Below is a screenshot of a new spam run in the wild, and the sender (whoever he, she, or it is) presents to recipients a very suspicious but very free license for Microsoft Windows that they can download.

Sounds too good to be true? It probably is.

From: {random email address}
Subject: Re: Fwd: Order N [redacted]
Message body:
Welcome,

You can download your Microsoft Windows License here -

Microsoft Corporation

Clicking the hyperlinked text leads recipients to a number of .ru websites hosting the file, page2.htm (screenshot below), which contains obfuscated JavaScript code that loads the Web page fidelocastroo(dot)ru(colon)8080/forums/links/column(dot)php.

This spam is a launchpad for a Blackhole-Cridex attack on user systems.

This method is likewise being used by the most recent campaign of the “Copies of Policies” spam, also in the wild.

Our AV Labs researchers have documented their findings in detail regarding these spam runs on our GFI Software Tumblr page. Please visit www.gfisoftware.tumblr.com.

Stay safe!

By Jovi Umawing @ http://www.gfi.com/blog

W7Tweaks Desktop-Shortcuts-Screenshot

FEATURES OF DESKTOP SHORTCUTS CASCADE CONTEXT MENU EDITOR

The new Desktop Shortcuts Cascade Context Menu Editor have the easy user interface. Simply choose the menu to be Customize or edit and click Open. To customize the settings or edit desktop cascade context menu items click Change button. There user can set the Cascade Name, Icon, Position and Extended Menu. And if the user selected a Cascaded Desktop Menu there will be an option for customize the menu items, simply press the Edit Items button.

In the Edit Items sub-menu the user can Change the Order of items or can remove the cascade menu items. Also can add separator to the windows desktop cascade context menu items. Also can browse to file location with a simple click.

Download W7Tweaks – Desktop Shortcuts Cascade Context Menu Editor

• The quality and power of our malware research tools will keep improving, most likely faster; and

• Google’s infrastructure will ensure that our tools are always ready, right when you need them.

VirusTotal will continue to operate independently, maintaining our partnerships with other antivirus companies and security experts. This is an exciting step forward. Google has a long track record working to keep people safe online and we look forward to fighting the good fight together with them.

Source: VirusTotal Blog

As we saw there is only 8 people participated in the Giveaway and we have 10 licences so all are Winners . Congrats all on winning this great software to speed up your computers.

The Winners Are:

* Khaled Lakoud

* Luis Garza

* Anh Vuong

* Tedi Pribadi

* Azmi

* briareoushex

* Jerzy 65

* Fahim Amir

CONGRATULATIONS

Note: There is 2 Licences left anyone comment next will get it.

Source: http://www.seclists.org

The latest buzz on security and vulnerability these past few days revolves around Java, a software development platform originally created by Sun Microsystems and now owned by Oracle. Websites often run Java programs in them, normally as applets (.jar), in order to “provide interactive features to web applications that cannot be provided by HTML alone”. Initial reports reveal that the exploit used to take advantage of the vulnerability found in Java 7—version 1.7, updates 0 to 6—is an applet called applet.jar (Note that names of malicious files can change in the future).

Our friends at FireEye first uncovered the new 0-day Java Runtime Environment (JRE) vulnerability being exploited in the wild. It is leveraged by online criminals to perform targeted attacks, regardless of the Internet browser used or how updated it is. “The number of these attacks has been relatively low, but it is likely to increase due to the fact that this is a fast and reliable exploit that can be used in drive-by attacks and all kinds of links in emails.” said Andre’ M. DiMino and Mila Parkour of DeepEnd Research in their blog entry. An official patch from Oracle is yet to be released; however, our friends at DeepEnd are distributing a temporary fix, courtesy of Michael Schier, to system administrators only and by request. The said patch allows the execution of the exploit but stops the payload.

Once the vulnerability is successfully exploited, a binary is dropped on the compromised system. Based on initial reports, the binary is hi.exe (MD5: 4a55bf1448262bf71707eef7fc168f7d), whichGFI VIPRE Antivirus already detects as Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT.

Although earlier releases of Java do not have the said JRE vulnerability, security researchers advised against downgrading to versions 1.6 and below as flaws inherent to those versions can still affect users. Instead, users are advised to disable Java on their browser for the time being until an official patch is made available. It is expected in October based on their triannual Java patch release schedule.

Stay safe!

Jovi Umawing @ gfi.com (SOURCE)

Cares Your PC Tenderly & Boosts Your PC Performance Ultimately

With one-click boost mode, Cloud System Booster cleans and optimizes Windows-based systems by throwing out junk files, disabling unneeded services, cleaning up 3rd party applications generated junks, and repairing registry errors. What makes Cloud System Booster distinctive is its use of cloud-based technology to make sure you are cleaning, optimizing and repairing your system with the most up-to-date user-supplied data on your software.

How should one tackle the virus problem?

Exchange Infrastructure:

When it comes to protecting your Exchange infrastructure from viruses, the first thing that comes to mind is to simply set up an antivirus solution on the Exchange Server. This is obviously possible but tricky. Unlike a desktop, installing the antivirus alone is not enough. You’re free to do it if you really want to, but rest assured it will have a substantial negative impact on your Exchange Server’s performance. In order to ensure a good performance, there are various files you have to exclude from being scanned each time they are accessed. The reason behind this is that these files will be accessed by the system as soon as new emails are received for processing.

