The Safe Browsing diagnostic page will provide information about a suspicious site. Google has recently introduced a new feature that will make users feel safer when browsing the web. The new feature will provide users with answers to four essential questions, namely: "What is the current listing status for [the site in question]?," "What happened when Google visited this site?," "Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?," and "Has this site hosted malware?" These questions are meant to provide web users with a general clue about a suspicious site.

Ever since 2006, Google has been trying to help its users feel safe when browsing the web. Back then, users were shown warning labels in Google's search results and the data was published via the Safe Browsing API to client programs such as Firefox. Although the system proved to be accurate, it could not cope with the high numbers of attackers using sophisticated obfuscation techniques or injecting malicious payloads only under certain conditions. That is why the Mountain View giant has decided to release a Safe Browsing diagnostic page, which will provide users with detailed information about suspicious sites.

When searching for a suspicious site, the answer to the first question will provide you with exactly this information. The other three answers will render statistics collected by Google, over a period of ninety days. Google's new Safe Browsing diagnostic feature will provide users with a reliable tool in determining whether a web page is or isn't to be trusted. Still, the number of attacks that trick Google's crawlers into flagging a harmful site as a clean one is high enough. This demonstrates that hackers are doing a good job in adapting their tactics.

Some of the users commenting to Google's new feature voiced their desire of seeing a Firefox add-on, which would provide users with a small notice icon in the status bar. This add-on, which would be similar to McAfee SiteAdvisor, is meant to improve the quality of this feature.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Read More..........

50% of all Windows Explorer crashes are caused by malicious code. Windows crashes and blue screen have become without a doubt the stuff of popular culture, with Microsoft's operating system being derided, criticized and mocked for its luxuriant variety of issues, independent of the actual version of the platform. Raymond Chen, a developer on the Windows Shell team at Microsoft has made public some internal data from 2007 containing the statistics extracted out of all Windows Explorer error reports. According to Microsoft, the number one killer of Windows explorer is malware.

"The XYZ virus (not its real name) and its variants together are responsible for the top six categories of Explorer crashes, and by an enormous margin," Chen stated. "Seventh place, an actual bug, comes in at only 1/80th the rate of number six; if you group all the XYZ virus failures together, then the combined virus failures outnumber the most popular Explorer bug by a factor of nearly 600."

Chen failed to explain what the "units" reference in the graphic represents. However, what is clear is the fact that a single piece of malicious code, along with two additional versions were responsible for causing 600 times more crashes than a bug in Windows Explorer. This is one case where Microsoft is not responsible for the user experience delivered by its operating system although some may argue that poor security is what led to the infections generating Windows Explorer crashes in the first place. However, the Redmond company is simply too easy a target, along with the Windows client, and the general tendency is to blame both for problems that are not directly connected with the quality of the operating system or with Microsoft.

"I remember reading a report that half of Explorer crashes can be directly attributable to malware. Seeing the top Explorer crash swamped by a single virus really drives that point home. The anti-malware team is very interested in this data, because when a new category of Windows crashes suddenly spikes in popularity, there's a decent chance that a new virus is on the loose," Chen added.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Read More..........

At the beginning of May, security company PC Tools revealed that Windows Vista "is not so immune." And in this attempt to wrap the obvious together with statistics from a limited pool of users and serve the result as a revelation, the security outfit went on to claim that "Windows Vista is more susceptible to malware than the eight year old Windows 2000 operating system, and only 37% more secure than Windows XP". Apparently, PC Tolls had detected 639 unique threats per 1,000 Vista machines, in comparison to just 586 for Windows 2000, 478 for Windows Server 2003, and 1,021 for XP. The conclusion is, of course, nothing short of obvious and was stated as clear as possible, with a challenge to Vista's malware immunity.

Now, the fact is that citing data from over 450 million computers, in respect to PC Tools' just 1.4 million machines, Microsoft disputed the findings, and continued to claim that Windows Vista is the safest Windows operating system on the market. Microsoft has repeated this refrain since Vista was launched, and provided ample proof, from the data collected through the Malicious Software Removal Tool to vulnerability counting games involving the main platforms.

But one thing that Microsoft has never done is claim that Windows Vista is immune to malware. In this regard, the position of Simon Clausen, Chief Executive Officer - PC Tools, is expressed through the following: "Vista is not immune from online threats. Further research and analysis has confirmed our contention that additional third-party protection is absolutely necessary for all Windows Vista users".

Since the advent of Windows Vista, the Redmond company has urged users to follow a set of best practices in terms of security from enabling the User Account Control, to not executing email attachments in messages from untrusted sources, and to running antivirus software. Vista is not and will never be immune to malicious code, neither will Vista Service Pack 1, Windows 7 or any other Windows operating system. As a matter of fact, all silver bullet solutions for security are nothing more than myths...

