2011

Anonymous claims to have stolen around a gigabyte of classified NATO data The H-Online Security wrote: In a post on Twitter, the Anonymous hacker group said that it has managed to steal a number of secret documents from one of NATO‘s servers. As proof, Anonymous published two PDF documents from 2007 and 2008 that are allegedly from NATO. The classification “NATO Restricted” suggests that the documents are intended only for circulation within the organisation – if they are genuine. The hacktivists say they copied a gigabyte of data in total, but added that it would be “irresponsible” to publish most of the material. ...

This is an article posted in Google Online Security Blog, it’s about unusual traffics being sent from infected computers during search or web surfing, if you think this story applies to you too, try to clean your computers from malwares by following my manual here in my website: Malware Removal (Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog) The Internet brings remarkable benefits to society. Unfortunately, some people use it for harm and their own gain at the expense of others. We believe in the power of the web and information, and we work every day to detect potential abuse of our services and ward off attacks. ...

Are you one of the many people who is using a dangerously easy-to-guess passcode on your iPhone? Maybe you should do something about it – sooner rather than later. The warning comes after new research suggested that 15% of all iPhone owners use one of just ten passwords on their lock screen: Apple iPhone app developer Daniel Amitay published the interesting research, looking at the four digit passcodes that users choose to secure their systems with. ...

Norman Security Blog wrote a good article about Fake AVs and their new variants and how to protect ourselves, Credit to my friend, Pondus, for sharing this: Background Fake antimalware has become a profitable industry for the cybercriminals. New variants appear on a daily basis, and new techniques for tricking the users are fine-tuned. A few weeks ago we wrote in our security article – Cybercriminals focus on new targets – about fake antimalware for Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. In its security update 2011-003 for Mac OS X, available 31 May, Apple enhanced considerably its protection against malware. This includes the ability to automatically download new malware signatures, similar to the functionality found in standard antimalware tools. This signifies that Apple now regards its Mac OS X platform as a serious target for cybercriminals. ...

ghacks.net: Microsoft has just released a beta of a system recovery software. Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper has been designed to aid users in starting an infected PC and performing offline malware scans to remove viruses, trojans, rootkits and other forms of malware effectively. It is also used if malware is hindering the user to install or start an antivirus software on the infected system, or if the applications used to detect malware are not able to find the malware on the PC. ...

Google Operation System Blog wrote: Chrome 12, the upcoming version of Google’s browser which is likely to be released today, removes a useful feature: the built-in Gears plugin. While most Google services dropped support for Gears and removed offline access, Gears is still being used in Gmail. Google no longer maintains Gears, which is now legacy software, and focuses on implementing offline support using HTML5. Read the whole story in: Google Operation System Blog

Hey my blog readers! How is it going? Did enjoy your days? What’s new in your life? A paid job is something essential for everyone, especially for a man in my age, I need to start my own life and need enough money for that so I must be looking for a paid job, I did look for that and tried some, yet I’ve had no luck. Once after finishing my school I started working at IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting – Iran’s national TV/Radio) and after working 9 months in there I found that it’s not the job I need, because of 2 reason, one is that I want to work for myself and not someone else, another reason is that there has been some people in there that I did not like, maybe they were not bad people, just not like me so I could not stay in there. ...

Facebook Security: Facebook is committed to bringing you a safe experience on the Internet, and today we are announcing several new features to help protect you while online. Partnership with Web of Trust First, we’re happy to announce a partnership with Web of Trust . Web of Trust is a free safe surfing tool that tells you which websites you can trust based on the ratings supplied by other Web of Trust community members. Facebook already has a system that automatically scans links to determine whether the websites associated with those links are spammy or contain malware. ...

V3.co.uk: Microsoft is a whisker away from an $8bn deal to buy VoIP firm Skype in its biggest ever foray into the acquisition market, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The deal, which would total around $8.5bn when including Skype’s long-term debt, could be signed as early as Tuesday, people familiar with the matter told the paper. Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date is the $6bn paid in 2007 to buy online advertising firm aQuantive. ...

Gizmodo: OS X Lion is coming to the Mac App Store, ushering in a new era of digital distribution for their desktop operating system. And rumors are flying that iOS devices will soon receive over-the-air updates. If we had to smash these two pieces of information together and speculate about the future a little bit, we’d say Apple is heading down a path to automatic background updates for all of their operating systems. Hardcore nerds would hate this to be sure, but for the average user, it’s a good thing. ...

“Distant Earth” is ATB’s 9th studio album, which was released on the 29th of April 2011, by Kontor Records. It features 2 CDs in the standard edition, 3 CDs in the limited edition, and 3 CDs + 5 ATB signed postcards + ATB bracelet in the FanBox Limited Edition (which can be ordered on Amazon and it is limited to 2000 copies). Also, there is another 2 CD digipack version that comes with an ATB sticker and it’s available only in Germany. ...

The Google Chrome team is happy to announce the arrival of Chrome 11.0.696.57 to the Stable Channel for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame. Chrome 11 contains some really great improvements including speech input through HTML. Read More at Google Chrome Release Blog.

Avira TechBlog: Great news – our Avira Premium Security Suite received the next AV-Test.org certificate, this time for the first quarter of 2011! So far the suite thus achieved all available AV-Test.org certificates since the beginning of the certification process. The certificate approves the tested products a good quality in detection, repair and usability. This means that users of the Avira Premium Security Suite can be assured to be well protected from the threats they face when using their computers on the Internet!

TUAW: According to the results of a massive survey by Hunch.com, Mac people are frequently young, vegetarian city-dwellers who like modern art, liberal politics, and independent films. Meanwhile, Windows supporters tend to be older, more conservative, and more likely to compare talking about computers to “struggling with a foreign language.” Whether you’re collecting evidence for the Mac vs. Windows debate you have planned for the weekend or preparing for an appearance on Family Feud, Hunch’s results offer some fun and fascinating insights into the tastes and habits of Mac and PC users, from what TV shows they watch to what snacks will best satisfy their afternoon munchies. ...

Since 2003, the number of exploitable vulnerabilities has fallen considerably in Microsoft’s Office suite. H-Online: Independently of each other, security specialists Dan Kaminsky and Will Dormann from Carnegie Mellon University’s CERT have found that, in the past few years, the number of flaws and exploitable vulnerabilities in individual versions of Microsoft Office has fallen dramatically, achieving results that are even below those ofOpenOffice. However, their findings should be treated with caution, as they are based on automatic evaluations and say little about the actual threat potential. ...