AVG is one of the few long-standing names in security software for the Windows operating system. I cannot really recall a time when there was no AVG security product available for the computer. AVG Internet Security 2011 is AVG’s flagship product which offers a complete security package for Windows users. The program comes with several [...]

Microsoft has just released Microsoft Security Essentials 2, the highly acclaimed free security program to protect the computer against malicious software such as viruses, spyware or computer worms. Users who are already working with a previous version of Security Essentials can upgrade that version directly to version 2. But what’s new in Security Essentials 2? [...]

Microsoft has released the last set of planned security bulletins for the year 2010 yesterday. A total of 17 security bulletins have been released that patch vulnerabilities in Microsoft products like the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office or Internet Explorer. When we look at the severity rating of those vulnerabilities we notice that two of [...]

You may have already read it on other sites that Lifehacker and other Gawker Media properties were compromised. That’s bad enough for the company and web properties they own, but also for users of the sites. You see, users needed to create an account at Lifehacker and other sites before they were able to comment. [...]

Internet users have a few choices when it comes to secure web browsing. It begins with modifications in the web browser, like installing the NoScript add-on to block all scripts from loading on websites, over sandboxing the browser like Sandboxie does, to virtual machines and Live CDs. Webconverger belongs to the Live CD group, with [...]

Server OSes, such as CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise do not enjoy the same simplicity as does the modern Linux desktop when it comes to issues like sharing out directories (even though they share the same default desktops). You can see how easy it is to share out folders in my [...]

The Wikileaks story continues to roll on around the world but as the story now moves its focus to the website founder Julian Assange, questions are now beginning to be asked about how the information was able to have been stolen in the first instance. Only this week have the US military blocked the use [...]

Normally any software company that finds one of its product keys being shared on torrent websites would crack down pretty quickly by withdrawing it.  Not Avast however who, according to a report by PC Pro magazine decided to track installs with it to see how far it would spread. The company stayed deathly silent for [...]

CentOS might well be one of the finest Linux distributions for a server environment. It is basically a mimic of Red Hat Enterprise Linux without the proprietary software and the price attached to it. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense to set CentOS up as your go-to Web server. It’s reliable, it’s stable, [...]

WinPatrol has been designed as a complimentary program for a system’s main security software. The free program monitors programs and critical items on the system and will alert the user if modifications are made to monitored components. Lets take a look at the stuff that WinPatrol monitors: New auto startup programs New browser add-on’s like [...]

SUPERAntiSpyware is available as a free and professional edition. Both editions are downloadable directly from the developer website. Lets take a quick look at the differences between SUPERAntiSpyware Professional and SUPERAntiSpyware Free. Both editions support the detection and removal of all sorts of malicious programs including malware, trojans, worms or keyloggers. Users can add files [...]

The WordPress developers have just released a security update to the popular blogging platform. WordPress admins should see the update notification in the admin interface. To install the WordPress update they can either download it manually from the WordPress website, upload it to their ftp and perform the necessary steps to update the platform or [...]

The task of joining Linux to a Windows domain can be a challenge. I have covered it before here (see my article “Join a Ubuntu machine to a Windows domain“), but many users have had issues with Likewise Open either not being able to join or not being able to reliably remain joined. Naturally, if [...]

Reuters are reporting that traffic for some “highly sensitive” US websites was briefly redirected through China.  In a report by the BBC, the incident, which happened for 18 minutes last April saw China Telecom send out incorrect routing formation. There’s no confirmation on whether this was intentional or not, but it comes at a time [...]

If you are running Windows Live Messenger 2009 you may have noticed a warning message in the program that reads “You can still chat, but some features might not be available because of connection problems”. It is arguable that the message is not the clearest and that some users may think the connection problems are [...]

We have already mentioned on Saturday that Microsoft would improve the security of their email service Hotmail by offering HTTPS connections as an alternative to standard HTTP connections. Back then the feature was not available for all Hotmail users, as Microsoft rolled it out in batches to ensure an error free transition. The Hotmail Sign [...]

Microsoft has released information and patches of this month’s patch day. It is promising that there is no patch for Windows in this month’s patch day. The three bulletins that have been released fix security issues in Microsoft Office and Microsoft forefront United Access Gateway. One of the MS Offices bulletins has a maximum severity [...]

