Computer Tips -Tech Info

I think somewhere along the line, Warner Bros missed the memo that 180solutions is not a brand that many people would jump to associate with. Apparently 180Solutions has started making two Warner Bros shows (a soap opera and animated series) available for download on some of their sites including zango. Of course, the episodes come […]

There’s been a lot of talk about hardware enforced DEP as a mitigating factor in some of the exploits in the last six months. There’s also a new software product that can limit the impact of zero-day exploits. The software is for windows and is called SocketShield. Suzi at Spyware Confidential has taken it for […]

There are a couple stories on spywarecleaner’s recent practice of bundling whenu with the free version of their “antispyware scanner”. According to spyware confidential, SpywareCleaner made the rogue antispyware products list and was delisted after they corrected some “issues”. Now, they’ve been relisted due to the adware bundling of WhenU Save.    Send article as […]

There is a new twist on the bot networks that have been the plague of computing in recent years. This one is called ClickBot. The story is from Incidents.org Many sites, (like this one) use adsense to “monetize their content”. The idea is that advertisers bid on “clicks”. So, if I wanted to advertise on […]

There are a couple news stories about a McAfee SiteAdvisor report about the search engines responsibility for sites that distribute malware. McAfee said Friday that the epidemic of spyware and viruses could be linked to search engines. According to research from the company, even seemingly benign search terms could bring up sites loaded with nasty […]

Freedom to tinker brings us this BIG problem. I guess what concerns me most about this, is the way I see it, voter fraud has pretty much gone on since there have been elections. Let’s face it, there is always someone, acting officially or not that will jockey for the best advantage for their candidate. […]

Fines and prison time are among the penalties envisioned under a proposed house bill. The requirement would be that businesses with database holding information on more than 10,000 people (or federal employees) would have to inform either the Secret Service or the FBI of a data security breach. (The maximum sentence would be five years.) […]

Incidents.org has another interesting post about a spyware site. One of the handlers ran across it while doing a search for an educational institution. (They’ve used a wildcard in the dns record so that they can get traffic to {fillinkeyword}.nastydomain.com) Anyway… the main page tries to install WinAntiSpyware2006FreeInstall.cab from WinSoftware Corporation, Inc. It gives the […]

There is no doubt that spyware is a problem, but when a vendor of anti-spyware software claims 87% of pcs have on average 34 pieces of spyware per machine installed…… you do have to wonder. And when they claim that in part on FREE anti-spyware software….. “Security analysts blame this increasing infection rate on the […]

Rootkits are a piece (or pieces) of software that someone can be used once a system is compromised to a) regain access to a system and b) remove traces of a compromise and c) many times hide itself. There are some tools for linux based systems that can be run to detect traces of rootkits […]