Sophos noticed spam messages that tricks users to download a fake Symantec product. The spam is not just a basic text file but it looks like a Symantec site.

The blog entry at Sophos notes that the images in the spam are hosted at imageshack.us which is an image-hosting site. There is a link in the spam which looks like it points to a Symantec site but Sophos found out that it actually points to a rogue URL which is a compromised Czech site.

The file that the site wants the user to download is a Trojan, written in Delphi.

Source: Sophos

A few days ago, some malware authors went on a campaign and sent out spam about the new U.S. president, Barack Obama.

The example of the spam that is posted at Sophos contain three paragraphs and a link. The link directs the user to a news site and a pop-up message will show. The message tries to tell the user that he or she needs to update their Adobe Flash version to view the video in the site. Therefore, they need to download an .exe file which turns out to be a malicious Trojan horse.

It is detected as Mal/Behav-027 or Mal/Heuri-E.

Source: Sophos

Various websites have posted about a new feature in Windows 7 which is about knowing where the user is located.

This is designed to improve the search functionality when searching for friends or checking the weather without typing in a city or a zip code. The feature is off by default according to CNET News.

If a user turns on this feature, any program could also use the function. “We only promise the control that we can realistically give to them (Windows 7 users), rather than trying to promise more than we can deliver,” said Alec Berntson of Microsoft.

Source: Daily Tech

SanDisk’s ExtremeFFS technology was unveiled at the WinHEC 2008 trade show in Los Angeles. The new solid-state drives will be up to 100 times faster than existing systems according to Sci-Tech Today’s article.

It operates on a page-based algorithm. Therefore, physical and logical locations can be separated according to the article. The products will write data to wherever is most efficient.

This product will benefit Windows Vista users since the operating system requires numerous random writes. These products will ship next year.

Source: Sci-Tech Today

The next Windows operating system will run on SSD, solid-state drive Netbooks. Windows 7 will require 8GB for various data such as restore files, log points, and hibernation files.

“The entire install of Windows 7 will be smaller than Vista,” said Leon Braginski of Microsoft.

The article notes that Microsoft is working on Windows XP to make a slimmed down version such as the one that is included in the XO laptop. However, Braginski has not mentioned whether the company is working on a stripped-down versin of Windows 7 for Netbook products.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

Network World has posted an article about data which shows that Windows Vista is more secure than its precursor, Windows XP.

“Moving onto Vista is clearly a safe bet. For us, it’s a clear indicator that attacking Vista or trying to exploit Vista specifically is becoming much more difficult,” said Vinny Gullotto of Microsoft. He is the general manager of the company’s malware protection center.

The article also notes statistics in general about vulnerabilities. There are 77 vulnerabilities from January to June of this year compared to the last six months of 2007 which are 116.

Source: Network World

Microsoft is cutting the cost for consumers on their Windows Home Server software.

“Beginning this Saturday, November 1, the System Builder SKU for Windows Home Server will retail at $100-110 - down from the current price range of around $150-160. Microsoft is reducing the price of the System Builder version of Windows Home Server to provide additional value to the system builder community and further promote the home server category,” the company announced on Friday.

This software is designed for users who have multiple PCs in their homes.

Source: PCMAG.com

A new worm has been detected which targets users who are using Chinese-language versions of Windows 2000 according to an article at Computerworld.

Symantec Corp named the worm as Wecori. Kapersky Lab and Microsoft dubbed it as MS08-067.g. Kevin Haley of Symantec confirmed that this worm is different from the one that was patched on October 23.

He added that the worm tries to attack all the machines on the same subnet if it is successful on infecting a Windows PC.

Symantec notes that this is a very low risk problem.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

An SMS solicitation campaign was detected at Sophos. It masquerades as a newsletter from MTS, a major Russian mobile network.

The email is about a lottery event. Every third message receives approximately $11 added to a user’s account. However, the user must pay approximately $1 to each message that he or she sends to a premium number which is 7733.

The article at Sophos notes that the Russian company claims to have a strong anti-spam/anti-fraud policy. Dmitry Samosseiko, the author of the article suspects that something is not right with this message due to the format of the text that people need to send.

Source: Sophos

A blog entry was posted at Sophos about two domain name phishes.

The first is about eNom. A screen shot is included in the blog entry of what the email looks like. It contains a link that is supposed to take users to enom.com. However, if a user clicks the link, he or she will be taken to a different domain.

Network Solutions is the other domain name registrar that was targeted by spammers. The author of the blog entry notes that the fake site looks like a modified version of the official Network Solutions login page. The email is notifying the user that their domain name has expired.

Source: Sophos