Use Netflix Watch Now on more than 3 PCs
Each Netflix subscription gives users access to a small movie library that can be accessed instantly from up to three PCs. All subscription plans except for the cheapest one include unlimited hours […]
Read 20 Digital Magazines for Free
Apple Iphone owners get more. They get free Wireless access at AT&T Hotspots, which no longer is that easy to defeat and now they also get to view free digital magazines of […]
AntiPhorm Software
One form of data mining is behavioral targeting which means that ads are served that fit into the surfing pattern of a user. Spending your time on teen forums will deliver advertisement […]
Select a country for your proxy
Finally an innovative proxy website. Web Proxies are all alike, mostly. They use the same four of five proxy scripts that are available, may have a slightly different design and tend to […]
Spy Tech: I see what you write
Two new techniques to spy on computer users have been revealed these days by two independent scientific studies conducted at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Saarland University in Saarbrucken, […]
Protect your data when travelling to the US
I personally think this is outrageous. Border Agents in the United States can not only search your laptop, mobile phone or any other electronic device that you might be carrying while traveling […]
Microsoft Security Updates May 2008
Microsoft released four security updates for various applications and operating systems that they produce. Three of the four updates are regarded as critical while one has a moderate risk level. To break […]
Another Antivir free premium promotion
Polymath send in the tip that another Antivir promotion is available that gives users access to Antivir premium for 180 days free of charge. The promotion form is available in English and […]
Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor
The Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (Cofee) is a USB thumb-drive developed by Microsoft that was distributed to more than 2000 law-enforcement officers in 15 countries including the United States, Germany, New […]
Microsoft updates two critical security patches
It feels like I'm updating my computer every day in the last weeks. Microsoft issued yet another two security patches for Internet Explorer and the .net framework that can be downloaded from […]
F-Secure Health Check
Many companies are producing tools that scan the computer for security vulnerabilities. Some provide their functionality on a website while others are applications that have to be installed on the computer. F-Secure […]
PayPal to Block Unsafe Browsers
If you run an old version of a browser attacks on it are more likely to succeed I think we can all agree on that. Recent browser versions include fixes for security […]
Windows Vulnerability Scanner
Windows is probably the operating system that is attacked the most, some say because it has the largest user base, some say because it is simply insecure. Whatever the reason may be, […]
Is Your ISP Injecting Ads on websites you visit?
Internet users have to cope with all kinds of things when they are online. Malware, security vulnerabilities, tracking, phishing, traffic shaping and some, as it seems (thanks Dante for the link), even […]
Avira AntiVir Personal 8
Avira AntiVir Personal 8 was released today and I thought it would be nice to write about this new release since AntiVir is one of the most popular free antivirus applications available. […]
Test my PC Security
Is your computer secure? Is the firewall that you have installed working properly? Those questions are rather hard to answer even for users with lots of PC experience. Many users simply use […]
Free Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition
The security tools developers seem to be in a race currently to throw free versions of their products on the market in an effort to increase market share and brand awareness. The […]
Avira AntiVir Rescue System
Users looking for rescue systems distributed on CDs or DVDs have really no shortage of finding one. The major problem that inexperienced users face is the same that they face when asked […]
German interior minister's fingerprint replicated
What's a good way of catching the attention of someone who is advocating the use of biometrics? German interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble is pushing biometrics and data collection in Germany all for […]
Hide Antivir Scans, Updates and Advertisement
You might remember that I'm not a huge fan of antivirus software and have none installed on my computer. While some call this foolish it does make sense for me. I did use Antivir for some time to check it out and see what it can do and think it is a fine piece of security software. What bothered me a lot were the update windows and daily scheduled scans that would pop up in inappropriate moments.
Virus Total Uploader
Virus Total is one of the many services that let you upload files to their server which are then scanned for viruses and malware. One major advantage of Virus Total over a single antivirus solution installed on the user's pc is the fact that it uses almost every known antivirus engine to scan the files which could not be done on a single system because those applications would surely interfere with each other.
Real Player Internet Explorer vulnerability
Internet Explorer with an installed version of Real Player beware. A vulnerability has been discovered recently which could allow remote code execution. According to Zdnet users should either switch browsers for the […]
Microsoft Security Bulletin March 2008
Microsoft released their monthly Security Bulletin yesterday which consisted of four critical issues all affecting various editions of Microsoft Office. All four patches fix remote code execution vulnerabilities and it is recommended that they are installed as soon as possible if Microsoft Office is installed on the computer.
Say no to Drugs Virus
I received an email today from a reader who told me of a problem that he encountered lately on his computer. The message Say no to drugs appeared whenever he clicked on a shortcut to the My Documents folder. This sounded clearly like a virus and a quick search revealed that it indeed was the I Love Her virus.