It is also important to ensure that you do not rely exclusively on your antivirus software for virus protection. Many viruses spread by leveraging software flaws, so performing regular patch management can greatly reduce the possible vulnerabilities for viruses to exploit.

Your Users:

The next step is that of safeguarding your users’ inboxes from viruses. Email is a popular vector for distribution of many different malware types, including viruses. There are many ways we can tackle this problem. The easiest way would be to deploy a simple antivirus solution on every single desktop, but is this really enough? If you move your antivirus system server side you can have greater control. Such server side products offer advanced features when it comes to antivirus as well – from multiple antivirus engines protecting your users, to features such as sandboxing and various other heuristic techniques to detect even custom-made malware that antivirus companies might have yet identified or provided protection against.

Preventing malware from reaching users is also essential because this lowers the risk that an employee will click on phishing links or attachments that lead to or contain malware.

Installing an email system such as Microsoft Exchange is only the first part of the job. Securing the infrastructure itself is not enough either. You must ensure that your users’ usage of the infrastructure is safe in itself. While doing this will involve some extra work, in the long run it will save you considerable amounts of both time and money!

This guest post was provided by Emmanuel Carabott on behalf of GFI Software Ltd. GFI is a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs. Learn more about what the right mail server antivirus solution for your company should include.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Are you tired of bloated applications that refuse to uninstall cleanly? Check out Install Monitor for a better way to deal with application management and removal. Install Monitor allows you to see the impact installing an application has and fully remove it when you decide to uninstall. It can help solve problems that are caused when a program does not uninstall properly. The result is a cleaner and more efficient system.

Install Monitor works by monitoring what resources such as file and registry are created when a program is installed. This allows you to see what impact installing a program has and helps you to remove it if necessary. For more information about how to get the most out of Install Monitor check out the blog.

Install Monitor is free for personal and home use. For business/corporate use contact support@mirekusoft.com. To download go to the download page.

Benefits

• Maintain a system that remains “clean” without reinstalling
• See how big programs are and what changes they make
• Fix problems caused when old versions of a program do not remove themselves

System requirements

• Windows 7, Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 or later), Windows XP (Service Pack 3 or later)
• 1 GHz or higher processor (2 GHz or faster recommended)
• 512 MB of RAM (1 GB or more recommended)

Download Here

Viruses and malware are complex pieces of code that can execute a wide variety of functions in an unlimited number of ways. In fact, at their core, a malware or virus is no different than any other program.

This means it is not easy for an antivirus solution to determine whether a file is legitimate, or if it is in fact some kind of malware. Home desktop-based systems are protected sufficiently well with most antivirus solutions. Assets on home machines are likely to be of limited value, so cost savings and simplicity are more important than the product having advanced technologies.

However, when we’re talking about a mail server system the situation changes drastically.  The risks are much higher. If a piece of malware reaches a user’s machine, then it is highly probable that the user will do something that will execute it. Users often have a false sense of security, believing that the mail server’s antivirus system will block any and all threats. Such reasoning could spell disaster for your business, leading to downtime, delays, lost productivity, material losses and, potentially, also customers.

So what should we be looking for in a mail server antivirus solution?

1. Multiple Antivirus Engines:

Traditionally, antivirus solutions work by having the vendor identify a new malware, creating rules that will detect said malware, and finally distributing those rules as an update to their software.

There are two pitfalls when using this method. A particular antivirus vendor might be late to the party, thus leaving users exposed until their software is patched. Therefore, the more antivirus engines there are protecting your server, the lower the risk will be that the server is not protected at any point in time.

The second is that no one is perfect. In general, different variants of a particular piece of malware are released. This means that antivirus vendors must analyze each one and develop individual rules when no single rule can be applied to all or a group of them. It is possible that a vendor might miss one, or more, of these variants. Multiple antivirus engines provide you with a multi-layered approach, so if one fails the other will not, and so on.

2. Heuristic Analysis:

The manual analysis of a malware file to create specific rules for it is just one method an antivirus solution can use to detect malware. Advanced antivirus systems also utilize a technology known as “heuristic analysis”.

This analyzes how a malware program works, what functions it uses, what behavior it has and what tasks it will execute if ran. Using this data the heuristic analysis procedure determines if a program is likely to be malicious or safe, without having to run it and suffer any potential infection. This system is ideal to detect new viruses that have not yet been analyzed by antivirus vendors, as well as custom-made malware that has been specifically designed to target your organization and would never have reached the antivirus vendors for analysis.

3. Sandbox:

Sandboxing is a more advanced system that is quite similar to heuristic analysis. Some malware programs are so sophisticated that they can actually rewrite themselves, a process known as polymorphism.

This type of malware may seem harmless when it is first analyzed by a heuristics system, however, upon execution, it changes itself in to a malicious file, eluding detection.

A sandbox system runs the malware in a virtual, contained environment. It allows the malware to run, while the sandbox monitors everything the program does. In this way it can discover if it is malicious or not based on the program’s behavior. Thus, even if the malware is polymorphic, the antivirus solution will identify it when the malware runs in the virtual environment. Sandboxing provides another layer of protection and allows for great detection levels and accuracy.

An antivirus solution for a mail server requires far more advanced functionality than desktop solutions have. If you have an email server, adopting a solution that uses the above technologies will give you a very high level of protection and prevent nasty stuff from doing anything. And, as always, prevention is better than cure.

This guest post was provided by Emmanuel Carabott on behalf of GFI Software Ltd. GFI is a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs. Learn more about what the right mail server antivirus solution for your company should include.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.