http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:24:19 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/22443/Lose_Lose_Art_or_a_Trojan_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22443/Lose_Lose_Art_or_a_Trojan_/ Computers are taking on ever more important roles in our daily lives. They used to be simple tools to get simple things done - work-related, mostly, maybe a few simple games, and that was it. However, over time, they have become the central hubs for all sorts of data - including precious data. For his Master of Fine Arts thesis project, Zach Gage illustrated just how important our computer data has become. Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:29:08 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Bugs & Viruses 28 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22289/Linux_Saves_Aussie_Electrical_Grid/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22289/Linux_Saves_Aussie_Electrical_Grid/ A Windows virus hit the display consoles in the control room of the Australian national electricity grid, presumably leaving the managers bind to the system status. Luckily, system administrators had Linux-based systems for development that could be swapped out for the disabled Windows machines. It seems as much of a failure to properly maintain the Windows machines as a failure of judgment in using a virus-susceptible OS for mission critical systems, but it's fun schadenfreude fodder for Windows haters. Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:35:02 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Bugs & Viruses 19 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News Moulinneuf http://www.osnews.com/story/22239/Help_Me_Disinfect_My_Computer_Lab/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22239/Help_Me_Disinfect_My_Computer_Lab/ A non-OSNews-reader asks: "I've got 5 PCs that I'm trying to use to train disadvantaged young people. The problem is they are riddled with viruses and a firewall blocks me from updating them. The people in charge of maintaining the PCs won't fix them or give me the admin password (Win XP) to let me install a new or updated antivirus. The centre is being shut down in a few months. If they were working, I could still do a lot with them, so I've been looking for a good online virus scan - but they all try to download a little .exe onto your PC first, and the settings on the PCs won't allow that. Suggestions? Solutions? Links?" Read on for our recommendation. Update: It appears that this question is part of an elaborate email scam designed to propagate malware. See here for details. Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:17:28 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Bugs & Viruses 61 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 Feature http://www.osnews.com/story/21901/Adobe_s_Flash_Flawed_Time_to_Do_Without_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21901/Adobe_s_Flash_Flawed_Time_to_Do_Without_/ Adobe Flash. It's everywhere. Not all of us want it, but many are forced into submission simply because it's weaseled its way into a myriad of applied and common uses. This just makes all the worse the news that a vulnerability in Adobe Flash, Reader, and Acrobat applications is allowing malcontents to exploit computers with these products installed. Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:53:20 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Bugs & Viruses 53 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21797/US_South_Korean_Websites_Under_Attack_North_Korea_Suspected/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21797/US_South_Korean_Websites_Under_Attack_North_Korea_Suspected/ In the past several days, it appears that at least 35 US- and South Korea-based websites were under attack by a botnet group of computers, causing the attacked domains to become very slow and unresponsive and even putting many out of commission for periods of time. Among the domains were many government websites of their respective countries. It's unconfirmed as to where exactly the attack is being launched from, but South Korean officials believe it to be North Koran forces or those sympathetic to their cause. Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:28:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Bugs & Viruses 18 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21687/_Botnet_Trading_Platform_for_Hacked_PCs_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21687/_Botnet_Trading_Platform_for_Hacked_PCs_/ Finjan managed to research a trading network and botnet, where compromised PCs are bought and sold for profit. Their report shows "the operations of the Golden Cash network consisting of an entire trading platform of malware-infested PCs. The trading platform utilizes all necessary components (buyer side, seller side, attack toolkit, and distribution via 'partners'). This advanced trading platform marks a new milestone in the cybercrime evolution. By turning compromised PCs from a one-time source of profit into a digital asset that can be bought and sold again and again, cybercriminals are maximizing their illegal gains." Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:43:41 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Bugs & Viruses 2 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News Frank Harris http://www.osnews.com/story/21663/Microsoft_to_Release_Anti-Virus_App/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21663/Microsoft_to_Release_Anti-Virus_App/ Reuters reports that Microsoft is getting ready to unveil a free antivirus service for computers to compete with the many retail antivirus offerings on the market. Microsoft first made plans for its free antivirus offering codenamed "Morro" in November of 2008. At the time, Microsoft said that the service would be launching in the second half of 2009. The exact launch date of the new free anti-virus service has yet to be announced, but Reuters reports that Microsoft will "soon" make a beta version of the free protection available for users. Investors in security software firms like McAfee and Symantec are worried that a free offering from Microsoft could potentially harm revenue for the companies. Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:49:48 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Bugs & Viruses 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News PLan http://www.osnews.com/story/21312/OSNews_Asks_Who_d_Be_Responsible_for_a_Linux_Conficker_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21312/OSNews_Asks_Who_d_Be_Responsible_for_a_Linux_Conficker_/ Whenever the Conficker worm comes up here on OSNews (or any other site for that matter) there are always a number of people who point their fingers towards Redmond, stating that it's their fault Conifcker got out. While Microsoft has had some pretty lax responses to security threats in the past, it handled the whole Conficker thing perfectly, releasing a patch even before Conficker existed, and pushing it through Windows Update. In any case, this made me wonder about Linux distributions and security. What if a big security hole pops up in a Linux distribution - who will the Redmond-finger-pointing people hold responsible? Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:54:58 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Bugs & Viruses 73 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21237/Conficker_Worm_a_Big_Letdown/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21237/Conficker_Worm_a_Big_Letdown/ We're well and deep into April 1 now, and if you were to believe some of the reports and hype on the internet, we should've all been paying in bottle caps right about now. As any sane person already saw coming, the Windows worm Conficker didn't do anything. It just kind of sat there, patiently mocking all those who did not update their machines properly. Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:48:46 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Bugs & Viruses 30 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News http://www.osnews.com/story/20714/30_GB_Zune_Going_Kaplunk_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20714/30_GB_Zune_Going_Kaplunk_/ "Judgment day has arrived for owners of 30GB (and only 30GB) Zunes. The music player inexplicably entered a worldwide coma last night, and players are completely non responsive." [Kroc: I wonder if this is anything like the bug that caused Windows 98 to crash after 49 days when the tick-count exceeded 32-bits :P] Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:12:52 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Bugs & Viruses 29 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News http://www.osnews.com/story/20525/AVG_Antivirus_Accidentally_Kills_Windows/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20525/AVG_Antivirus_Accidentally_Kills_Windows/ Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish users of the popular anti-virus software AVG have discovered a nasty surprise. AVG has mistakenly identified a core Windows system file, user32.dll, as a Trojan, and summarily deletes it, b0rking Windows. AVG has announced they're working on a fix. Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:09:36 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Bugs & Viruses 16 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News Dan Warne http://www.osnews.com/story/20509/Worst_Bug_Ever_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20509/Worst_Bug_Ever_/ There's a bug in Android that crosses over from the realm of serious into self-parody: "It turns out the bug in Android I wrote about yesterday was worse than we thought. When the phone booted it started up a command shell as root and sent every keystroke you ever typed on the keyboard from then on to that shell. Thus every word you typed, in addition to going to the foreground application would be silently and invisibly interpreted as a command and executed with superuser privileges. Wow!" Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:50:56 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Bugs & Viruses 51 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News Hakime http://www.osnews.com/story/20214/Next-Generation_Computer_Antivirus_System_Developed/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20214/Next-Generation_Computer_Antivirus_System_Developed/ "Antivirus software on your personal computer could become a thing of the past thanks to a new "cloud computing" approach to malicious software detection developed at the University of Michigan. The researchers' new approach, called CloudAV, moves antivirus functionality into the "network cloud" and off personal computers. CloudAV analyzes suspicious files using multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs simultaneously. Traditional antivirus software that resides on a personal computer checks documents and programs as they are accessed. Because of performance constraints and program incompatibilities, only one antivirus detector is typically used at a time. The researchers see promising opportunities in applying CloudAV to cell phones and other mobile devices that aren't robust enough to carry powerful antivirus software." Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:17:59 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Bugs & Viruses 12 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News irbis http://www.osnews.com/story/20110/Are_We_About_to_Witness_a_Real_OS_X_virus_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20110/Are_We_About_to_Witness_a_Real_OS_X_virus_/ Mac Antivirus developer Intego might have stumbled across an OS X specific virus being offered for auction that targets a previously unknown ZIP archive vulnerability. From Intego's posting, it appears that an enterprising auctioneer seems determined to make sure that his name is one that is not forgotten when it comes to Apple security, claiming that his exploit is a poisoned ZIP archive that will "KO the system and Hard Drive" when unarchived. Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:01:25 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Amjith Ramanujam) Bugs & Viruses 38 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News Ward D http://www.osnews.com/story/19731/The_25_Year_Old_BSD_Bug/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19731/The_25_Year_Old_BSD_Bug/ 1983. The year of the IBM PC XT, the Apple Lisa, Pioneer 10 leaving the solar system, and Hooters opening up shop in Florida. It's also the birthyear of a 25 year old BSD bug, squashed only a few days ago. Sat, 10 May 2008 20:27:05 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Bugs & Viruses 52 http://www.osnews.com/topics/35 News rosebug