Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Browser phishing filters battle for supremacy. Mozilla has released results of an independently run test of phishing filters, in which its latest product, Firefox 2.0 , is compared with Microsoft ‘s new offering, Internet Explorer 7 . The test results show new technology in Firefox outperforming that in the rival browser. Researchers at a third-party…

ActiveScan remote access holes patched, details disclosed. Several vulnerabilites have been found in Panda Software ‘s ActiveScan product. The problems could be used to initiate a reboot from a remote source, to gather system information or even to launch arbitrary code. The flaws were reported to Panda on September 21st, and patches issued almost two…

Trend, F-Secure add extra layer to smartphone security. Two new products have been unveiled this week offering firewall protection for smartphones and PDAs, with both Trend Micro and F-Secure adding the functionality into their Mobile Security products. Trend announced on Monday its latest product, Trend Micro Mobile Security 3.0 , would contain firewall protection in…

Reports of buffer overflows and other problems. A series of vulnerabilities have been discovered and patched in Grisoft ‘s AVG Antivirus . Several issues with archive handling could be exploited to cause buffer overflows, while some other problems with file handling, including DOC and EXE files, could be used to create a denial of service.…

Half of ten worst spammers from former USSR. This week’s list of the top ten ‘worst spammers and spam gangs’, released by spam fighters Spamhaus , is dominated by eastern Europeans, with a mysterious Ukranian at the top of the list and four Russians further down. According to Spamhaus ‘ Register of Known Spam Operations…

Microsoft corporate security product goes into public test. Microsoft ‘s long-awaited corporate security suite, Forefront Client Security , has been released to public beta. The new product, combining the anti-virus and anti-spyware technologies acquired by Microsoft in recent years, is aimed at the business market and is expected to be competitively priced. Two Forefront server-side…

Media Motor operation frozen by FTC case. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought a case against the spyware operation Media Motor , with the company and its affiliates ordered to cease their disreputable business and account for their ill-gotten funds. Media Motor ‘s spyware software often posed as a media viewing application, and…

Rival webmail system flagged infected by Microsoft AV. A number of users of Microsoft ‘s anti-virus product Windows Live OneCare have reported being warned of a virus infection when trying to check their email on Google ‘s Gmail webmail service. The warnings seem to coincide with installation of the recently released, updated web browser Internet…

Voter persuasion campaign late and sloppy, says Panda Spam watchers at PandaLabs have spotted a campaign hoping to trick recipients into visiting a page attacking the state of US government, posing as security information about online banking. The emails purport to describe a phishing attack on online banks, but links contained in the email bodies…

Process Monitor combines filemon, regmon into unified analysis tool. Sysinternals , now ‘a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation ‘, has released a new system analysis tool entitled Process Monitor , combining the functionality of its popular filemon and regmon utilities, both of which have long been staple tools in the analysis of virus and…