Here’s yet another reminder that you should not only backup your data, but you should periodically check that your backup is working. In this case, the magazine had a backup solution, but had never checked it, and when the trouble arrived, it turned out that the backup system wasn’t working, and the issue of the [...]
Microsoft’s Windows Defender was only able to block 47% of spyware threats in quick scan mode, in a recent test of spyware products by independent lab Enex TestLab on behalf of security and utility products vendor PC Tools. In full scan mode, Defender was only able to block 53% of threats. This is important news [...]
Phishers are using Google Maps in a new social engineering attack for committing identity theft. Customers with Bank of America accounts in the United States and account holders with other financial institutions in Australia and Germany have been targeted by the attacks, according to published reports. Remember the rule: Your bank or other institution has [...]
Google recently released a paper called “Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population“. Looks like the Google boys have been studying all the drives that fall over at their various server farms. They seem to be suggesting that the SMART system used by all drives these days isn’t good enough at predicting hard drive [...]
A potentially devastating hole in Google Inc.’s prevalent desktop search product could have exposed personal files on users’ computers to data thieves. Google fixed the defect within weeks of being informed about it and says it has no evidence the vulnerability was exploited. Just another reason not to install things just because they are cool; [...]
A spyware infested computer in a classroom in Connecticut, USA, has been found guilty of exposing children in her care to pornography and senteced to 40 years jail. The stupidity of these charges is unbelievable. The teacher in question was merely a substitute teacher, and the pornography was the result of spyware that had infested [...]
It looks like a clever geek has found a master decryption key that will allow decryption of all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray high definition movies. It just goes to show that all this DRM protection doesn’t server to protect anything, and just makes things more expensive and less useful to the consumers. read more | digg [...]
A sharp eyed Skype user has discovered that Skype thinks it needs to store details of your PC motherboard, including the serial number. It reads this data right off your motherboards BIOS, and stores it in a file on the computer. It also makes accessing the file very difficult, which suggests those behind Skype don’t [...]
WEB INSECURITY FIRM Websense says a Skype worm is on the loose. The worm wriggles through the VOIP firm’s chat feature, the Websense warned. Users of Skype should be very careful, this is one of the problems of using peer to peer style software on your computer such as Skype, it opens you up to [...]
Google has started warning users if they are about to visit a webpage that could harm their computer. The warning will pop up if users click on a link to a page known to host spyware or other malicious programs. This is welcome news for a lot of computer users. That being said, the best [...]