Torrent sites blocked by Trojan...

A trojan named Troj/Qhost-AC has been spotted on torrent sites labeled as a keygen for popular software. But in a strange surprise, the trojan would modify the users host file, rather than generating a key, changing popular torrent web sites like, The Pirate Bay, Suprbay (The Pirate Bay forum) and Mininova, the two most popular torrent sites on the internet to 127.0.0.1, making it impossible to visit these sites.

The Trojan caused pop-ups on users screens and played a sound file saying "downloading is wrong". The Trojan didn't install any other spyware or malware onto the victims PC, other than blocking the three web sites, something that many users thought was strange.

I know this is not so harmful trojan,but only if you know the technical details.For novoice users it can block their daily torrent spot.So,beware and very before you download torrents using vertor.com

Firefox: most vulnerable Windows application

A firm Bit9, who listed 12 most vulnerable applications on windows,has taken Firefox on top of the list.

The browser has earned the reputation from Mozilla patching 10 vulnerabilities which could be used to gain control, access, or execute miscellaneous code via buffer overflow, malformed URI links, javascript, documents and third party tools.

The browser is well respected throughout its open source community. Users can download add-ons, themes and many other tweaks that users can be used to adjust, modify and tweak their browser for maximum performance and appearance.

List of the top 12 vulnerable applications:

1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Adobe Flash and Adobe Acrobat
3. EMC VMware Player,Workstation and other products
4. Sun Java JDK and JRE, Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
5. Apple QuickTime, Safari and iTunes
6. Symantec Norton products (all flavors 2006 to 2008)
7. Trend Micro OfficeScan
8. Citrix Products
9. Aurigma Image Uploader, Lycos FileUploader
10. Skype
11. Yahoo Assistant
12. Microsoft Windows Live (MSN) Messenger

ZoneAlarm 8.0.065.0

ZoneAlarm is an easy-to-use firewall that blocks hackers and other unknown threats.

• Intrusion Blocking systematically identifies hackers and blocks access attempts.
• Stealth Mode automatically makes your computer invisible to anyone on the Internet.
• Automatic Program Configuration provides safety and simplicity by automatically configuring programs. Automatically decides whether to allow or deny Internet access to individual programs.
• Expert Controls give savvy users precise control over security settings.

This free version is for non-commercial use only.

ZoneAlarm

Privacy/security breach?IPhone Snaps Everything You Do

What is apple upto? I mean... this is totally a privacy breach for any user who just uses a iPhone because he likes it.

wired.com says

While demonstrating how to break the iPhone's passcode lock in a webcast, iPhone hacker and data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski explained that the popular handset snaps a screenshot of your most recent action -- regardless of whether it's sending a text message, e-mailing or browsing a web page -- in order to cache it. This is purely for aesthetic purposes: When an iPhone user taps the Home button, the window of the application you have open shrinks and disappears. In order to create that shrinking effect, the iPhone snaps a screenshot, Zdziarski said.

The phone presumably deletes the image after you close the application. But anyone who understands data is aware that in most cases, deletion does not permanently remove files from a storage device. Therefore, forensics experts have used this security flaw to gather evidence against criminals convicted of rape, murder or drug deals, Zdziarski said.

"There's no way to prevent it," Zdziarski said during the webcast. "I'm kind of divided on it. I hope Apple fixes it because it's a significant privacy leak, but at the same time it's been useful for investigating criminals."

Now what is that means?It means.. to catch such people,everyone is a suspect?And every user who buys an iPhone will have to suffer such things? This is not the right feature if its breaching your security and privacy.I hope wpple will do something in this regard.

Google Chrome - reasons to avoid

This is something really we should consider.I read this on neowin. Google chrome is a big thing these days.Everyone is talking about this small piece. But here users have submitted the flaws and vulnerability in this browser. It talks about what the users must keep in mind before use it because just the name of google. Google has released the thing without the patch for the problems.

Neowin said,

"The first, is the popular "carpet bomb" vulnerability that still exists within Chrome, as pointed out on our forums by our member matessim. This vulnerability allows malicious websites to drive by download and execute programs on your machine. Our visitors may remember the uproar that this same vulnerability caused for Safari users, and that Apple patched the carpet-bombing issue with Safari v3.1.2. Chrome is vulnerable to this exploit because it is based on the same engine, WebKit 525.13, and Google did not patch or update the engine before releasing the software.

The other, and less technical, problem with Chrome exists in its EULA. More specifically, the point that would seem to give Google rights to anything you post on the Internet while using their browser, mostly in conjunction with the promotion of its services."

As the google EULA says,

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services."

Which should not be in some browser which is an Open Source piece and expected to be a good software from a reputed company. I mean what google wants to prove?

