Archive for the ‘security’ Category
Monday, March 19th, 2012
I’m not particularly worried about this myself (yet,) but it is kind of interesting to know what kinds of information our web browsers might be giving out without our knowledge.
I may be old-fashioned in this regard but I prefer websites and companies to know as little about me as possible, unless the information is used for a service that I make active use of. I do not mind Amazon knowing that I’m an adult male, as this is blocking recommendations and offers aimed at a female audience on the site.
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Tags: extensions, Google Chrome, javascript, privacy
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
These MS Security Bulletins are almost always worth paying attention to …
Microsoft has made available the security patches for March 2012. The patches are already being distributed via Windows Update, but at the time of writing not at Microsoft’s Download Center. A total of six security bulletins have been released, of which one has received the highest severity rating of critical. Four of the remaining updates received a severity rating of important, and one a moderate rating.
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Tags: microsoft security bulletin, security, windows
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Friday, March 9th, 2012
Here’s a useful Windows security tool that many of us probably didn’t even know that we already had …
If you use a laptop for work, or it you carry important or sensitive data with you then it should be encrypted. Put simply the repercussions of not using encryption are far too serious to imagine with substantial fines being probably the least significant to a loss of customer and market confidence being the worst.
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Tags: bitlocker, encryption, laptop, security, windows 7, Windows Vista
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Monday, March 5th, 2012
Although the author makes a good point and very many useful programs are discussed here, it almost makes PC maintenance sound like a full time job …
Many PC users do not think about maintenance as long as their system is running as intended. The issue here is that they might be able to resolve future issues, or mitigate them at least, if they would run a set of tools regularly on their PC. The following guide looks at some of the recommended programs – my recommendations – that should be run regularly on a PC. Not all are maintenance related though, you also find security and privacy programs in the list for instance.
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Tags: ccleaner, Defraggler, HiJackThis, kaspersky, microsoft security essentials
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Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
If you’re concerned about security (and aren’t we all,) here’s a Firefox add-on that helps to detect encryption weaknesses in routers, firewalls and other devices …
Two weeks ago a team of mathematicians and cryptographers released a paper in which they described a weakness in the encryption used by routers, firewalls, web services or virtual private network. The flaw, affecting only a small number of cases where the random prime number generation fails to work correctly.
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Tags: Electronic Frontier Foundation, encryption, firefox, HTTPS Everywhere
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Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
I’m not sure if I agree with this or not, but the author definitely raises some interesting points …
This week, Google was found out to have been bypassing privacy settings in both Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari web browsers, as Martin reported here. In a statement on their blog, the Corporate Vice-President of IE blogged “IE blocks third-party cookies unless the site presents a P3P Compact Policy Statement indicating how the site will use the cookie and that the site’s use does not include tracking the user. Google’s P3P policy causes Internet Explorer to accept Google’s cookies even though the policy does not state Google’s intent.”
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Tags: cookies, facebook, google, microsoft, privacy, security
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Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Flash users should probably check this out; it looks like a fairly important security update …
Adobe has released a new security update for Flash Player that fixes several critical security vulnerabilities in the product. The vulnerabilities affect all platforms Flash Player is available on. Affected software versions are Adobe Flash Player 11.1.102.55 and earlier for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems, as well as Adobe Flash Player 11.1.112.61 and earlier versions for Android 4.x, and Adobe Flash Player 11.1.111.5 and earlier versions for Android 3.x and 2.x.
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Tags: adobe, android, chrome, flash, google, security
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Friday, February 10th, 2012
This is not a good sign; Windows 8 hasn’t even been released yet, and people are already writing articles to describe how to defeat some of its more annoying features …
SmartScreen Filter is a security module that is integrated into several Microsoft products such as Internet Explorer or Windows Live Messenger. It basically warns users if they are about to open a potentially dangerous website or file. A warning is displayed and it is up to the user to continue or stop at this point. The filter has been criticized in the past for being too obtrusive and annoying, criticism that it shares with the User Account Control feature.
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Tags: control-panel, internet explorer, microsoft, security, smartscreen, windows 8
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Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
Patch or no patch, this sounds like extremely bad news (publicity-wise) for both Symantec/pcAnywhere and Norton Antivirus …
Back in 2006 hackers managed to download source codes of Symantec software after successfully gaining access to Symantec’s infrastructure. The hackers managed to obtain Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Utilities, Norton GoBack, pcAnywhere and Norton Internet Security source codes during the operation.
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Tags: hacking, norton antivirus, pcAnywhere, security, source code
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Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
This article provides a nice, quick overview of some of the security features that will be available in the new, soon-to-be-released version of Adobe Flash.
Popular web browser plugins like Flash Player or Java are a prime target of malware and hackers. The core reasons are simple: Lack of centralized updating and little to no protection of the underlying system if the plugin has been compromised.
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Tags: adobe, firefox, flash, sandboxing, security, windows
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