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Microsoft goes anti trust friendly
Is your computer really spyware free?
New Phising attack ‘This You????’ hits Twitter [Video]

Posted: 25 Feb 2010 07:57 AM PST

Microsoft has had to pay heavy fines for anti trust practices in Europe. This was mainly not against its operating system Windows by for having Internet Explorer as the default browser and hence ending up killing other browsers. The main complaint was a browser was very different from a OS and the two shouldn’t be bundled into each other. This did hurt Netscape quite a bit and made Internet Explorer the dominant browser the world over.

Mircrosoft has lost a anti-trust case in Europe and has paid a fine along with informing customers of other products. Here is a screenshot of what XP, Vista and Windows7 users will see if their OS has been purchased in Europe.

About Microsoft’s anti-trust issues

I touched on Microsoft’s anti-trust issues briefly in my post about if Google is turning evil. But the main issue here is that Microsoft used its dominance of Operating system markets to indirectly force people to use Internet Explorer.
This is true but does it not open a can of worms. I mean can Twitter and Facebook claim anti-trust movement against Google for introducing Buzz through Gmail in which they are dominant. That will not happen probably as supposedly Gmail has to own about 80 percent of the market which it does not.
So now Microsoft has to come up with this option for it’s windows users and inform them of other browsers. I personally feel that is wrong. Rules should be equal to all. No one requires Apple to put up such a message on its Mac OS. In the case of Google Chromium they claim their browser is the OS or rather the other way around.
These anti-trust motions do have uses but still feel intent of dominating a market should not be illegal rather practices should be. Google has not been unscathed from the anti-trust motion as when it tried to buy Yahoo Search, it was not allowed by US courts claiming they already are dominating the search domain and cannot buy out competitors.

What do you think about anti-trust? It might have breathed a new life into open-source technologies being more available and that is a good fallout but does it actually go against the notion of doing business in a organized way. Should actions be made illegal or intent be made illegal. Do let me know your thoughts on this through your comments.

Link: Gizmodo

This Post Microsoft goes anti trust friendly is Published on Devils Workshop .

Is your computer really spyware free?

Posted: 25 Feb 2010 07:25 AM PST

This article highlights a security vulnerability that has been detected in Microsoft windows NT-based operating systems. The security vulnerability was first discussed on December 27,2005 and attacks followed 24 hours later. Let us take you through about how to safeguard your computer against a potential spy-ware attack.

The vulnerability is found in your system32 folder, and the file concerned is gdi32.dll. The gdi32.dll is a dynamic link library for the windows GDI(Graphical device interface) containing pre-defined functions to render 2-D images. Now, the vulnerability arises in the way your operating system handles Windows Metafile (WMF) vector images and allows random code to be executed on a remote machine.

This security vulnerability allows malware to get downloaded through drive-by downloads. Now, although windows metafile is extensively supported by all windows systems, systems from windows XP onwards have been found to be particularly vulnerable as they provide a handler and reader for the metafile in their default installation.

Machines running Macintosh, Linux etc are not directly infected. But there is a possible risk of infection if they execute a third party application which has the capability to render Windows Metafiles in non-windows platform. You can get your computer checked for this vulnerability by clicking here.

Typically, after installing anti-virus and anti-spyware, we think our job is done and that the computer is secure. But this just goes to show that, new vulnerabilities keep popping up. Although i have a robust system, on running a scan to detect if my computer is susceptible to this vulnerability, i found that i have a failed defense! Check this out :

Your only defense against this metafile vulnerability, is to ensure that you keep your automatic updates on, by default.
Microsoft since then has released a patch. You can manually download the patch by clicking here.
If you run the same scan once again, you will find that the vulnerability has been taken care of and there are probably no back doors in your computer!

So go ahead guys, patch your computer against this. Do let us know if you have any questions or comments to share.

This Post Is your computer really spyware free? is Published on Devils Workshop .

New Phising attack ‘This You????’ hits Twitter [Video]

Posted: 25 Feb 2010 01:58 AM PST

There is a new phishing attack which has hit Twitter and I thought it would be important bit of news for our readers who are on Twitter. The attack spreads through a tweet with the text message “This You????” followed by a link. Clicking on the link spreads the phishing attack and makes your account details vulnerable.

How it works?

In your Twitter time-line you will receive a tweet with the text message “This You???” followed by a link.
You might think of it as a harmless link and click on it.
It pulls up the log-in page for Twitter. Most people do not look up at the address bar if the page is Twitter or some other URL.
Person entering the account credentials is actually sending it to someone else. Once done with that it can end up sending a tweet using your credentials and hence spread further.
Ideally for a open and public forum like Twitter you should have a user-name and password different from your other more protected websites like Facebook, Gmail etc. Short URL’s do pose a threat as there is no way of knowing where they might lead you to. You can read on how to check where a short URL might lead you to by clicking here.

In case you feel you are subject to such a attack best way to curb it is to change your password. That can stop it from using your account for spreading the phishing attack on Twitter. Have you faced such instances of phishing attacks on Twitter? Do let us know through your comments.

Here is a demo video created by Sophos.