Peaches

Spam from compromised Twitter accounts Approximately 750 Twitter user accounts were recently subverted and used to post spam messages. The posts, intended to drive traffic to a pornographic web site, read "hey! 23/Female. Come chat with me on my webcam thingy here www.chatwebcamfree.com." A quick search of the micro-blogging site reveals a list of users who had their accounts compromised and used to post the spam messages. According to a post by Graham Cluley on his Sophos blog, "the index page of that web site serves up obfuscated JavaScript that loads a variety of pornographic adverts and

Microsoft silently slipped an Extension into your Firefox. With the recently released, so-called high priority, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 'Family Update', Microsoft silently slipped an Extension into your Firefox. Nowhere in the documentation, is this extension mentioned, it seems, and uninstall is disabled in the Add-ons Manager. This add-on is said to provide click-once support for Firefox and also will report back to whatever web server is asking the latest version of .NET that you're using, and who knows what else? The extension is "Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.0" Here's how to get

5-Minute Management Course Lesson 1: A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob , the next-door neighbor.. Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.' After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob , after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her hus

The Black Bra Society I had lunch with 2 of my unmarried friends. One is engaged, one is a mistress, and of course I have been married for 20+ years. We were chatting about our relationships and decided to amaze our men by wearing a black leather bra, stiletto heels and a mask over our eyes. We agreed to meet in a few days to exchange notes. Here's how it all went. My engaged friend: The other night when my boyfriend came over he found me with a black leather bodice, tall stilettos and a mask. He saw me and said, 'You are the woman of my dreams. I love you.' Then we made love all nigh

Conficker Worm Strikes Back With New Variant Erik Larkin The Conficker/Downadup worm managed to slither onto millions of PCs worldwide at its height, but after it initially infected a computer it only really acted to spread itself, and didn't cause further harm. Until now. Symantec reports today that it has found a new variant of the virulent worm that will identify antivirus software or security analysis tools running on the infected PC, and attempt to shut down those programs. This is a strong signal that the worm's mysterious creators haven't abandoned their creation

March patch Tuesday omits Excel fix zero-day, nada relief By John Leyden 6th March 2009 10:21 GMT Microsoft forthcoming patch Tuesday will bring no relief from an unpatched Excel flaw that's the target of active malware attacks. The March edition of Black Tuesday promises three updates, one of which Redmond classifies as critical because it poses a code execution risk. The other two flaws involve spoofing risks and are assigned to the "important" category. As usual, Microsoft's pre-release is thin on specifics - understandably it doesn't want to give hackers too many clues - but

Recession-buster: Two ways to buy full Microsoft Office 2007 (legally) for under $50 OEM, student, military and corporate home use options mean huge discounts for many By Eric Lai March 6, 2009 Microsoft Office 2007 isn't cheap. The full standard edition lists for $399, with other editions range between $149 and $499. Besides rare promotions like last year's "Ultimate Steal," Microsoft will discount its lowest-end edition, Office Home and Student 2007, to under $100 during back-to-school and Christmas seasons. That edition, different than Microsoft's separate academic editions (m

Unpatched PDF bug poses growing threat, say researchers Recent exploits evade Adobe's countermeasures; patch not ready March 6, 2009 (Computerworld) An unpatched bug in popular PDF viewing and editing applications is much more dangerous than first thought, according to security researchers who have created exploits that sidestep Adobe's defensive recommendations. Adobe Systems Inc. has known about the vulnerability in its Reader and Acrobat software since mid-January, but will not patch the problem until next Wednesday, March 11. The bug first made news two weeks ago, when Ad

Review: Apple's new 17-in. MacBook Pro rocks Upgrades can push the price past $5k, though, so choose wisely March 6, 2009 (Computerworld) It took Apple Inc. a while to finally get around to updating the 17-in. MacBook Pro, but the wait was more than worth it. Apple started rolling out its carved-from-solid-aluminum laptops a year ago, with the incredibly thin MacBook Air. Then, in October, it revamped its MacBooks and the 15-in. MacBook Pro, moving them to the "unibody" manufacturing process (and moving the MacBooks decidedly upscale). Now, finally, comes the Big Daddy of