Read More..........

Microsoft has come out guns blazing after claims based on independent security reports place Windows Vista on par, and even on an inferior position as compared to Windows 2000 in terms of security. Austin Wilson, Director, Windows Client Security Product Management, rejected the validity of statistics compiled by security vendor PC Tools Software in a study comparing Vista security to that of older Windows clients. Wilson denied that Microsoft’s latest Windows operating system was in any manner more susceptible to malware infections as compared to its predecessors and especially Windows 2000. The Redmond company argued that its own data harvested via the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) painted a different picture of Vista's level of security.

"Our results published in the April 2008 version of the Security Intelligence Report show that Windows Vista is significantly less susceptible to malware than older operating systems. In fact, from June – December 2007, using proportionate numbers, the MSRT found and cleaned malware from 60.5% fewer Windows Vista-based computers than from computers running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed. How about Windows 2000? Using proportionate numbers, MSRT found and cleaned malware from 44% fewer Windows Vista-based computers than Windows 2000 SP4 computers and 77% fewer than from computers running Windows 2000 SP3", Wilson explained.

Microsoft’s own data provided by MSRT comes from in excess of 450 million computers on which the tool was installed during the second half of 2007. Wilson added that while Vista managed to come on top of all previously released Windows platforms, the statistics for Windows 2000 also include the server versions of the operating system which are less impacted as compared to their client counterparts. But still, Microsoft continues to advise Windows users, even of Vista, to deploy security solutions in addition to the mitigation included into the product by default.

"Does this mean that anti-malware software isn’t necessary? Absolutely not. No software is perfect", Wilson said, "mentioning just a few of the defense-in-depth improvements and features that are in Windows Vista that aren’t included in Windows 2000: DEP, ASLR, firewall on by default, Windows Defender, IE hardening, User Account Control, Windows Security Center, parental controls etc…"

Source: news.softpedia.com

Read More..........

The Storm botnet has caused serious problems for both security companies and users around the world because it appeared in lots of variants which attempted to trick security software and bypass protection. However, according to a new report published by MessageLabs, the Storm loses more and more ground to other threats. For example, the web-based malware has been increased with 23.3 percent while the Storm, which previously infected approximately 2 million computers, has "only" 100,000 victims. MessageLabs explains the botnet suffered a 57 percent decrease which could be only good news for us.

"April was a month of unpredictability with the mighty Storm botnet losing all but five percent of its anonymous army and web-based malware reaching new levels," said Mark Sunner, Chief Security Analyst, MessageLabs. "This month we find ourselves fighting the cybercrime battle on many fronts, with the bad guys using an arsenal of weapons in order to detonate spam, viruses, phishing attacks and targeted Trojans, making it more important than ever to have a strong security shield in place."

Getting back to the web-based malware, the stats are not looking too good. According to MessageLabs, 36.1 percent of the total web-based malware spotted in April was represented by new threats, compared with 23.3 percent in March. New threats are nothing else than dangerous threats because, they are could infiltrate into vulnerable computers easier than older threats which are already blocked by security products.

Unfortunately, spam messages seem to remain one of the main problems of today's email communications because no less than 1 in 1.36 email is identified as unsolicited traffic. No less than 73.5 percent of the total email traffic is actually spam which, according to MessageLabs, is a decrease of 0.13 points compared with March.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Read More..........

Back in the past, we saw a huge number of rogue anti-spyware technology which did nothing than to misinform users and trick them into buying unneeded security solutions. Today, a similar scam has been reported by security company Panda Software but, in comparison with the previous attacks, this one relies on a Windows function closely related to security. The Adware/XP-Shield poses as a Windows security center which usually informs you about the status of the security applications on the Windows workstations.

However, this piece of malware misinforms users that their computers are infected and, just like many other rogue anti-spyware products, it asks them to buy a certain security product. Only that buying the product does nothing to the computer because all the attackers want is to actually steal your money.

Once installed on the computer, the malware displays pop-up windows every once in a while, notifying users about the existence of an infection. If the user chooses to continue "unprotected", the application stays in the background and minimizes the window to System Tray.

"It is possible that while we are visiting different websites, several popups are displayed informing us that our system is infected or that our computer is not working properly and in order to solve these problems they recommend us to purchase a certain program. Be careful with this type of software, which will not really solve the problem and will make you lose money," it is mentioned in the Panda Software security advisory.

The malware can be easily identified by the name of the executable files, XPShieldSetup.exe, and by the fact that it drops a shortcut on the Desktop and in the Start menu. The infection only affected the Windows machines, including here Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows ME and Windows 98.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Read More..........