Secure your PC from Internet browsing risks

Dell Kace Secure Browser is a firefox based browser from Dell. It runs in a sandbox on your system and prevents any malicious changes to your Windows operating system. When using the Secure Browser any changes or malicious files inadvertently downloaded from the Internet are contained within the secure browser, keeping the underlying OS and computer secure from hostile changes. Any changes resulting from browser activity may be quickly and easily reset to effectively “undo” such changes and return it to its initially installed state. This makes it much easier to clean a system and bring the user back to full productivity.

Learn more about it, and download at http://www.kace.com/products/freetools/secure-browser/

Download now, its free.

Windows Application Blocker : Block Any Application With One Click

Windows Application Blocker is another freeware from door2windows that allows you to block any application with just one click.

How to block an application:

1. Run the tool.
2. When it asks for the password, click OK.

3. Type the application’s executable name in the Application Executable Name textbox (Add the extension also).
   
   You can find the application’s executable name with the following tutorial:
   
   1. Right-click on the application’s shortcut.
   2. Select Properties.
   
   3. The application’s executable name will be in Target textbox.
   
4. Click Block.

How to unblock an application:

1. Run the tool.
2. When it asks for the password, click OK.

3. Select the application that you want to unblock from the Blocked Applications list.

4. Click Unblock.

How to change password:

1. Run the tool.
2. When it asks for the password, click OK.

3. Click Change Password.
4. Type your new password in the Enter new password textbox.

5. Click OK.

Updating BitDefender 2008

MANUAL METHOD

Click on this link : http://download.bitdefender.com/updates/bitdefender_2008/x86/weekly.exe

download the file and run it.

AUTOMATIC METHOD

To configure the automatic update do the following:

1. Open BitDefender and click Update to open the Update module.

2. Click Settings.

3. Configure the Update location settings.

BitDefender 2008 includes two update locations, allowing one of them to point to a local mirror. The default update location is http://upgrade.bitdefender.com/. This is the location recommended for normal users.

4. Configure the Automatic update settings.
BitDefender checks for updates every 1 hour. You can change the period BitDefender updates from Time interval. By changing the number displayed in the box you will modify the number of hours after which a check for updates is performed.

Leave the Confirm update to Silent update unless you desire to be prompted before downloading the updates or before installing them. A similar option is available for the manual update under the Manual update settings.

5. Configure the Advanced settings.
To prevent prompts asking for reboot, select Wait for reboot, instead of prompting.

6. Click Apply to save the settings.
7. Click Default to restore the default settings.

Occasional updates can be perfomed at any time, even when the product is set to update automaticaly:

1. Open BitDefender and click Update.

Click also Update at the top of the window if the Settings are displayed

2. Click Update now to start the update process.

If the option Prompt before downloading updates was selected in the Settings, and when updates are available, a list of the updates available for download is displayed. Select the product to install and click Details to see the file download details. Select Switch to silent update (don't ask me again) to stop being prompted on manual update. Click Ok to download and install the new files or Cancel to postpone the update.

For more help, follow the following links :

http://kb.bitdefender.com/KB233-en--Updating-BitDefender-9.html

http://www.bitdefender.com/site/view/Desktop-Products-Updates.html

Coreflood Trojan Infects Thousands of Corporate Computers

Joe Stewart, Director of Malware Research with SecureWorks has recently made public the fact that he found a stolen data cache of unprecedented size. AFcore is a Coreflood trojan that has so far been able to avoid detection, using all this time it has been hidden to gather as much private information as possible.
The trojan works by infecting a particular work station and then laying there dormant until the network admin accesses that computer. The trojan remembers all usernames and passwords so, by grabbing the admin's log-in data, it can spread throughout the entire network. SecureWorks has already come up with security solutions for the Afcore trojan and has announced all its collaborators to do the same. Law enforcement agencies have also been briefed about the current situation.

The trojan has so far been able to infect thousands of individual PCs belonging to all kinds of corporations. The purpose of the trojan is to gather the user's personal and bank information and then deliver it to the hacker. Besides user names and passwords, the virus also stores the text content of the web page the user visits, so the hacker can be able to better determine if the info is valuable or not. For example, if an employee goes online to check their bank balance or make an e-payment, the trojan will detect their username, password and all other text info. The hacker can then take a look at said text and determine if it is worth accessing the user's bank account or not. He saves huge amounts of time by accessing only certain accounts and not all of them.

