Ryan Naraine

Database and server giant Oracle on July 17 shipped a quarterly critical patch update with fixes for a whopping 65 security vulnerabilities. The July CPU addresses flaws in several products and components, including the widely used Oracle Database, Oracle Application Server, Oracle Collaboration Suite and Oracle E-Business Suite. A total of 23 patches apply to […]

Security researchers have a brand-new tool to use to go digging for malicious executables on the Web: the Google SOAP Search API. Malware hunters at Websense Security Labs have figured out a way to use the freely available Google API to find dangerous .exe files sitting on thousands of Web servers around the world. The […]

Microsoft researchers are working on an ambitious new project to hunt down and neutralize large-scale search engine spammers. The Redmond, Wash., companys Cybersecurity and Systems Management Research Group on July 13 unveiled Strider Search Defender, an experimental project that automates the discovery of search spammers through noncontent analysis. The project integrates technology from Strider HoneyMonkey […]

On July 12, a day after Microsoft shipped a mega-patch to cover eight Excel vulnerabilities, security researchers warned that at least two critical—and publicly discussed—flaws affecting users of the spreadsheet program remained unpatched. Proof-of-concept exploit code for both vulnerabilities has been published on the Internet. In the absence of patches, Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., strongly […]

BitDefender has joined a growing list of security vendors testing tools for rootkit detection and cleanup. The Bucharest, Romania, anti-virus vendor on July 7 unveiled an anti-rootkit utility that promises to spot and delete stealthy software programs that are used by malicious hackers to hide malware. BitDefenders rootkit cleaner will be available as a free […]

In the midst of back-to-back zero-day attacks against select businesses in the Far East, Microsoft on July 17 released a security advisory with a terse message: Do not open or save unexpected Microsoft Office files, even if they come unexpectedly from a trusted source. The companys advisory comes less than a week after virus hunters […]

H.D. Moore, creator of the Metasploit hacking tool and the security researcher behind the MoBB (Month of Browser Bugs) project, has released a search engine that finds live malware samples through Google queries. The new Malware Search engine provides a Web interface that allows anyone to enter the name of a known virus or Trojan […]

A claim that a group of researchers in China has successfully cracked the Skype protocol has set the blogosphere alight, but the company says there is no evidence that the software has been reverse-engineered. “We have no evidence to suggest that this is true. Even if it was possible to do this, the software code […]

Researchers at Microsoft are working on an ambitious new project to hunt down and neutralize large-scale search engine spammers. The Redmond, Wash., software giants Cybersecurity and Systems Management Research Group has taken the wraps off Strider Search Defender, an experimental project that automates the discovery of search spammers through non-content analysis. The project integrates technology […]

First Word, then Excel, now PowerPoint. For the third time in two months, a zero-day vulnerability in a widely used Microsoft Office software application is being used in targeted hacker attacks. The latest attack exploits a previously undocumented flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation program used by millions of users around the world. The […]

A day after Microsoft shipped a mega-patch to cover eight Excel vulnerabilities, security researchers warn that at least two critical—and publicly discussed—flaws affecting users of the spreadsheet program remain unpatched. Proof-of-concept exploit code for both vulnerabilities has been published on the Internet and, in the absence of patches, Microsoft is strongly urging customers to avoid […]

A mega update for the widely used Excel spreadsheet program is the highlight of the latest batch of security patches issued by Microsoft on July 11. One month after confirming that maliciously rigged Excel files were being used in targeted zero day attacks against businesses, Microsoft released a “critical” bulletin with patches for eight distinctly […]