Chesterton

Today’s Free Downloads:

MP3 Quality Modifier – MP3 Quality Modifier does one thing–change the bit rate of your MP3 file–and it does it quickly, well, and en masse. It’s the en masse part that makes this program very handy. Reducing the bit rate of files also reduces their size, so you can fit more files in the same amount of space.

USBDriveFresher – A lot of software, including Windows, writes temporary housekeeping or index files to your drives. A prime example is the thumbnail file Windows creates for images when you display them as such. This file can actually grow quite large. With today’s vast hard drives, the file system flotsam on your PC hardly matters, but your USB flash drive often doesn’t have space to waste on such temporary files. USBDriveFresher automatically deletes these files so you can maintain the maximum amount of free space on your thumb drive.

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PandaLabs Says The U.S. Is Not #1 – in PC Infections

The U.S. likes to be number one in everything – it’s just the American way. But, according to PandaLabs, the U.S. is going to have to settle for 9^th place overall when it comes to malware infected computers. This is one area however, where not being number one is definitely better.

But that’s no reason to be complacent. PandaLabs, Panda Security’s malware analysis and detection laboratory, just revealed that it has detected a 15 percent increase in the total number of malware-infected computers in September, in comparison to the previous month of August.

According to data gathered from users that scanned and disinfected their computers with the free Panda ActiveScan online antivirus, the average infection ratio rose to 59 percent, the highest rate this year.

In comparison to the infection rates of 29 countries, the U.S. ranks ninth with an infection ratio of 58.25 percent, just below the worldwide average. Taiwan has the most infected PCs, with a 69.10 percent corruption, followed by Russia and China at 67.99 percent and 61.97 percent, respectively. The country with the least infections is Norway at 39.60 percent.

According to Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, “There is a false sense of security, as users perceive there to be no real danger at the moment. When their computers get infected, they rarely notice any symptoms.”

Panda’s study revealed that U.S. computers are infected by the most dangerous malware strains: Trojans, followed by adware, worms and viruses.

“This is a clear sign that hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated,” explains Corrons. “Cybercriminals have found news ways to spread their creations, frequently exploiting the latest news stories to launch attacks through social networks, videos, and email. The huge amount of Trojans in circulation is due to the spectacular increase in the number of banker Trojans aimed at stealing user data.”

More information is available in the Panda Security Encyclopedia. You can also follow Panda Security’s online activity on its Twitter and PandaLabs blog.

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150 BILLION Daily Spams – Who’s Responsible?

Symantec’s latest MessageLabs Intelligence Report – unveiled today – describes in detail who’s responsible for such unprecedented levels of spam.

Over 150 BILLION unsolicited e-mail messages are being distributed by compromised computers every day, which means that botnets are responsible for approximately 88 percent of all spam out there today.

Recent closures of rogue Internet Service Providers McColo, PriceWert and Real Host have significantly hurt the two biggest botnets of 2009: Cutwail and Srizbi, which at their peak where each responsible for 45.6 percent and 50 percent of all global spam, respectively. Since then, Cutwail has been bumped to the third most powerful botnet and Srizbi has disappeared.

Here’s a look at how some of the newest botnets stack up:

Grum – the most active botnet, responsible for over 23 percent of global spam. Since June, Grum has increased its output per bot massively, pushing it to the top of the current “worst offenders”.

Bobax – has overtaken Cutwail as a top botnet, and is responsible for 15.7 percent of spam. Previously one of the smaller, less active botnets, Bobax has now quadrupled in size and its output per bot per minute is now the highest MessageLabs has ever seen.

Rustock – the largest botnet of all, with an estimated 1.3 to 1.9 million compromised computers in its control. Rustock has roughly doubled in size since June, but doesn’t have a high output. What sets this botnet apart from the rest is its highly automated cycle of spamming activity: spam from this botnet accelerates from 3am EST, peaks around 7am EST and dies down by 7pm EST.

Mega D – has been losing bots quite rapidly. It is now only one tenth the size it was in June. However, it’s now working its bots harder than ever, 2nd only to the output of Bobax in spam per bot per minute!

