Date: 17 February 2010 - 09:36Over on Hardware 2.0 I've put up a poll asking readers which browser they think will be the first to fall at this year's Pwn2Own hacking contest.
The event is spread over three days.
Day 1:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7
- Mozilla Firefox 3 on Windows 7
- Google Chrome 4 on Windows 7
- Apple Safari 4 on MacOS X Snow Leopard
Day 2:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista
- Mozilla Firefox 3 on Windows Vista
- Google Chrome 4 on Windows Vista
- Apple Safari 4 on MacOS X Snow Leopard
Day 3:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP
- Mozilla Firefox 3 on Windows XP
- Google Chrome 4 on Windows XP
- Apple Safari 4 on MacOS X Snow Leopard
Date: 15 February 2010 - 12:21
Date: 15 February 2010 - 12:13
OK, a lot of people are getting in touch with me over this issue, so I thought I'd pass this on ...
If you are having restart issues after installing update MS10-015 (which may or may not be malware related), Microsoft wants your help!
In our continuing investigation in to the restart issues related to MS10-015 that a limited number of customers are experiencing, we have determined that malware on the system can cause the behavior. We are not yet ruling out other potential causes at this time and are still investigating. Please review our blog post from yesterday for additional information.
One of the key components when investigating issues like this are obtaining memory dumps from computers experiencing the problem. In order to get the information we need to fully analyze the issue, some of our support engineers have actually driven to customer locations and picked up affected systems so we can get the needed crash data directly and help inform our investigation. For more information about memory dumps, please see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254649
Also, if your PC has been hosed by this (or any other update), remember that Microsoft is there to help you too!
This can be a difficult issue to solve once a computer is in an un-bootable state so we encourage customers who feel they have been impacted by this to contact our Customer Service and Support group by either going to https://consumersecuritysupport.microsoft.com or by calling 1-866-PCSafety (1-866-727-2338). International customers can find local support contact numbers here: http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.
Date: 13 February 2010 - 03:28
If you're encountering BSoDs and reboots on your XP machines following the installation of this month's load of Patch Tuesday updates, your machine might be infected with malware.
Patrick W. Barnes, a systems administrator at Cat-man-du, a technology services firm in Amarillo, Texas, said at least three different customers came into his shop with the same blue screen of death after installing Tuesday’s patches on their systems. Barnes said that on closer inspection, he found that each had been previously infected with a rootkit, a set of tools sometimes installed by malware that are designed to hide the presence of the infection on the host system.
Barnes said he traced the problem on each machine back to “atapi.sys” — a Windows storage driver(which lives in %System32\drivers\). When he sent the atapi.sys files that were on the customer machines up for a scan at Virustotal.com, the results suggested malware had injected itself into the system file.
It might be a good idea for anyone seeing this problem to give their system a quick scan with F-Secure’s Blacklight rootkit detector after removing the Windows Update patches and getting the system up and running.
Date: 11 February 2010 - 07:04
Date: 11 February 2010 - 06:30
iPhone users sure do know how to suck on the data teat:
According to the data provided Consumer Reports, the average iPhone user consumes 273MB of data per month. Compare this to the average Blackberry user who only consumes 54MB of data each month. The data also showed that 12% of iPhone users use 500MB per month of bandwidth, while some manage to eat over 1GB of data per month.
Date: 11 February 2010 - 06:06
What could possibly go wrong?
So, what are the risks of activation exploits? Searching for, downloading, or installing activation exploits or counterfeit software on the Internet is risky, because sites that advertise these pirated products often contain malware, viruses, and Trojans, which are found bundled with or directly built into the activation exploit or counterfeit software. A study by research firm IDC, The Risks of Obtaining and Using Pirated Software, shows that one in four Web sites offering counterfeit software attempted to install unwanted or malicious code upon downloading. And this rate is rising. Media Surveillance, an anti-piracy solutions company based in Germany, recently downloaded more than five hundred pirated copies of Windows 7 (and Windows activation exploits) and found that 32% contained malicious code. These are very disturbing figures – especially when considering that resellers may be using these downloads to claim that the PCs they sell include genuine Windows. Buyers of new PCs should always check for the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) to verify that the PC they are purchasing contains only genuine Windows. A quick visit to our How to Tell website tells buyers what a genuine COA should look like.
Date: 11 February 2010 - 06:03
Over on Sunbelt Software's blog, Research Center Manager Tom Kelchner offers some sound advice on how to schedule the installation of patches:
Possibly a good strategy would be phased updates especially for enterprise systems:
-- Immediately install just the patches that fix vulnerabilities with in-the-wild exploits if you are running the vulnerable applications, modules, plug-ins, etc.
-- Wait three days for all others
-- Wait a week for non-critical (no reported exploits) updates to less-used flavors of Windows and less-used applications.
Meanwhile, have someone keep an eye on the security news sources to spot problems like this one.
Good medicine, and I think that this advice would work well for home and small office users too.
