For the first time in 25 years, Microsoft is changing its logo

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 23, 2012
  • Reading Time: 2 min

In advance of one of the most significant waves of product launches in Microsoft’s history, today they are unveiling a new logo for the company. Microsoft TechNet wrote: It’s been 25 years since we’ve updated the Microsoft logo and now is the perfect time for a change. This is an incredibly exciting year for Microsoft as we prepare to release new versions of nearly all of our products. From Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8 to Xbox services to the next version of Office, you will see a common look and feel across these products providing a familiar and seamless experience on PCs, phones, tablets and TVs. This wave of new releases is not only a reimagining of our most popular products, but also represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning. The Microsoft brand is about much more than logos or product names. We are lucky to play a role in the lives of more than a billion people every day. The ways people experience our products are our most important “brand impressions”. That’s why the new Microsoft logo takes its inspiration from our product design principles while drawing upon the heritage of our brand values, fonts and colors. ...

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Crisis malware infects VMware virtual machines

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 23, 2012
  • Reading Time: 2 min

v3.co.uk: The Windows version of the Crisis Trojan is far more dangerous than first thought, being capable of infecting VMware virtual machine images, Windows Mobile devices and removable USB drives, research has revealed. Crisis was originally uncovered targeting businesses with social engineering attacks that trick users into running a malicious Java applet in July. Symantec has since revealed that the malware has more advanced capabilities, letting it search for and copy itself onto VMware virtual machine images on compromised computers. ...

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Adobe Flash Player update patches six critical holes

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 23, 2012
  • Reading Time: 2 min

h-Online: Adobe has released the second update for its Flash Player software in a week, this time for six critical vulnerabilities. Four of the issues addressed are problems with memory corruption that could lead to remote code execution; additionally, the update fixes an integer overflow vulnerability that could also lead to remote code execution. Another bug that was fixed is a cross-domain information leak. The problems exist in Flash Player 11.3.300.271 and earlier versions on Windows, Macintosh and Linux, and in the Android versions 11.1.115.11 (Android 4.0) and 11.1.111.10 (Android 3.x and 2.x) and earlier. ...

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Firefox 17 to make add-ons more secure

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 23, 2012
  • Reading Time: 2 min

h-Online: As suggested by some of its developers back in 2010, the Firefox browser will introduce enhanced separation between add-ons and the rest of the browser. With the change, which is planned to take effect with the release of Firefox 17, scripts on web pages will only be able to access the data belonging to add-ons if they are included in a whitelist. The beta version of Firefox 15 already logs warning messages in the browser’s Error Console when a page that is not on the whitelist tries to access data from add-ons. This behavior has been included to make add-on developers aware of the new policy and to give them time to fix their add-on’s behavior before the release of Firefox 17. ...

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AMD Blog Hacked, Database leaked on Internet

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 20, 2012
  • Reading Time: 1 min

TheHackerNews: A team of Hackers called, “r00tBeer Security Team” today hack into official blog of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) which is a American multinational semiconductor company. AMD is the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors based on the x86 architecture and also one of the largest suppliers of graphics processing units. Hacker deface the blog page (http://blogs.amd.com/wp-content/r00tbeer.html) [Dead Link – Screenshot blow] and also leak the complete user database of blog on his twitter account. Leaked database SQL file uploaded on Mediafire by Hackers which include 200 AMD user’s Emails, WordPress Blog Usernames and Passwords. ...

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Not so secure: Text messaging on iPhone can be hacked

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 19, 2012
  • Reading Time: 2 min

FirstPost: A hacker Friday revealed a security flaw that he claimed could make Apple’s iPhone particularly vulnerable to text message cheating. The flaw has existed since iPhone was first launched in 2007, and is still not solved in the beta version of iOS 6, the next operating system for iPhone, the hacker under the name “Pod2g” said in a blog post, reported Xinhua. ...

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Bogus anti-hacking tool targets Syrian activists

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 19, 2012
  • Reading Time: 1 min

h-online: Syrian activists, journalists and opposition group members are reportedly under attack by malware claiming to be a security tool that will help protect them against hackers. The fake “AntiHacker” tool is being spread through targeted phishing emails and via sites such as Facebook, and claims to provide “Auto-Protect & Auto-Detect & Security & Quick scan and analyzing” functionality. ...

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PostgreSQL patches XML flaws

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 19, 2012
  • Reading Time: 2 min

h-online: A flaw in the built-in XML functionality of PostgreSQL (CVE-2012-3488) and another in its optional XSLT handling (CVE-2012-3489) have been patched, and the developers have released updated versions of the open source database with relevant fixes. The holes being patched are related to insecure use of the widely used libxml2 and libxslt open source libraries and the PostgreSQL developers advise anyone using those libraries to check their systems for similar problems. ...

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IE 9.0.9 Available via Windows Update

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 16, 2012
  • Reading Time: 1 min

MSDN: The August 2012 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer is now available via Windows Update. This security update resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited any of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 on Windows clients and Moderate for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 on Windows servers For more information, see the full bulletin. ...

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Google's New Favicon

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 16, 2012
  • Reading Time: 1 min

Google Operation System Blog: Google has a new favicon that looks like the icon from Google’s mobile search apps for Android and iOS. The same icon was also used for the Google Search app from the Chrome Web Store. Most likely, Google wanted to use the same icon irrespective of the platform so that it becomes instantly recognizable. Here’s the new favicon: … and the old favicon, which was launched back in 2009: ...

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