Websites and services can use several techniques to identify a specific user visiting their properties, or third party properties they are affiliated with. Among the most common ones are standard HTML cookies, but also so called Flash cookies, also known as Local Shared Objects. Evercookie takes this a step further by dropping as many cookies [...]

Adobe’s Flash Player was updated yesterday fixing several security vulnerabilities in the process. The patch was initially slated for a November 9 release but released in advance yesterday. But Adobe Flash was not the only vulnerable Adobe product. Adobe has scheduled an update for their popular pdf readers Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat on November [...]

I use the online virus scanning service VirusTotal on a regular basis, to check out files before I download them to my local computer system. Especially useful for programs that are hosted on file hosters. VirusTotal scans those files using dozens of antivirus engines, offering a far better assessment of possible dangers than a single [...]

Vulnerabilities have moved into the focus of many Internet users. This time it is a new 0-day vulnerability for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer that could allow remote code execution on the target system. The critical vulnerability affects all versions of the browser from Internet Explorer 6 to 8, but mitigating factors exist that protect the system [...]

The Firefox add-on Firesheep has demonstrated the vulnerability of insecure connections with a bang. Users who use an unencrypted connection to access sites and services on public networks may have their information recorded by other users who record the network traffic. To put it in layman terms: You may be vulnerable to this kind of [...]

Hulu, Pandora, ABC, CBS, NBC and hundreds of other sites in the United States limit their contents to viewers from the US. If you live outside, or happen to be overseas you won’t be able to access the contents of those sites. That’s bad if you are on a business trip in Europe and do [...]

It has been a bad year for Adobe’s security team, as Adobe products where hit with many critical security vulnerabilities in that time. The latest was just announced yesterday in a security advisory over at Adobe. The critical vulnerability affects both Adobe Flash Player versions 10.1.85.3 and earlier on all supported operating systems (that’s Windows, [...]

Last Pass is my password manager of choice. The program is available for Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The browser add-on is actually more than just a password manager. It comes with many advanced features, like secure password generation, automatic log ins in websites and services, note taking or form filling. Last Pass [...]

We all know that it is not a good idea to run multiple real-time antivirus scanners side by side on a system. Most antivirus are actually scanning the system for existing programs before the installation can be completed. The two major problems with running multiple antivirus solutions on a system are performance issues and possible [...]

Whenever you visit a website it may happen that the website connects to other sites. By doing so, it may reveal information about you. A popular example is Facebook Connect, which leaks information to Facebook whenever you visit a website that is powered by it. In short, whenever you visit a page that uses Facebook [...]

Regular readers of Ghacks know that browser plugins have become one of the biggest security risks for today’s Internet users. Keeping the plugins up to date is therefor essential to protect the system from exploits targeting known vulnerabilities. Among the plugins that are exploited the most are Adobe plugins, and Java. Recent findings in Microsoft’s [...]

Yesterday was one of the largest patch days in Windows history, with 16 security bulletins and way of 40 different vulnerabilities patched. If you have not updated your version of Windows yet you should consider doing so immediately to protect it from exploits that target these new vulnerabilities. But that was not the only good [...]

Oracle has just released an update for their Java platform, that bumps the version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and the Java Development Kit (JDK) to 1.6 Update 22. The Update release notes list the full external version as 1.6.0_22-b04, and the external version as 6u22. It lists a total of 16 different bugs [...]

Every second Tuesday in a month is patch day over at Microsoft. What does it mean? Microsoft pushes out all security patches of a month on that day to all users of their Windows operating systems and other applications like Microsoft Office. Only highly critical vulnerabilities receive out of band security patches. This month’s patch [...]

The public became aware of the Stuxnet worm back in July, largely because it was linked to several 0-day vulnerabilities of the Windows operating system. Researchers who analyzed the worm discovered what appeared to be its core purpose: To target industrial computer networks running Siemens WinCC software. But the nature of the vulnerability made all [...]

Adobe has just released an update for their popular pdf reader Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat, raising versions of the two programs to 9.4. Both program updates fix critical security vulnerabilities identified in Adobe Reader 9.3.4 and earlier, as well as Acrobat 9.3.4 and earlier. Vulnerabilities affect all supported operating systems, and users are encouraged [...]