Apple's Snow Leopard set for June 8 So say tea leaves, Amazon By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco Posted in Operating Systems, 6th March 2009 22:44 GMT The next version of Apple Mac OS X operating system, Snow Leopard, will be released on June 8 - if one Apple-watcher's prediction is correct. The Baltimore Sun's David Zeiler, writing in his "Apple a Day" blog, came to this conclusion by recounting recent history and examining the events schedule of San Francisco's Moscone Center, the home of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) since 2003, when it moved from its previous ve

Ubuntu update for python-crypto Highly critical Impact: DoS System access Where: From remote Solution Status: Vendor Patch OS:Ubuntu Linux 6.06 Ubuntu Linux 7.10 Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Ubuntu Linux 8.10 Description: Ubuntu has issued an update for python-crypto. This fixes a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system. The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error within the "block_init()" function in src/ARC2.c when processing key data. This can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow by initializing ARC2 with a key longer than

Analysts: Macs Cost More Than PCs, but Have Same Hardware Eric Lai, Computerworld Apart from "Windows or Linux?" nothing will start an argument in a bar full of techies quicker than, "Which hardware gives you more bang for the buck, Mac or PC?" A decade ago, it would've been hard for anyone but loyalists to argue in favor of the Mac. The PowerPC's clock speed lagged the Pentium and other x86 CPUs. Meanwhile, components and peripherals for the Mac such as graphics cards and CD drives were limited and pricey because of Apple Inc.'s proprietary designs. Back then, "for every dollar y

Firefox Update Closes Security Holes, Thunderbird Still Vulnerable Erik Larkin The latest update to the open-source browser shores up a number of security risks, including some that Mozilla says could be exploited by an attacker to run commands on a vulnerable computer. But the flaws still affect the current Thunderbird release, 2.0.0.19. One of the bugs involves a library used for PNG images, and could presumably be triggered by a poisoned image on a Web page. The second would be harder to exploit, as its description says you'd have to reload a page specially crafted to target a mem

March 5, 2009 1:00 PM PST Microsoft to release three security updates Tuesday by Elinor Mills Microsoft said Thursday it will release three security updates on this coming Patch Tuesday, including one that is rated "critical" and could allow an attacker to take over the computer. The critical update affects Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Server 2003 and 2008, the company said in an advisory. The other two updates are rated "important" and could be used for spoofing, in which an attacker is able to masquerade as someone else. One of the patches affects all supported versions of

Tax System explained in beer... Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

4 March 2009, 17:25 German police close down cracker forum As our fellow heise Security German language web site reports, special internet investigators of Baden-Württemberg's (Landeskriminalamt, LKA) have closed down a forum for sharing malicious software. The codesoft.cc platform was used for selling password stealers and offered information about how to find and steal sensitive data and how to forge credit cards. The forum's admin and operator is said to have been a 22-year-old Swiss from the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland, who reportedly also developed and sold the "Codesoft PW

Tigger' Trojan Keeps Security Researchers Hopping Unusual characteristics may make new malware tough to stop, experts say Mar 04, 2009 | 05:18 PM By Tim Wilson DarkReading It's malware that actually removes other malware from its victims' PCs. And so far, nobody is exactly sure how it's being distributed. Security experts this week are buzzing about a new Trojan called Tigger.A, also known as Syzor. The data-stealing malware has quietly claimed about 250,000 victims since it was first spotted by security intelligence company iDefense in November, according to a Washington Post re