So please think before you use it without the patch released and about your information sharing with google :).

More Security on Gmail now

This is what is expected since long.May be Gmail is safe as we think but excessive usage of Ajax and java script can be injurious to privacy and security!

I read this on gmailblog.They have added support for remote log off now.If you had logged in from another PC last time and forgot to log off,next time it will show you the IP address with a link for more details. On details, you will get more details regarding concurrent access to the account and recent activities.Which will show account type, access type and IP addresses with time of access.

More @ GmailBlog

Don't use safari on windows: Research says

We all know about safari on windows since the last release of it. Many articles has been written on that and apple has done patches also. But still something remains :). Read this, and you will surely not use safari on windows.

A researcher has created a proof-of-concept site that graphically demonstrates the risk Windows users face when using Apple's Safari browser. Microsoft's security team already warned that a "blended threat" was so serious that Windows users should curtail their use of Safari until a security patch is available. Blog post from researcher Liu Die Yu makes it clear the warning was by no means overstated.

Clicking on this link with Safari using default settings automatically downloads a booby-trapped file onto a Windows user's desktop with no prompting. The next time the user opens Internet Explorer, the force-fed file automatically causes the notepad.exe application to launch and open a non-existent file. Of course, miscreants could choose far more nefarious code.

When informed that its browser downloads files with no prompting, Apple said it may get around to changing this behavior at some point. In other words, this is no big deal from a security perspective, so let's all move on.

The Register

Throw it away: Virgin and BPI oposite to illegal downloaders

Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) are to send warning letters to customers they believe are downloading or distributing music illegally. The announcement represents the first such public deal between the BPI and an ISP.

The pair hope that the new campaign will avoid users risking disconnection and possible legal action.

"Virgin Media's fibre optic broadband is a great platform for people who want to download lots of music,"

said Virgin Media in a statement.

"But we want them to do so without infringing the rights of musicians and music companies."

Customers whose accounts appear to have been used to distribute music in breach of copyright will receive "informative letters" from Virgin Media and the BPI.

What's this? I mean no one is free? This is too much. I mean all the artists and makers of movies and music are already getting much more then they need. They are 'they' because of people like them. People like them because maximum people watch or here them, out of them many are using pirated copies but it makes them more fans. They say they loss money, but i think they got popular with piracy. What you think? If Virgin media is doing this, then what you could download you can understand ;). So better don't use it, throw away it and take some another connection if possible which is not having such crappy rules about how your should use the network after paying much money to keep their mouth shut!

I think all media must be free to public once its out of theaters or published. If they don't like piracy, don't buy bulk pricey expensive DVDs,CDs etc. They made by us, can be fallen by us!

Wha do you think?

More on virgin @ vnunet

Spammers - new front is social networking sites

Social networking sites have become the new front in the war against spam, according to security watchers.

In the six months leading up to March 2008, social networking sites saw a four-fold growth in the amount of spam on their network. At several major social networking sites, 30 per cent of new accounts created are automated fraudulent 'zombie' accounts, designed to be used for spam and other malicious attacks, according to anti-spam firm Cloudmark.

JF Sullivan, VP of marketing at Cloudmark, said the type of spam advertised through social networks is the same type as that advertised by email spam and punted by much the same people. "There's an implicit trust in social networking. People don't think they're going to be attacked with spam," Sullivan told El Reg. "People don't trust email anymore. Spammers are following peoples' online habits."

Mobile spam, by contrast, is sent by different group of individuals.

Social networking spam can be messages between users or posts to walls or other similar applications. Social network spammers most often hijack accounts using fake log-in pages. Phishing-like tactics, password guessing and the use of Trojans to capture keystrokes are also in play.

Full story @ theRegister

Debian and Ubuntu flaw - private SSL/SSH keys guessable

The Debian Security Advisory posted up DSA-1571-1 openssl -- predictable random number generator issue today and strongly advised its users to take steps to avoid possible compromising of any systems running on Debian, such as Ubuntu.

The researcher Luciano Bello discovered a security flaw in Debian's random number generator that allows to predict a random generated number. This is caused by an incorrect Debian change to the openssl package. As a result, cryptographic key material may be guessable.

This problem not only affects Debian, but also all its derivatives, such as Ubuntu.

It is strongly recommended that all cryptographic key material which has been generated by OpenSSL versions starting with 0.9.8c-1 on affected systems is recreated from scratch. Furthermore, all DSA keys ever used on affected systems for signing or authentication purposes should be considered compromised.

Via: debian.org

Bluetooth: A risk for privacy!

Worried about your civil liberties and privacy? Then it may come as a shock to discover that you have unwittingly been allowing your phone to signal your every move.