Maazben – meet the newest botnet, and one to watch in the future. Currently focused on sending out casino-spam, Maazben first appeared in May and has been growing the number of bots rapidly in recent weeks while keeping its output low.

What else can we expect from these powerful machines and how can businesses safeguard against their threats? You can find additional information on this and other online threats here.

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – September 30, 2009

Can You Hear Me Now? iPod Volume Restrictions On The Way – iPods in Europe are about to get a lot more quiet? Regulators have released a new set of standards governing how loud portable music players can go, and that means the default max volume is going take a big dip from where it currently sits.

AV-Comparatives picks 7 anti-malware winners – AV-Comparatives’ August 2009 report has been released. There are two unsurprising winners and one amusing one.

Moore’s Law: no end in sight for processing power doubling – Intel CTO says Moore’s Law, in which processing capabilities double every two years — will be in force for many decades to come.

This Week’s Top 10 Spyware Threats (The Threat Level remains at Elevated) – Some things to look out for this week are the following. There are a couple of spam campaigns: a Zeus Trojan in spam campaign under guise of a notice from the IRS. Subject line: “Notice of Underreported Income.” And a Facebook worm hijacks wall posts. It arrives as a message containing a malicious link with text: “lmao! I can’t stop laughing at you in this pic when did you do this?” Watch out for these!

Lifehacker: Microsoft Security Essentials Free Antivirus App Leaves Beta – We took a first look at Microsoft Security Essentials, the free antivirus application from Microsoft, back in June, but today Microsoft Security Essentials has left beta and is ready for your PC.

Stop Windows from Rebooting After Automatic Updates – Automated system updates: good. Automated rebooting to apply those updates: bad. Very, very bad. Here’s how to stop it from happening.

IT Security: Maxims for the ages – Steve Gibson in his latest Security Now podcast mentions one person’s quest to enlighten the rest of us about managing security. To me, his words ring true.

Can you upgrade an old XP PC to Windows 7? Should you? – How old is too old? I had a chance to think about this question twice over the weekend. Once while pondering my fifty-something birthday (as of today, I am the same age as Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons combined), and the other while deciding whether to upgrade my friend Lisa’s four-year-old Sony notebook to Windows 7.

Off Topic:

Evolution of Microsoft Windows: 1985 – 2009 – It all began in Plaza Hotel, New York City on the 10th of November 1983. Two Microsoft founders Paul Allen and Bill Gates officially announced their corporation’s first and next-generation graphical user interface operating system – Microsoft Windows.

Are you 00 or Oh no? MI6 puts test for would-be spies online - our mission, should you choose to accept it, is to complete the quiz below – without peeking at the answers. If you pass, you might be suited to a job at MI6.

The empathy jolt – Empathy…can’t get it but know you need it to move forward?

Lifehacker: How to Choose the Fastest Line at the Market – One of the more frustrating parts of grocery shopping is waiting in line, and determining which line will get you through the quickest somehow becomes a big deal. Blogger and math teacher Dan Meyer drops a little science on this common dilemma.

Today’s Quote:

“We as a society chose to get more connected, and one of the perils of doing that is, the more connected you are with everyone, the more connected you are with malicious people as well”.

- Microsoft security manager Scott Culp

Today’s Free Downloads:

Microsoft Security Essentials – Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Get a Visual Overview of Your Firefox Browsing History – Enter History Tree, a Firefox add-on that gives you a visual overview of your browsing history. You can view this history as either a tree (hence the name) or a grid of site thumbnails. Click the image at right to see an example of the former.

QTTabBar – QTTabBar is a add-in for Windows Explorer that adds tabs and several other features to the Explorer interface. With it, you’ll be able to quickly switch between folders by simply clicking a tab, as well as being able to perform some basic functions with new icons across the top of Explorer.

Blaze – Blaze helps you more quickly start programs, and a whole lot more. When Blaze recognizes that you’re doing something with a repetitive pattern–such as typing a sequence of numbers or moving files that all have the same word in the name–it offers to automate the task for you

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Stay in Control With Free Auslogics Task Manager

Running on Windows 7 has loads of benefits over running on Windows XP Pro, including an improvement in the Windows Task Manager tool, which finally shows “running processes”.

