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October 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under Protection Tools
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Adobe races to patch zero-day vulnerability in Flash Player
September 26, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
Adobe has issued a security advisory about an as-yet unpatched vulnerability in its popular Flash Player software, affecting users of Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris and even Google Android.
The critical security hole could allow an attacker to take control of your computer and run malicious code.
The firm also confirmed that the vulnerability also affects Adobe Reader 9.3.4 for Windows, Mac and UNIX, and Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4 and earlier versions for Windows and Mac. The reason that Acrobat and Reader are also affected is because the programs support Flash content inside PDF files
The new warnings follow closely after news last week of another vulnerability in Reader and Acrobat that was being exploited by malware authors.
Adobe has announced that an update for Flash Player tackling the latest vulnerability is expected to be available during the week of September 27, and an update for Acrobat and Reader will be available the following week.
Last month, Sophos blogger Chet Wisniewski interviewed Brad Arkin, Adobe’s Senior Director of Product Security and Privacy, about the firm’s security strategy and their upcoming sandboxing technology.
You can also download the interview directly in MP3 format.
BlitzBlank 1.0 – Removes infections that nothing else removes
August 28, 2010 by admin
Filed under Removal Tips,Tools and Videos
When others fail to properly clean up…
Malware infections are not always easy to clean up. These days the software pests use clever techniques to protect themselves from being deleted. In more and more cases it is almost impossible to delete a Malware file while Windows is running.
Files and registry entries are often locked in different ways to prevent them from being deleted. Active Malware processes monitor each other and start each other anew as soon as one of them is destroyed.
The only solution is to delete the pests during the Windows Boot process – before any Malware has started running and has activated its self-protection mechanisms.
Critical patches for Windows and Flash Player
August 11, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
If you’re a user of Windows or Flash (and I would imagine that covers the vast majority of you) then it’s time to roll out the latest critical security patches, as Microsoft and Adobe have released updates to their software.
First up is Microsoft, who have released a bumper bundle of fixes as part of their regular “Patch Tuesday” cycle, issuing 14 bulletins to remedy 34 security holes in Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, Silverlight, Microsoft XML Core Services and Server Message Block.
Eight of the bulletins have been Microsoft’s highest severity rating of “critical”, with the rest being labelled “important”.
The good news, as Chet Wisniewski explains, is that we haven’t yet seen any malware spreading by exploiting these vulnerabilities – but that may only be a matter of time.
Separately, Microsoft has also issued an advisory about a zero-day vulnerability, which could allow untrusted code to run on a user’s machine by exploiting a weakness in the Windows Service Isolation feature.
Meanwhile, another platform commonly targeted by malicious hackers has been updated to defend against security vulnerabilities.
Adobe has identified critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player version 10.1.53.64 and earlier, and urged users to update their installations of Flash and Adobe Air.
If you’re not sure which version of the Adobe Flash Player you have installed, visit the About Flash Player page. Remember that if you use more than one browser on your computer you should check the version number on each.
GFI Backup 2009 Home Edition (build 20100730) now available
August 6, 2010 by admin
Filed under Protection Tools
Free Windows Shortcut Exploit Protection Tool From SOPHOS
July 27, 2010 by admin
Filed under Protection Tools
What is the Windows Shortcut Exploit?
The Windows Shortcut Exploit, also known as CPLINK, is a zero-day vulnerability in all versions of Windows that allows a Windows shortcut link, known as an .lnk file, to run a malicious DLL file. The dangerous shortcut links can also be embedded on a website or hidden within documents.
More malware exploiting Windows shortcut vulnerability
July 26, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but more evidence has come to light that cybercriminals are actively exploiting the Windows shortcut vulnerability (also known as CVE-2010-2568).
Like the earlier Stuxnet attack, more examples of specially crafted shortcut (.LNK) files that point to malicious code and trick Windows into executing it without user interaction have been analysed in our labs.
Overnight Sophos saw two malware samples that were being spread by the .LNK vulnerability. Customers of Sophos products were already protected as we detect the .LNK shortcuts generically as Exp/Cplink-A or Troj/Cplink – however, here is more information on the specific malware:
Troj/Chymin-A:
Also known as Chymine, this keylogging Trojan horse is designed to steal information from infected computers.
Troj/Chymin-A may be downloaded by exploited Windows Shortcut (.LNK) files.
W32/Dulkis-A:
W32/Dulkis-A is the more interesting of the two examples of malware we saw related to the exploit overnight, as it drops .LNK shortcut files that exploit the vulnerability to removable drives such as USB sticks. Sophos products detect these .LNK files as Exp/Cplink-A.
W32/Dulkis-A is a Windows worm, written in obfuscated Visual Basic, which copies itself to any attached removable storage device using the files 9.tmp (detected as Mal/TDSSPack-Z), xxx.dll (detected as W32/Dulkis-A) and <randomname>.tmp (detected as Troj/Nebule-Gen).
Security risks for those who stay with Windows XP SP2
July 13, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
Tomorrow (Tuesday 13 July 2010) Microsoft will issue its last ever security patches for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).
The service pack, which was first released in August 2004, will no longer be supported by Microsoft after Tuesday meaning that users will no longer receive any security patches – regardless of how critical any discovered vulnerability may be.
Furthermore, it’s not just Windows XP SP2 that Microsoft won’t be updating – but your installations for Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Outlook Express and other Windows XP SP2 components also won’t receive security patches if you’re running that version of the operating system.
You may be wondering – “What’s the problem? After all, Windows XP SP3 was released in 2008, and replaced SP2, right?”
Well, yes. It did. But recently published statistics suggest that an alarming 77% of organisations are running Windows XP SP2 on 10% or more of their PCs.
That’s an awful lot of computers which may not be properly protected when a new vulnerability is discovered – and could potentially be vulnerable to a malware attack.
Microsoft would probably like you to update your computers to Windows 7, but that may be a tall order for many older PCs. If you’re not ready for Windows 7, make sure you apply the free update to Windows XP SP3. Windows XP SP3 will be supported by Microsoft until at least April 2014.
Beware ‘Your log 05.07.2010′ emails – they carry malware
July 8, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
Malicious hackers are spamming out emails around the world disguised as a changelog, with the intention of infecting recipient’s Windows computers with the attachment.
A typical email reads as follows, although there can be minor variations in the message body:
Subject: Your log 05.07.2010
Message body:
Dear Customers,
as promised your changelog is attached,
<name>Attached file: Changelog_05_07_2010.zip
The emails, by the way, are always signed off by the first name of the person who is mentioned in the message’s from: field. That field is, of course, forged – it’s not really that person who sent you the email so don’t blame them if you get infected!
Critical patches: Update your Adobe Flash player now
June 11, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
Adobe has issued a security bulletin detailing critical vulnerabilities that have been discovered in the current versions of Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Macintosh, Solaris and Linux.
An update issued by Adobe claims to resolve 32 vulnerabilities in Flash Player – which if left unpatched could leave open a door for hackers to infect innocent users’ computers. Some of the security holes are already being exploited by malicious hackers.
Adobe is recommending that users upgrade to Adobe Flash Player 10.1.53.64.
If you’re not sure which version of the Adobe Flash Player you have installed, visit theAbout Flash Player page. Remember that if you use more than one browser on your computer you should check the version number on each.
Adobe further recommends that users of Adobe AIR version 1.5.3.9130 and earlier versions update to Adobe AIR 2.02.12610.
It is becoming more and more common for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities in Adobe’s software – so it would be a very good idea for everyone to update vulnerable computers as soon as possible.