SecureWorks researchers say that getting an exact figure regarding how much money the trojan has access to is a laborious and lengthy task. Keeping in mind that thousands of computers were infected, that amount could easily surpass a few million dollars.

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Security Flaw Tarnishes Firefox Download Record

The new version of the Firefox browser was downloaded over eight million times in its first 24 hours of release in what organisers claimed was a world record.

But the success was tempered by reports from a software security company that Firefox 3.0 contained a serious security flaw that potentially lets an attacker take over a PC if a user clicks on a booby-trapped link.

According to the Mozilla foundation that released the new browser, the software was downloaded 8.3 million times in its first 24 hours of release starting Tuesday morning.

The downloads were so popular that they initially crashed the servers running the operation.

At their busiest, the servers were handling more than 9,000 downloads per minute and within five hours had surpassed the initial daily download of 1.6 million set by Firefox 2.0 in October 2006.

DV Labs/Tipping Point did not release details of the security flaw except to Mozilla, but news of the glitch was damaging to the browser which was claimed to be much more secure than the previous version.

Firefox 3.0 offers faster web browsing than the previous versions, along with lower memory use and nifty features like a built-in search application that automatically combs your web history.

Tech critics greeted the new browser and recommended users to adopt it.

"Firefox 3 is the best Web browser I've ever seen. And I've been using the Web since before there were Web browsers," said ComputerWorld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.

Firefox has been rapidly attracting users since its 2004 launch and now has approximately 18 percent of the market, compared to the 72 percent share enjoyed by Internet Explorer which has the advantage of being pre-installed on the vast majority of computers.

Firefox is mainly downloaded by individual users and as of February 2008 it had been downloaded over 500 million times. However, since one user may download the software several times, the best estimate for regular Firefox users is around 140 million.

Israeli co invents see through device

Military and rescue operations around the globe will now get a tad easier with the invention of a radar that can see through walls. An Israeli firm, Camero, has developed this technology and already sold it to several army and police forces. The company feels that the device can be beneficial for special unit soldiers or for human operations like locating people trapped in burning buildings, the daily Haaretz reported.

"The idea of seeing through walls has been around since the 1960s, but modern technology is now ripe enough to enable it to happen," Camero's technology director Amir Beeri said. "When we established the company in 2004, we intended to develop sufficiently high vision resolution to allow an untrained user to see through a wall," Beeri said.

Camero's unique radar utilises Ultra Wide Band (UWB), a technology that has come of age recently and with the use of special algorithms can process data picked up by the detector to give a reasonable image of anything behind the wall.

The system made by its competitor, Time Domain, lacks imaging algorithms and is able to reveal only whether there is someone on the other side of the wall, the report said.

The firm's earlier version of the system weighed about 10 kgs and was too clumsy for use, but the new system is smaller, light in weight and meant for use as a quick-to-use tactical tool. The system is capable of penetrating various types of walls, but not solid metal ones like the walls of shipping containers.

The firm's CEO, Aharon Aharon, is optimistic about the future of the technology and says, "Like the Israeli army's night vision system, which was once an expensive product and eventually came into broad, general use, we hope that our radar too will become standard issue for all military units."

Opera 9.5 RC 1 Now Download-able

Internet browsers trying to play catch-up again! Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner has released Opera 9.5 release candidate 1 (RC 1) for desktops five days after Mozilla released Firefox 3 RC 2. Opera 9.5 RC 1 is now available for download from the Opera Web site.

Opera 9.5 RC 1 attempts to bolster security with anti-phishing and anti-malware technology. For instance, Opera users will now get warning messages upon visiting hacked Web sites carrying Trojans and malicious code as part of the 'Fraud Protection' feature that draws on the likes of Haute Secure, Netcraft, PhishTank, and Google. Meanwhile, Firefox 3 RC 2 downloads an updated blacklist of malicious Web sites provided by Stopbadware.org, a group co-founded by Google.

Apart from enhanced security, Opera 9.5 RC 1 includes a new skin for Windows and Mac platforms along with a fix for all POP accounts to download email messages. There's also a new 'Opera Link' feature in RC 1 that enables easy synchronization of bookmarks between different devices running different versions of Opera.

