01/16/2009
Virus infection wreaks havoc with Royal Navy Warships
Not wasting any time in 2009, the virus writers have already gotten started. The Register, an online technology site based in the U.K. brings news about the email virus outage that has shut down "a small number" of Ministry of Defense (MoD) systems. Among the affected systems were admin networks... Read more
Windows PCs Vulnerable to Worm Attack
Sadly, as so often happens, consumers are lazy, complacent, and just plain ignorant about keeping their computers protected and updated. Readers may recall there was a very nasty worm that hit Microsoft Windows PCs in 2008, for which Microsoft issued a rare "out-of-cycle" patch back in late October. Well, folks,... Read more
01/05/2009
This Year's Resolution: Get Antivirus Software
A good reminder came by way of a Montreal Gazette article on antivirus software, one of the fine newspapers published by our Neighbors to the North: "Okay, okay, this year, I’ll get anti-virus software.' Say it and mean it." Marc Saltzman, who penned the piece, brings up a great point:... Read more
12/31/2008
Guide to Speeding up your PCs Startup
As with every year for the past several years, lots of people and families got new computers in their homes this Christmas / holiday season. Often, especially when there are kids in the family, the computers quickly go from being the fastest on the block to feeling like they're already... Read more
12/29/2008
Worms in Samsung Digital Picture Frames??
Contrary to some reports that some Samsung 8-inch digital photo frames had worms, the frames themselves don't have worms but the installer discs do. (How's that for an unwanted Christmas present?) As far as consumers are concerned, there's no difference. A virus is a virus, and this is an unfortunate... Read more
12/22/2008
Free Antivirus Software Security Problems
ComputerWorld.com brings notice today of problems with Trend Micro's free online antivirus scanner. Turns out there's a nasty little bug in the service that crackers can use to take over Microsoft Windows PCs via Internet Explorer. The service, called HouseCall, is made available via ActiveX and exploits a particular vulnerability... Read more
12/19/2008
More web browser security issues. Opera this time...
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water after the last round of security alerts and news on Internet Explorer trojan vulnerabilities, Opera announced they have some bugs of their own to take care of, too, in versions prior to 9.63 of the web browser.... Read more
12/16/2008
More news on the IE security flaw
BBC News covers the IE security flaw and brings these details: '"In this case, hackers found the hole before Microsoft did," said Rick Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro. "This is never a good thing." As many as 10,000 websites have been compromised since the vulnerability was discovered, he... Read more
12/15/2008
NoScript: A tool for securing your computer against web browser-based attacks
For those of you that haven't (yet) switched from Internet Explorer to Firefox, there's a tool to significantly improve computer security. It's called: NoScript. The beauty of NoScript is that it allows you to completely disable javascript, java, flash, shockwave, silverlight, and any other scripts on a site-by-site basis. "What's... Read more
12/13/2008
New IE7 security exploit in the wild
News yesterday from our friends at MSMVPs.com and WebSense, who bring the latest news on an IE7 Zero Day security exploit. Looks like some folks have already taken advantage of a Taiwanese search engine "look.tw," which has apparently had at least several hundred pages infected, and are trying to use... Read more