A new vulnerability has been located on Windows operating systems. This flaw is about how Windows handles a malicious Help file when it is viewed in the Help File viewer.

“A successful attack may facilitate arbitrary code execution in the context of a vulnerable user who opens a malicious file,” according to a researcher at Security Focus.

This affects Windows XP, Server 2003, NT, and 2000 versions.

Microsoft has already e-mailed InformationWeek to give a response about this issue.

According to a blog by Hon Lau, a member of Symantec said that the vulnerability has not been actively exploited.

A person named Mati Aharoni, who is a tester at See Security Technologies, was credited as the one who discovered this bug.

Source: iTnews

As a new employer, you will be responsible for the Health and Safety of your employee, paying and processing their salary, possibly making tax and National insurance contributions, and will be required by law to keep records about this. You have opened your doors to be responsible for another being (think of it as something like having a child, but with more forms to sign!) As an employer, unfortunately ignorance is not bliss, so make sure you know all you need to know to protect you and your employee.
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An article has been posted at Vista.Blorge.com about a BIOS hack that allows illegal copies of Vista to be installed on many computers.

A Microsoft senior product manager said “Our goal isn’t to stop every ‘mad scientist’ that’s on a mission to hack Windows. Our goal is to disrupt the business model of organized counterfeiters and protect users from becoming unknown victims. This means focusing on responding to hacks that are scalable and can easily be commercialized.”

Currently, there are two methods that have been identified which can crack Vista’s OEM Activation 2.0.

According to the article, some editing in the BIOS is the first method while another method uses a faked identification which convinces Vista that it is running on an OA 2.0-enabled hardware.

Source: Vista.Blorge.com

The Register has released a report that new zero-day exploits has been released just before or after Microsoft released a new batch of patches two days ago.

In a blog at McAfee Avert Labs, it says that there were many attacks that were released which takes advantage of the Windows Office suite. Another type of virus that was discovered was a proof-of-concept code which attacks the Windows operating system itself.

These two flaws allow execution of code for users who have been affected.

There are more patches this year compared to last year by this time of the year according to a study by McAfee.

Some of the flaws that were fixed are for Universal Plug and Play, Windows CSRSS, and Microsoft Agent.

Source: The Register

Network Stumbler is a free utility designed for finding wireless access points and logging their signal strength. This tool can be used for finding the best location for a wireless access point, finding a location with a strong signal for the connecting device and to find the existence of wireless access points, even if the device has its SSID beacon turned off.
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A new email spam has been released during this past weekend. The topic of the email is about a fake video that shows a missile strike by the United States against Iran. This has been confirmed by various antivirus vendors.

The subject lines include:
-Missile Strike: The USA kills more then 20000 Iranian citizens
-USA Declares War on Iran
-USA Have Just Started World War III

The files that were attached have the filenames of either video.exe or readme.exe.

These viruses are minor variants of Trojan.Peacomm and W32.Mixor according to John McDonald of Symantec.

F-Secure, Fortinet, Kaspersky Lab and Sophos are some of the companies that have released updated signatures to detect this virus.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

In the real world, I work as a data and systems architect. A client surprised me this week by asking for a “10 year architecture plan” to include detailed hardware specifications. I found this interesting as we usually don’t venture more than five years into the future and in a scenario like this will specify the latest and greatest in server technology making sure the hardware has room for expansion. We can usually specify three to five years but without a crystal ball it’s difficult to know or even guess where processors, storage and especially motherboard technology will be ten years from now.
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A new wave of attack has been discovered by a security researcher at Juniper Networks. Instead of targeting an operating system or softwares, this attack compromises hardware devices such as routers and cellphones.

The main flaw is in the microprocessors which are chips that are used in some devices. The ones that are known so far are Arm and XScale microprocessors.

“There are interesting quirks in the ARM and XScale architectures that make things very easy for an attacker,” said Burnaby Jack of Juniper.

If an attacker use this kind of attack, the attack can run unauthorized software on these devices and it can also affect networked devices. It can steal sensitive information, redirect internet traffic, and steal bank accounts and passwords.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

An article has been posted at chinapost.com regarding about users who use Windows that are getting annoyed by constant verification of their operating system.

Rob Pegoraro, the writer said that the verification issue has two problems. First, users must keep on passing Microsoft’s tests which checks if the operating sytsem that they are using are legitimate copies. Second, these tests are not 100% accurate.

He also noted that the validation turned to an ongoing routine from a one-time setup procedure.

In the end, he wrote that Microsoft has to solve this piracy problem with business strategy rather than being a police agency.

Source: The China Post

A report has been released that the first malware which is designed to destroy the iPod line of media players has been released.

The malware file may be run if Linux has been installed on an iPod and it may also run automatically without any action from the iPod user.

This malware is being called as Podloso. It is unable to spread on its own and the user will be the one who will transfer the file to his or her iPod before the device become infected. It infects all .elf files which are executable. A message will say “You are infected with Oslo the first iPodLinux Virus” when a user tries to open one of the infected files.

Source: The Register