Private browsing, a relative new feature that allows users to hide their web activities. The modes basically block storage of browsing session data in the browser or the computer’s hard drive. This for instance means that no data is written to the cache or the cookie storage. Users naturally feel safer using that mode, but [...]

The FBI claims to have cracked a major cyber-crime network and made more than 100 arrests in the US according to the BBC.  The suspected members worked as mules for fraudsters based in Eastern-Europe who sole around $70m from companies and consumers in the US by hacking into their computer systems. The FBI worked with police [...]

Most security software companies, like Kaspersky, Symantec or Bitdefender, release new products ever year. The updated programs often come with additional security modules, better detection, engines, resource usage and other features that make them more powerful than last year’s version. If you are running last year’s version, say Kaspersky Internet Security 2010, you are bound [...]

New releases of popular applications usually cause a huge amount of blog posts and news about the product update. AVG’s release of Anti-Virus 2011 somehow did not catch the attention of that many news sites yet, which is quite puzzling, considering the popularity of the antivirus software. Regardless of that, it pays to read user [...]

Microsoft today released a new out of band security bulletin addressing a vulnerability in ASP.NET that affects all versions of the Microsoft .Net Framework when used on Windows Server operating systems, or on client systems that run a web server from their computer. While that excludes the majority of desktop users, it may still affect [...]

I have been working with True-Crypt for several years now, and like the open source program a lot. That much, that I’m still using it and not Microsoft’s Bitlocker which is an alternative in select Windows Vista and Windows 7 editions. Over the years, I discovered a few aspects of the software that made my [...]

A new worm that has been named Stuxnet has been detected that appears to have been written specifically to attack infrastructure in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the first example of malware of this type the worm was programmed to attack power stations, water plants and industrial units. A report by the BBC has said [...]

The new product XYZ is completely secure and hack-proof. Have you heard that from politicians or companies before? It usually turns out very soon that the claims are bogus, and that the product is not as secure as claimed. Germany is on the brink of introducing new biometric identification cards. Those new IDs not only [...]

Twitter has today updated its website to patch a flaw that was allowing spammers to cause multiple pop-ups with links to porn websites. The code has beens spread by worms and thousands of people around the world have been caught out.  The self-replicating worm exploited a cross scripting (XSS) vulnerability and used just a small [...]

I want to preface this article by saying I am not, in any way advocating spying on your users. With that said, there are times (and reasons) why you might need to see what images are being viewed on your network. Whether it be an end user who is viewing content that goes against specific [...]

Scareware is generally considered to be a service that scares users to sell products. This is usually a strategy of fake antivirus software, which detects threats that are not there. The information that a computer virus was found will scare users into buying additional protection to secure their system and remove the threats from it. [...]

Imagine my surprise when Jojo mentioned that Comodo DNS was blocking ghacks.net, allegedly because it was a hacking / warez site that may offer illegal sharing of copyrighted software and media. Bogus claims obviously, which can hurt a website financially and irritate new and regular visitors. I tried to get hold of Comodo to resolve [...]

Microsoft has released this month’s security patches for their operating systems and applications. The patches and updates are already available via Windows Update and Microsoft Download, and it is recommended to update the operating system as soon as possible to protect it from exploits targeting those vulnerabilities. A total of nine bulletins has been released [...]

The recently discovered DLL hijack vulnerability in Windows appears to be more critical than thought. Up until now it was confirmed that Windows would load dlls from the current working directory if they cannot be found in directories with a higher search priority. This in turn meant that attackers had to use a dll unknown [...]

Ten years ago where were worms like Kournikova and I Love You that were infecting computers worldwide with malware and getting mainstream attention on the news.  In that time operating systems and anti-malware programs have improved but now a new sex worm is making its way around the world according to the BBC. Some variants [...]

One of the first tasks after the installation of an operating system is the installation of security software to protect the computer from viruses and other forms of attack. Windows users can select programs from a huge available selection. They can install all-in-one solutions, often called security suites that combine antivirus, firewall and other security [...]

A new Windows vulnerability was made public in the end of August, which could allow remote code execution on a computer system. The issue is caused by programs and applications that use insecure programming practices. According to various researchers at least 40 popular applications are affected by the vulnerability. New users who want to read [...]