The Activation FAQ
When Microsoft released Office XP, users were suddenly faced with having to "activate" the product in addition to entering a valid product key. That proprietary activation scheme helped Microsoft cut down on piracy, but it raised privacy concerns among users. Much of the fervor eventually died down, however, until late 2002 when Intuit shipped its new version of TurboTax,...
Security Watch: MSN Virus is No Fun
The big news this week is the huge release of patches from Microsoft. On the heels of last months ground-shaking JPEG vulnerability, Microsoft announced nine security updates, MS04-029 through MS04-038. Of the group, six have a critical severity rating.Collectively, the nine updates fix over 20 specific problems. Within the critical updates, such as MS04-032, not all versions of Windows...
Inside the JPEG Virus
The WatchThe end of summer lull for viruses and worms continues. Were still seeing new versions of RBots, and a new Bagle, but nothing with teeth.The big news appears to be the anticipation of a viral exploit of the JPEG vulnerability that Microsoft patched earlier this month. Within days of the release of the security bulletin, there was proof...
Security Watch Letter: Inside the JPEG Virus
The WatchThe end of summer lull for viruses and worms continues. Were still seeing new versions of RBots, and a new Bagle, but nothing with teeth. The big news appears to be the anticipation of a viral exploit of the JPEG vulnerability that Microsoft patched earlier this month. Within days of the release of the security bulletin, there was...
Security Watch: Bots March In
The WatchLast week, Microsoft released a security bulletin reporting vulnerability in the graphics subsystem in Windows and a wide range of Microsoft products. This week, Netcraft, the UK Web monitoring company, is reporting that exploit code for the flaw is available on the Web. In a Sept. 17 article, Netcraft notes that the proof of concept code, listed on...
New Bagle Threat Spreading Quickly, Quietly
Like Bagle.AQ infected messages of two weeks ago, a flood of infected e-mails started hitting users mailboxes Tuesday bearing the subject line "foto", and an unencrypted zip file "foto.zip". However, it doesnt seem to be able to get much farther than the initial spam.The zip file contains an HTML file that when executed drops downloader component on the victims...