New Gmail Flaw Lets Attacker Control 'Change Password' Function Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability lets an attacker change Gmail user passwords and hack Gmail accounts -- but Google says it's tough to exploit Mar 03, 2009 | 01:37 PM By Kelly Jackson Higgins DarkReading A researcher today released a proof-of-concept for a vulnerability he discovered in Google Gmail that lets an attacker change a Gmail user's password, wage a denial-of-service attack on the account, or even access other Gmail users' email. The cross-site request forgery (CSRF) flaw -- which researcher

<h2 class="headline">BitDefender Labs Identifies New Adobe PDF Exploit </h2>Analysis reveals three main threats Mar 03, 2009 | 09:36 AM By BitDefender BUCHAREST, Romania " March 2, 2009 " BitDefender', an award-winning provider of antivirus software and data security solutions and a leading anti-malware innovator, has identified the primary threats to users resulting from the latest Adobe PDF exploit, first discovered on November 4, 2008. BitDefender's analysis has shown that the main threats from the malicious PDF include malware which affect the user are: 1. Backdoor.

Scam Alert: Don't Fall for Bogus 'Stimulus' Checks FTC, BBB officials say that sites promising a piece of the stimulus action are misleading at best, and may charge big bucks to provide information you could get for free. JR Raphael, PC World "I Got a $12,000 Stimulus Check in Less than 7 days. Get Yours!" Over the past week, this attractive-sounding offer appeared in a Google text ad. Other ads have claimed "Obama's Giving You Cash" and touted "$40,000 [y]ou don't ever have to pay back!" But both the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau are cautioning consumers ab

4 Ways to Save Money on Software Think you need a Kindle or Quicken? Think again. These handy pieces of software can fill in for much more expensive alternatives. Rick Broida Regular PCWorld.com visitors know that for just about every pricey software application or operating system, a freeware or open-source alternative can be found. For example, OpenOffice can easily take the place of Microsoft Office. GIMP and Paint.NET can fill in for Photoshop. And Linux handily gives Windows the boot. But here are some lesser-known stars of the free-software universe. In some cases they can even

Overheard in a computer shop: Customer: "I'd like a mouse mat, please." Salesperson: "Certainly sir, we've got a large variety." Customer: "But will they be compatible with my computer?" * * * * * And another user was all confused about why the cursor always moved in the opposite direction from the movement of the mouse. She also complained that the buttons were difficult to depress. She was very embarrassed when we asked her to rotate the mouse so the tail pointed away from her. * * * * * I once received a FAX with a note on the bottom, asking me to FAX the document back to the sender when

1 March 2009, 08:02 Conficker to disrupt legitimate domains in March The Conficker worm will be disrupting at least four legitimate domains in March according to a report from Sophos. Although the action taken last month by ICANN, Microsoft and many others to stop Conficker calling home is blocking domains that were unregistered, there are a number of legitimate domains who will, for one day at least, be called "home" by the worm. On those days, all the instances of the worm in the wild will attempt to connect to these domains, looking for new instructions or code, which could resu

Phishers Target Facebook Carrie-Ann Skinner, PC Advisor -Sunday, March 01, 2009 1:09 AM PST Facebook users are being urged to be wary of third-party apps after it was revealed hackers have launched another hoax program designed to steal social networker's login details. Sophos says that the 'F a c e b o o k - closing down!!!' app sends bogus emails to users' contacts, claiming they've been reported "for violating our Terms of Service". The message continues: "This is your official warning! - Click here to find out why you were reported!". Artwork: Chip TaylorHowever, any web

Seattle PC builder beats Microsoft with free Windows 7 upgrade offer Launches free Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrade program to tempt hesitant buyers Gregg Keizer February 27, 2009 (Computerworld) A Seattle-area PC seller will offer free Windows 7 upgrades to customers who buy new Vista-powered machines starting next week, beating Microsoft Corp. and its biggest hardware partners to the punch by months. Puget Sound Systems Inc., an Auburn, Wash.-based system builder that sells PCs nationally, will launch its own Windows 7 upgrade program next week, said Jon Bach, the company's president, tod