Bing

GFI Labs Blog: We’ve noted this before, but Microsoft needs to get a handle on ad placements on Bing. Ok, so Bing isn’t the most widely used search engine, but remember that Yahoo plays a part here as well. In this case, we’re talking Sirefef (ZeroAccess aka Max++), probably the nastiest piece of malware circulating on the ‘net right now. Sirefef kills any attempt to remove it, and is nearly impossible to clean (short of booting onto a rescue disk and performing cleanup actions, or reformatting)....

Mashable: Bing is getting an early start on the “best of 2010” lists, releasing its compilation of the year’s most popular search terms a little more than a month before the New Year. Reality TV star Kim Kardashian tops the list, which is dominated by celebrities; in fact, seven of the top 10 terms are people, as you can see in the list: Kim Kardashian Sandra Bullock Tiger Woods Lady Gaga Barack Obama Hairstyles Kate Gosselin Walmart Justin Bieber free Kardashian’s online dominance extends beyond searches, however....

Microsoft and Facebook Wednesday unveiled some new search tools for Bing which integrate data from a user’s circle of friends into Bing’s search results. In the Bing blog on Wednesday, Microsoft Senior Vice President of online services Satya Nadella said 50% of users consider their friends’ opinions when making a decision online. Bing is trying to capitalize on this by incorporating the “likes” of a user’s friend list into search results....

Most of us are familiar with how high profile news events are used for malware distribution. We’ve seen it many times such as with Tiger Woods’ scandal and the earthquake in Haiti. Now the recent earthquake in Chile is used to prey upon unsuspecting folks interested in what’s going on with the post-quake and tsunami. This shows we should really be careful in our choices of where we go to get information....

For anyone that missed Microsoft CEO’s Q&A during the Search Marketing Expo West yesterday, a transcript is now available online. I went through and picked out key quotes, so that you don’t have to read the whole thing. Several things stand out from Ballmer’s comments: Mobile operators that want a search engine other than Bing can’t have Windows Phone 7 Series. Microsoft almost certainly is stirring up trouble for Google in Europe through third parties....

Criminals like to attack the biggest target because BIGGER generally provides a better Return On Investment (ROI). Windows is a good example. Mac is indeed safer than Windows but it isn’t necessarily because Mac is more secure. Windows has a larger market share and that equals more potential victims. How about search engines? What is the biggest search engine on the block? Google — and the bad guys know it. The result?...

At the ShmooCon hacker conference in Washington, D.C., last week two security researchers showed the very sensitive information that people inadvertently make available over peer-to-peer networks. In their presentation, “Information disclosure via P2P networks: Why stealing an identity via Gnutella is like clubbing baby seals,” pen testers Larry Pesce and Mick Douglas said they found a lot of music, porn, malcode collections and the following: driver’s licenses, passport and tax return forms with Social Security numbers; someone’s will A retirement analysis form with savings account totals and income estimates; An IRS form with taxpayer identification number; A completed Turbo Tax form with personal information filled in....

It has been barely two days since Google announced their new social integration and messaging tool called Google Buzz. Today we saw the first example of malware, W32/Zuggie-A, pretending to be Google Buzz. Analysis of W32/Zuggie-A gives the impression of a hastily assembled worm, really a modification of the W32/SillyFDC family of worms but with a twist. When W32/Zuggie-A is installed, it creates the following files: Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions{9CE11043-9A15-4207-A565-0C94C42D590D}\chrome\content\timer.xul Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions{9CE11043-9A15-4207-A565-0C94C42D590D}\chrome....

We were made aware that phishing for Skype credentials is currently taking place. The link the phishing mails direct to are dangerous – they aren’t detected by any phishing filter of the popular browsers yet. One thing caught my attention. Modern browsers should support domain highlighting so that the real domain is visible when someone surfs the Internet. Like Internet Explorer 8 properly does: There you can clearly see that you are not on the Skype website, but on another domain....

Earlier this evening, Microsoft formally announced a new search app for iPhone on the Bing Community blog. The Bing app is available now from the App Store, complete with voice search. I emphasize the now because the app has a December 16 release date on the 15th. Based on a very quick, cursory look, Bing is a competent iPhone app, tapping into the kind of capabilities expected from the platform. Bing fits nicely into the App Store repertoire....