IE8 brings more privacy

Program Manager Andy Zeigler writes in blog about new privacy features in IE8.

Major improvements are:

* InPrivate™ Browsing lets you control whether or not IE saves your browsing history, cookies, and other data
* Delete Browsing History helps you control your browsing history after you’ve visited websites.
* InPrivate™ Blocking informs you about content that is in a position to observe your browsing history, and allows you to block it

* InPrivate Subscriptions allow you to augment the capability of InPrivate Blocking by subscribing to lists of websites to block or allow.

Interview with Dakeyras

Dakeyras, a future malware fighter from Malware Removal University, asked me for interview regarding malware/security issues for his blog and I was happy to agree.

Read entire interview here

IRC - not just for fun stuff

IRC can be not only for second living room but also a place to communicate with all kind of people and learn new things.

Irc.wyldryde.org is one of my favorite servers.

WyldRyde is a safe, friendly, easy to use, spamfree, and professionally managed Internet Relay Chat Network with servers worldwide.

Easiest way to connect to WyldRyde is to use webchat

If you feel that you want something more advanced, you can try IRC clients ) (remember to check compatibility first)

You can see here list of channels to which you can join.

There is also help channel (#help) in which volunteers answer to any questions you might have (remember to read FAQ first as there might be already an answer).

WyldRyde has many channels so I'm sure you will find channels you like.

Surprisingly many has purchased from spam

Security company Marshall has made a research regarding to spam.

According to that research, 29 percent of Internet users have purchased goods from spam emails which is almost unbelievable.

Most popular items have been eg. sexual enhancement pills (fake Viagra etc.), software, adult material and luxury items.

Marshall Vice President says below more about this issue. Especially interesting is that people purchase illegitimate products:

“Spam has become a mainstream means of advertising for restricted or counterfeit goods due to strong demand from Internet users. Many of us don’t consider spam to be a legitimate marketing practice, but the products that people are buying aren’t legitimate. There is a huge market for cheap goods that are otherwise expensive or hard difficult to come by via legitimate means”

Symantec acquires PC Tools

Symantec has announced to acquire PC Tools (manufacturer of eg. Spyware Doctor).

From press release

– Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire PC Tools, a global provider of innovative software products designed to protect the privacy and security of Windows® computer users. The financial terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the calendar year and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

With the addition of PC Tools, Symantec will expand its consumer product portfolio to include award-winning PC utilities software and point security technologies. PC Tools will help Symantec expand its reach with consumers in new emerging regional markets and will bring an array of go-to-market capabilities, that have been effective with consumers in many markets around the world.

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.25 released

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.25 has been released.

See below changelog from Malwarebytes forum:

1. (FIXED) Problem with ignore list.
2. (FIXED) Problem repairing certain registry keys.
3. (FIXED) Overflow error during removal.
4. (FIXED) Improved detection of multiple components.
5. (FIXED) Drastically improved scan speed.
6. (ADDED) Advanced technology to delete files on reboot.
7. (ADDED) Ability to run a truly silent install.
8. (ADDED) Support for Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional and Polish languages.

See more about program and download it here

Over ten million zombie computers worldwide

Zombie computer means a computer which is eg. part of botnet. Cybercriminals use botnets for DoS (Denial of Service) attacks and spreading malware and spam.

Panda and CommTouch have released a report about email threats.

In that report says that there are over ten million zombie computers worldwide.
Eleven per cent of them are from Turkey, Brazil and Russia are next ones. These are responsible for majority of spam. According to latest researches, 74 per cent of all mails are spam.

Luis Corrons from Panda says that this effects to resources according to Nucleus Research

Like header says spam costs 712 dollars a year per employee.

Serious vulnerabilities in Vista

IBM Information Security Systems member Mark Dowdin and VMware team member Alexander Sotirov found a way to attack against Vista. This is not based on any vulnerability but to the way memory protection works.

Attack can be performed using eg. Java in browsers.Electronista was the first to report this.

SearchSecurity has interviewed security researcher Dino Dai Zovi about this issue. He says that it's completely reusable and this which is more scary:

"They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That's completely game over."

Dai Zovi also said that Vista protection techiniques ASLR and DEP won't help and it allows that any vulnerability in browser can be exploited. As this is not based on any specific vulnerability, he presume that there will be more similar things in the future.

Microsoft knows about issue but hasn't commented anything yet.

August monthly Microsoft updates to be released on Tuesday

Microsoft will release on next Tuesday in total 12 fixes for Windows.

Seven of them are classified as critical and five as important. Most of them will be fixes against remote code execution.

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool will be also updated.

For more information, read here