But Windows Task Manager still remains a bit of a tease. Sure it provides you with some usable information, but it falls far short of providing you with all the information that you really need. A recent free offering from Auslogics, of Auslogics Disk Defrag fame, takes up the challenge where Windows Task Manager leaves off.

A very simple interface makes it easy to use Auslogics Task Manager, for both novices and pros, to manage computer resources.

Windows task manager (on Win 7)

Versus Auslogics Task Manager (on Win 7)

Fast facts:

View application and process

Shows all open files including the application that has locked it

Provides a security rating

View open files

Shows CPU usage

View memory and disk utilization

Shows Internet traffic and priority

End or freeze a process

Adjust CPU affinity and priority

This is a terrific free application and I have added it to my geek toolbox. Since malware can often restrict access to the Windows Task Manager, this application is good insurance to have handy.

Note: also available in a portable version that is just right for geeks on the go.

Download at: Major Geeks

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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – September 29, 2009

Lifehacker: Turn Your Windows 7 PC Into a Wireless Hotspot – Everybody’s got a wireless network at home, but if you’ve ever wanted to get your iPod touch, iPhone, or other wireless device connected, but all you’ve got is a wired network at work, school, or elsewhere, Windows 7 makes this process trivial.

Mobile-Phone Banking: Convenient and Safe? – Handling your money on an easily lost device may seem risky, but you have secure options.

Disable the log-on screen in Windows XP and Vista – The program I used to customize the Windows Welcome screen—TweakNow PowerPack 2009—is the same tool I used to disable the log-on screen on my Vista laptop. Click Windows Secret in the utility’s left pane and choose User Accounts. Click “Enable auto log-on,” select the account you want to log into automatically, enter the account’s password and domain name (if necessary), and click Save. The next time you start the PC, Windows will start and open that account automatically.

What’s the difference between anti-virus, anti-spyware and internet security software? – I’ll start by saying that it’s a confusing mess. I’ll also start by lumping them all together as “security software”, and then point out that the confusion is really in some security software vendor’s best interest.

Don’t Tell Insecure End Users They’re Stupid – Many security breaches are a result of administrative error, inattention and ignorance. Such insecurities often result in solution providers being called in to clean up the messes created by in-house, inept security managers. But does cleaning up security messes require telling end users their stupid?

Is cloud anti-virus ready for the mass-market? – There was much talk at last week’s Virus Bulletin conference about “the cloud” and the part it can play in protecting computer users from security threats. Sophos blogger Chester Wisniewski wonders if those who believe this approach gives complete security actually have their head in the clouds.

Want Windows 7 for 50 Percent Off? Order an OEM Copy – Popular retailer Newegg has listed the OEM prices for Windows 7, which will be offered at less than half what Microsoft will charge for a retail copy.

Off Topic:

How fast can LEDs replace fluorescent light? – It’s not mandatory in the U.S., but it saves energy. In places where it is mandatory, like England, protests and hoarding are breaking out.

NASA fires laser 250,000 miles to hit lunar spacecraft traveling at 3,600 mph – Think you’re a real sharpshooter? Hitting an object about the size of a minivan shouldn’t be a problem, then. The catch? Your target is 250,000 miles away. Oh, and it’s moving at 3,600 miles per hour.

Is monogamy genetic? Your fingers may hold a clue – When it comes to monogamy, your penchant for lifelong love might be as simple as the length of your ring finger.

Today’s Quote:

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”.

- Anais Nin

Today’s Free Downloads:

Google’s Picasa – Peer at it closely and you’ll find an app teeming with features that do everything from import to edit to upload to share photos and videos online.

Foxit Reader – Foxit is the only PDF reader I use. It’s been a long while since I’ve run across a PDF file that Foxit Reader doesn’t handle perfectly. It takes up far less disk space than Adobe Reader, and it’s faster.

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