Bluetooth, a wireless link built into many cellphones, makes our movements trackable by anyone equipped with a PC and an appropriate receiver. Vassilis Kostakos at the University of Bath in the UK placed four Bluetooth receivers in the city's centre. Over four months, his team tracked 10,000 Bluetooth phones and was able to "capture and analyse people's encounters" in pubs, streets and shops.

Bluetooth is now more of a privacy threat than the more frequently publicised RFID chips, Kostakos says.

"If people are worried, they should turn off the Bluetooth function on their mobile phones."

via NewScientistTech

Windows XP SP3 - now via Windows Update

Windows XP SP3 is finally here for those that use Windows Update, and here is a direct link to the stand-alone version of SP3 for x86 XP systems (32 bit).

Here is an interesting article regarding SP3 performance, ignoring the fact that Vista SP1 is still faster than XP SP2/SP3 users will enjoy a performance boost over SP2. When will people learn that Vista ain't all bad!

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3.

Installer for Windows XP SP3 English, 32 Bit [316M]
SP 3 for Windows XP via Windows Update

Microsoft Web Servers Hacked

Hundreds of thousands of Web sites - including several at the United Nations and in the U.K. government -- have been hacked recently and seeded with code that tries to exploit security flaws in Microsoft Windows to install malicious software on visitors' machines.

The attackers appear to be breaking into the sites with the help of a security vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) Web servers. In an alert issued last week, Microsoft said it was investigating reports of an unpatched flaw in IIS servers, but at the time it noted that it wasn't aware of anyone trying to exploit that particular weakness.

On Thursday, Spanish anti-virus vendor Panda Security said that it had alerted Microsoft that a flaw IIS was the cause of all the break-ins. When I asked Microsoft whether they'd heard from Panda or if the hundreds of thousands of sites were hacked from a patched or unpatched flaw in IIS, a spokesman for the company didn't offer much more information.

According to Finnish anti-virus maker F-Secure, the number of hacked Web pages serving up malicious software from this attack may be closer to half a million.

Washington Post

Wordpress 2.5.1

If you download the entire 2.5.1 release, you will be getting over 70 other fixes. 2.5.1 focuses on fixing the most annoying bugs and improving performance.

* Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
* Better performance for those who have many categories
* Media Uploader fixes
* An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
* Widget Administration fixes
* Various usability improvements
* Layout fixes for IE

Since 2.5 your wp-config.php file allows a new constant called SECRET_KEY which basically is meant to introduce a little permanent randomness into the cryptographic functions used for cookies in WordPress.

via WordPress.org

Sony BMG Sued for Software Piracy!

Sony BMG, a company known for enforcing its intellectual property rights, is now facing the other end of an Intellectual Property related lawsuit. A report (French) says the complaining company, PointDev, seized some of Sonys assets which revealed that the pirated software appeared on four of their servers.

PointDev, a small software company, mandated a bailiff to raid one of Sony BMGs owned building in January this year. The raid revealed that four of the Sony BMGs owned servers contained the pirated software.

It appears as though the company discovered this when an IT department employee requested assistance for the use of a product called Ideal Migration. When technical support looked into the case, they discovered that the key used to activate the software was a pirated version.

Essentially, the PointDev CEO says that the BSA has said that French Corporations have a software piracy rate of 47%. The CEO also says that piracy may even be a part of Sony's business policy - if you can't afford it, pirate it. It is said that Sony was in the process of merging with BMG when the pirating incident occurred.

An additional report (French) (Google Translation) says that the CEO of PointDev wants to make this piracy case an example.

Sony told La Province to not report on the ongoing investigation. Clearly, Sony is not happy that this case was made public at all.

via zeropaid.com

Apple Mac hacked!

The fastest $10,000 Charlie Miller ever earned!

He took the first of three laptop computers -- and a $10,000 cash prize -- Thursday after breaking into a MacBook Air at the CanSecWest security conference's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest.

Show organizers offered a Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810, and the MacBook as prizes, saying that they could be won by anybody at the show who could find a way to hack into each of them and read the contents of a file on the system using a previously undisclosed "0day" attack.

Within 2 minutes, he directed the contest's organizers to visit a Web site that contained his exploit code, which then allowed him to seize control of the computer, as about 20 onlookers cheered him on. He was the first contestant to attempt an attack on any of the systems.

Miller was quickly given a nondisclosure agreement to sign, and he's not allowed to discuss particulars of his bug until the contest's sponsor, TippingPoint, can notify the vendor. Contest rules state that Miller could only take advantage of software that was preinstalled on the Mac, so the flaw he exploited must have been accessible by, or possibly inside, Apple's Safari browser.

yahoo news

Flaws in Safari browser for Windows

We had just a discussion on this that its not as good and FF3 and stick to FF3 is better, this is what i found today.