Date: 11 February 2010 - 05:56
Date: 11 February 2010 - 05:54
Date: 11 February 2010 - 05:52
Over on Hardware 2.0 I've got a couple of polls:
- Will Apple approve Opera Mini for the iPhone?
- Would you like to see Opera Mini on the iPhone?
Have your say!
Date: 11 February 2010 - 05:48
It seems that a patch that Microsoft sent down the update pipes to XP users is causing some users to have BSoDs and endless reboots.
The error displayed with the BSoD is error “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA”.
At present we don't know which of the updates is the problematic one so the current solution involves uninstalling all the installed patches:
- Boot your XP system from the CD/DVD and enter the Recovery Console.
- At the Command Prompt type: CHDIR $NtUninstallKB978706$\spuninst
- At the Command Prompt type: BATCH spuninst.txt
- At the Command Prompt type: systemroot
- Now repeat steps 2 to 4 but replacing KB978706 in step 2 with each of the following in turn:
KB978262
KB978251
KB978037
KB977914
KB977165
KB975713
KB975560
KB971468
- When you’ve finished, type the following: exit
Annoying I know, but this should get your PC up and running again.
Date: 05 February 2010 - 02:42
Date: 25 November 2009 - 02:50
DVD ripper Handbrake has seen an update.
Lots of new features:
- 64-bit build
- Live preview
- Quality-based encoding
We also get big promises:
"There's an old proverb in the video encoding world: "Speed, size, quality: pick two." It means that you always have to make a trade-off between the time it takes to encode a video, the amount of compression used, and the picture quality. Well, this release of HandBrake refuses to compromise. It picks all three."
Neat! I'll take it for a spin later.
Date: 24 November 2009 - 10:27
I find it very handy to carry around with me a portable antivirus scanner that I can use to clean up any infected PCs that I come across.
My favorite tool of choice is Sunbelt Software's VIPRE PC Rescue Program.
The VIPRE Rescue Program is a command-line utility that will scan and clean an infected computer that is so infected that programs cannot be easily run.
The VIPRE Rescue Program is packaged into a self-extracting executable file (.exe) that prompts the user for an "unpack" or installation location, then starts the scanner and performs a deep scan. The user can start the program either by opening it via windows or from the command line.
Virus definitions are included, and the program is self-running once executed. The initial scan, and all subsequent scans, include Rootkit Detection. Four command line options are available, perform a deep scan, perform a quick scan, log the events, and disabling the rootkit.
Detections are consistent with the full VIPRE, and the VIPRE Rescue Program is designed to disinfect a system so infected that a user cannot install VIPRE.
Good bit of kit! Highly recommended!
Date: 11 November 2009 - 11:17
There are new security warning(s):
· Microsoft November Update for Multiple Vulnerabilities
What does it affect?: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
What does it do?: Details of Microsoft's November software update concerning a number of vulnerabilities in various products.
How do I fix it?: Update your copy of the software with the download available from the supplier.
Details of Underlying Problem(s):For more technical information about this warning visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-nov.mspx.
Date modified: 11/11/2009
Source: HM Government (CPNI)
Date: 08 November 2009 - 05:27
Got a jailbroken iPhone? Then you need to read this:
The first worm targeting Apple’s iPhone is alive and spreading in the wild. But most iPhone owners need not worry about it.
The worm, known as Ikee, is, as worms go pretty harmless in that all it does is change the lock screen wallpaper to a picture of 80’s signer Rick Astley before looking for other devices to infect.
If you're running a jailbroken iPhone and you didn't change the root password fro the default "alpine" (yes, the whole hacking world knows that it is) then you should change it now!
Here are instructions on how to remove Ikee variants
Variants A, B and C
- Remove: /bin/poc-bbot
- Remove: /bin/sshpass
- Remove: /var/log/youcanbeclosertogod.jpg
- Remove: /var/mobile/LockBackground.jpg
- Remove: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.ikey.bbot.plist
- Remove: /var/lock/bbot.lock
- Reboot the iPhone, reinstall SSH and change the default root password
Variant D
- Remove: /usr/libexec/cydia/startup
- Remove: /usr/libexec/cydia/startup.so
- Remove: /usr/libexec/cydia/startup-helper
- Remove: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.saurik.Cydia.Startup.plist
- Reinstall Cydia from the terminal as follows:
Su root
alpine
get-app remove cydia
get-app install cydia
- Reboot the iPhone and change the default root password
Date: 06 November 2009 - 10:09
Fantastic piece by my ZDNet blogging colleague Ed Bott on how you can legally pick up cheap (and even free) copies of Windows 7.
Only suckers pay retail.
If you’ve read any reviews of Windows 7, you’ve seen references to its price list, which ranges from $120 for a Home Premium upgrade to $320 for a fully licensed copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.
Well, guess what? You don’t have to pay that much. Most people have much better options available, if you know where to look.
In this piece Ed examines upgrade offers, deal for students, and subscription services.
A great piece that can save you a lot of money when buying Windows 7.
And Ed's right, only suckers pay retail!
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