Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
-
Security experts pool ideas at European conferences
Research and expertise shared at CARO and AMTSO meetings. Last week saw two major gatherings of top security and anti-malware experts from across the globe, as the third annual CARO conference was held in Budapest, Hungary, followed by a well-attended meeting of the AMTSO testing standards group, which saw the ratification of several significant documents.…
-
Security holes trouble vendors
Vulnerabilities fixed in McAfee website and Google Chrome; patch expected for Adobe Reader. A range of vulnerabilities have been causing headaches recently for companies including security vendor McAfee , the Internet browser arm of Google and PDF reader giant Adobe . McAfee came in for criticism when it was discovered that McAfee Secure – the…
-
Banking sector confuses users over online safety
Leftfield AV detection scores used to promote ID theft tool. With online banking an increasingly important way of interacting with our banks, the security of online transactions is a huge issue for users. Even more important for banks is the perception of security, as users worried by scare stories about stolen passwords and plundered accounts…
-
Eight fixes for April Patch Tuesday release
Five critical updates in latest monthly patch release. The April Patch Tuesday release from Microsoft , revealed this week, contained five updates rated ‘critical’, as well as two deemed to be ‘important’ and one assigned a less urgent ‘moderate’ rating. The five critical patches cover vulnerabilities in the Microsoft WordPad and Office text converters, vulnerabilities…
-
VB2009 conference programme announced
Schedule for Geneva security conference announced after record submissions. Following a record number of submissions, the VB2009 conference committee is pleased to announce the programme for VB2009 . More than 160 proposals were assessed and scored by the VB2009 selection committee in order to whittle the papers down to the 38 on the programme. Presentations…
-
AV-Comparatives releases latest detection figures
Large collection test shows major improvement from AV giants. Independent testing organisation AV-Comparatives has released its latest bi-annual detection test figures, with 17 products included in the field and a test set containing a massive 1.3 million samples. The first set of results of 2009 showed notable improvements for major players Symantec and McAfee .…
-
VB anti-spam testing: results revealed
VB reveals results of trial test run: 1 platinum, 2 gold and 2 silver awards. After months of preparation, discussion and hard work, VB is pleased to announce the results of the VB anti-spam testing trial, with one product achieving platinum-level certification, two achieving the gold level and two achieving silver level. The first test…
-
BBC botnet hijack proves controversial
Legal issues raised by broadcaster’s demo of spamming, DDoS, cleanup attempt. A BBC report into the dangers of botnets has got the corporation into hot water, after reporters took control of a cluster of hijacked systems, used them to demonstrate the ability to send spam and launch denial of service attacks, and then adjusted infected…
-
Symantec slip sparks suspicion, spam
Update error leads to conspiracy theories and exploitation of fears. A faulty update issued to some users of Symantec ‘s Norton product line yesterday has led to an explosion of rumour, uncertainty and attempts to exploit a lack of clear information. The update, a file called ‘Pifts.exe’, was released without the required certifying signature, which…
-
March Patch Tuesday followed by PDF viewer patches
Major kernel issue and PDF problems fixed, spreadsheet software remains vulnerable. Microsoft released the March security bulletin this week, with the monthly Patch Tuesday updates rather lighter than usual. On the same day, Adobe released some important patches for its widely used PDF viewing software. From Microsoft came a single ‘critical’ fix for the Windows…
Got any book recommendations?