An Argentinian security researcher has discovered two flaws in Apple's Safari for Windows browser. Juan Pablo Lopez Yacubian said the vulnerabilities could allow hackers to remotely take control of a victim's computer.

He described the most serious flaw as a vulnerability in the Safari 3.1 browser for Windows which allows a hacker to “falsify the web address and enter another page or content".

This essentially means that even though you see a trusted URL in the browser address bar, the web page could be displaying unauthorized content that could put your PC at risk.

webUser.co.uk

Advanced WindowsCare 3 Beta 1

This comprehensive PC-care utility has a one-click approach to helping protect, repair and optimize your PC. Advanced WindowsCare Personal Edition helps protect, optimize, and repair your PC –– with daily use.

Features:

* Ending slow downs, freezes, crashes, and security threats.
* Scanning and finding what other utilities miss on your PC.
* Keeping your PC error-free and running more smoothly than ever.
* Designed for Windows Vista, XP, and 2000.
* Over 10,000,000 downloads since 2006.
* Availability is free of charge for private use.
* Plus, Advanced WindowsCare Personal is 100% safe and clean with no adware, spyware, or viruses.

What's New:

* New Features, New Interface, New Functions
* Improved Scanning, Cleaning, Repairing, and Optimizing
* Triple Backup Mechanism
* Faster Loading

Home Page

TrueCrypt 5.1

What's New in version 5.1:

New features:

• Support for hibernation on computers where the system partition is encrypted (previous versions of TrueCrypt prevented the system from hibernating when the system partition was encrypted). (Windows Vista/XP/2008/2003)
• Ability to mount a partition that is within the key scope of system encryption without pre-boot authentication (for example, a partition located on the encrypted system drive of another operating system that is not running). (Windows Vista/XP/2008/2003)
  
  Note: This can be useful e.g. when there is a need to back up or repair an operating system encrypted by TrueCrypt (from within another operating system).
• Command line options for creating new volumes. (Linux and Mac OS X)

Improvements:

• Increased speed of AES encryption/decryption (depending on the hardware platform, by 30-90%). (Windows)
• Faster booting when the system partition is encrypted. (Windows Vista/XP/2008/2003)
• When the system partition/drive is encrypted, the TrueCrypt Boot Loader is now stored in a compressed form and is, therefore, smaller. If a non-cascade encryption algorithm is used (i.e., AES, Serpent, or Twofish), the TrueCrypt Boot Loader is now small enough so that a backup of the TrueCrypt Boot Loader can be (and is) stored in first drive cylinder. Whenever the TrueCrypt Boot Loader is damaged, its backup copy is run automatically instead.
  
  As a result of this improvement, the following problem will no longer occur: Certain inappropriately designed activation software (used for activation of some third-party software) writes data to the first drive cylinder, thus damaging the TrueCrypt Boot Loader. The affected users had to use the TrueCrypt Rescue Disk to repair the TrueCrypt Boot Loader. This will no longer be necessary after upgrading to this version of TrueCrypt (provided that the system partition/drive is encrypted using a non-cascade encryption algorithm, i.e., AES, Serpent, or Twofish).
  
  Note: If your system partition/drive is currently encrypted using a non-cascade encryption algorithm (i.e., AES, Serpent, or Twofish), a backup copy of the TrueCrypt Boot Loader will be automatically stored in the first drive cylinder when you upgrade to this version of TrueCrypt.
• The minimum memory requirements for the TrueCrypt Boot Loader have been reduced from 42 KB to 27 KB (twenty-seven kilobytes). This allows users to encrypt system partitions/drives on computers where the BIOS reserves a large amount of memory. (Windows Vista/XP/2008/2003)
• Many other minor improvements. (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux)

Resolved incompatibilities:

• On some computers, when performing the system encryption pretest, Windows failed to display the log-on screen. This will no longer occur. (Windows Vista/XP/2008/2003)

Bug fixes:

• On some systems, drive letters were not correctly assigned to newly mounted non-system volumes. This will no longer occur. (Windows)
• Many other minor bug fixes. (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux)

TrueCrypt.org

Security hack: Developer's Backdoor Hack in G-Archiver for GMail

A serious Gmail account hacking backdoor, has been found in the popular Gmail archiving software G-Archiver. This application, in all its innocence, allows you to download and backup all emails from your GMail account. But apparently the developer included the code to send an email to his email ID with all usernames and passwords!

G-Archiver has posted this explanation of what happened: "It is urgent that you remove the current version of G-Archiver from your computer, and change your Gmail account password right away. What happened was that a member of our development team had inserted coding used for testing G-Archiver in the debug version and forgot to delete it in the final release version."

winVistaClub