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Cross-copied from BetaNews: Mozilla has quietly placed major new versions of its open-source, cross-platform web browser and email client onto its download servers ahead of an official release. Firefox 15 FINAL benefits largely from behind-the-scenes performance tweaks, while Thunderbird 15 FINAL introduces a few new features, including a new curvy user interface. Firefox 15 FINAL’s most notable changes are performance-based. There’s faster startup on Windows PCs, plus incremental garbage collection and better management of plugins to prevent memory leaks. Other performance improvements surround WebGL enhancements. ...

ZDNet: Security researchers from FireEye, AlienVault, and DeependResearch have intercepted targeted malware attacks utilizing the latest Java zero day exploit. The vulnerability affects Java 7 (1.7) Update 0 to 6. It does not affect Java 6 and below. Based on related reports, researchers were able to reproduce the exploit on Windows 7 SP1 with Java 7 Update 6. There’s also a Metasploit module available. Upon successful exploitation, the campaign drops MD5: 4a55bf1448262bf71707eef7fc168f7d – detected by 28 out of 42 antivirus scanners as Gen:Trojan.Heur.FU.bqW@a4uT4@bb; Backdoor:Win32/Poison.E ...

h-online: Cloud backup provider Dropbox says it has begun a public test of two-factor authentication for its service. Dropbox had announced it would start offering the security measure after the service experienced a data leak at the beginning of the month. Users who activate two factor authentication will have to enter a security code after logging in with their username and password. The security code can only be used once and is sent to the user’s mobile phone in a text message. To generate security codes, users can also use a variety of smartphone applications such as Google Authenticator. Details of the process are given on the two-step verification help page. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...