McAfee names Hong Kong most dangerous domain on the Web

Hong Kong domain has jumped 28 places as the most dangerous place to surf and search on the web according to a new McAfee report called "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited"

"Just like the real world, the virtual threats and risks are constantly changing. As our research shows, Web sites that are safe today can be dangerous tomorrow. Surfing the Web based or conventional wisdom is not enough to avoid risk online," said Jeff Green, Senior Vice President of Product Development...

Microsoft Warns Against Using Safari

Microsoft on Friday warned of a serious risk to people who use Safari on Windows XP or Vista, going so far as to suggest people "restrict use of Safari as a web browser until an appropriate update is available from Microsoft and/or Apple."

Good news is that according to Redmond there aren't yet any known attacks against the flaw. Bad news is that if anyone does create such an attack, a crook could install any software he wished - such as 'bot' malware that allows for complete remote control - on a victim PC.

The threat targets two separate flaws, one in Safari and one in IE, and you'd have to first browse a malicious site with Safari. Doing so would download unwanted software onto your desktop, which could then be executed without your permission by triggering a separate flaw in IE (and you wouldn't have to start IE to get hit). In its security advisory, Microsoft acknowledges the critical risk of 'remote code execution,' which is as bad as it gets.

Apple, on the other hand, says "we are not treating this as a security issue," according to a quoted e-mail posted by stopbadware.org. Not a good move, if you ask me.

If you do use Safari, Microsoft says you can apply a workaround to protect yourself. Change the default download location (normally the desktop) in Safari with the following steps:

Launch Safari. Under the Edit menu select Preferences.

At the option where it states Save Downloaded Files to:, select a different location on the local drive.

Source : http://www.pcworld.com/

Blackmail ransomware returns with 1024-bit encryption key

Virus analysts at Kaspersky Lab intercepted a new variant of Gpcode, a malicious virus that encrypts important files on an infected desktop and demands payment for a key to recover the data.

The biggest change in this variant of the ransomeware is the use of RSA encryption algorithm with a 1024-bit key, making it impossible to crack without without the author’s key. Here’s the explanation:

We recently started getting reports from infected victims, analysed a sample, and added detection for Gpcode.ak to our antivirus databases yesterday, on June 4th. However, although we detect the virus itself, we can’t currently decrypt files encrypted by Gpcode.ak – the RSA encryption implemented in the malware uses a very strong, 1024 bit key.

The RSA encryption algorithm uses two keys: a public key and a private key. Messages can be encrypted using the public key, but can only be decrypted using the private key. And this is how Gpcode works: it encrypts files on victim machines using the public key which is coded into its body. Once encrypted, files can only be decrypted by someone who has the private key – in this case, the author or the owner of the malicious program.

After Gpcode encrypts files on the victim machine, it adds ._CRYPT to the extension of the encrypted files and places a text file named !_READ_ME_!.txt in the same folder. In the text file the criminal tells the victims that the file has been encrypted and offers to sell them a “decryptor”:

«Your files are encrypted with RSA-1024 algorithm.

To recovery your files you need to buy our decryptor.

To buy decrypting tool contact us at: ********@yahoo.com»

There are three Yahoo e-mail addresses associated with the new version of the ransomware.

Sneaky Blackmailing Virus That Encrypts Data

"Kaspersky Lab found a new variant of Gpcode which encrypts files with various extensions using an RSA encryption algorithm with a 1024-bit key. After Gpcode.ak encrypts files on the victim machine, it changes the extension of these files to ._CRYPT and places a text file named !_READ_ME_!.txt in the same folder. In the text file the criminal tells the victims that the file has been encrypted and offers to sell them a decryptor. Is this a look into the future where the majority of malware will function based on extortion?"

How Laptops in Education Can Help Dictators, Hurt Learning

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on worries that the OLPC's BitFrost security protocols could hand a ready-made surveillance system to controlling 3rd world governments. The laptops identify themselves regularly to a server that can disable individual machines reported stolen — a system that hands a government a kill switch for every unit. BitFrost also has the potential to have machines attach a unique ID to every internet transaction, helping out anyone wanting to track net internet use. A freely available paper from a recent USENIX conference spells out the concerns." Relatedly, an anonymous reader points out a story at Slate about a study which examined the impact that free PCs had on poor students in Romania, writing that "giving the kids machines without a corresponding level of parental supervision just resulted in distractions which ultimately damaged academic performance. By contrast, allowing children access to machines in a supervised setting, say an after school program via school labs, might mitigate some of the negative effects."