Defeating Disk Encryption
I discovered an interesting video at Hack a Day from the University of Princeton demonstrating how to break disk encryption using so called RAM Dumps. This basically takes into account that the encryption key is stored in RAM. While most disk encryption mechanisms are vulnerable while the computer is on or in sleep mode some are even vulnerable when powered off.
DefenseWall HIPS
I have been in contact with the creator of the excellent DefenseWall HIPS application for some time now and he was so nice to give away ten copies of his software to Ghacks readers. Let me first explain what the software does. DefenseWall HIPS is a Host Intrusion Prevention System that uses sandboxing and virtualization to protect the computer from dangers that are not stopped by anti-virus applications.
Lockcrypt Password Safe
Where do you store your usernames and passwords ? In a text document on your computer ? In your wallet ? Storing sensible information like passwords, but also other type of data like information about medication or credit card numbers, unencrypted is a security risk. If someone is after those information he immediately knows how to use them against you.
Microsoft releases 11 security bulletins
Microsoft released their monthly security bulletin yesterday which listed 11 security bulletins containing a total of 17 patches for operating systems and software like Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. Six of the eleven security bulletins are critical while the remaining five are considered important.
How users are being tracked on P2P networks
Have you ever asked yourself how it is possible that users are tracked over months in P2P networks although their IP address is changing regularly ? We only hear reports about session based user identifications. Session based means that shared files of this session are analyzed and recorded opposed to tracking a user over months.
HijackReader analyse HijackThis results
HiJackThis
is a sophisticated security tool that checks a computer running Windows 2000 or higher for possible signs of hijacked applications. It does check lots of different elements like startup items, Browser Helper Objects, running processes and the like and presents a log of the results at the end. This log is hard to read for beginners because it contains "good" and possible "bad" elements in it and it requires knowledge of those elements to make a distinction between elements that you have to keep and those that are indeed malicious in nature.
Theoretical Cryptography Part I - MD5
Since Martin constantly manages to cover all ongoing news regarding cryptography and security I myself planned on writing about "any time soon", I had to look for other topics on the subject I could cover. So I decided to make good use of all the time I spend studying this kind of stuff and share this knowledge with you. And I would be very grateful, if someone could tell me in return how to defeat shirred fabrics with my sewing machine... but that's a whole different matter.
Private Galleries can be accessed at Smugmug
If you would use an image host, put up some of your images and set them to private, would you expect them to be still accessible by anyone ? This is apparently the case over at Smugmug where a private setting simply means that the pictures and image galleries are not directly linked from the homepage anymore but can still be accessed by simply entering the url directly in the browser address bar or download manager.
Bavarian Skype Trojan
Two, seemingly authentic, documents have been leaked to the German Pirate Party on Wednesday containing information about costs and technical information about a Skype trojan that could be used to eavesdrop on Skype communications. The documents contain indications of at least one operation of the Skype Trojan in Germany.
DOS Vulnerability in uTorrent and Bittorrent
A vulnerability in uTorrent and Bittorrent, which is using uTorrent's core, was discovered today that effects the BitTorrent 6.0 client,
uTorrent 1.7.x, uTorrent 1.6.x and uTorrent 1.8-alpha-7834. The Denial of Service vulnerability is made possible by the way the clients handle user data.
Trend Micro RUBotted
Trend Micro RUBotted is a BETA program that scans your system for bot related activity protecting it effectively from being hijacked and misused for criminal activity. The computer is monitored for activity that is either harmful for the computer it is running on or other computers that are affected by actions from the monitored computer.
Test Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium for 6 months
Giveaways, more giveaways and even more giveaways. Seems we can expect more free software giveaways this year. It's Avira again with a promotion to test the AntiVir PersonalEdition Premium for six months with no obligations whatsoever. All you have to do is fill out a small form and they will send you a working serial number that is valid for the next six months.
When on Digg be careful
Trend Micro have published another excellent article on their malware blog entitled A Tangled Web ... of Malware. It describes how hackers use popular media websites to spread malware and how their […]
Why you should not run an Open Wi-Fi
Security Expert Bruce Schneier wrote a commentary on Wired yesterday where he admitted that he was using an Open Wi-Fi and that he could not see what was wrong with doing so. He refused to accept security reasons because he said that the computer had to be secured as well and that an Open Wi-Fi would essentially be the same as using Wi-Fi on airports or Internet cafes.
What sam.bak can tell you about Users of a system
SAM ? What's that again ? SAM is the Security Account Manager and part of the Windows Registry. Unfortunately though it is not possible to access that part of the Registry directly even if you are logged in as an administrator. It is however possible to analyze the file sam.bak which can be found in the directory system32/config/ of your Windows installation.
Control Javascript Events in Firefox
Firefox Mastery published a nice article about the Firefox add-on Controle de Scripts which lets the user control Javascript events in Firefox. Instead of just disabling Javascript (default Firefox without add-ons), or enabling it on a per-site basis (NoScript) you can configure and control specific Javascripts events.
