NEW WORM FEEDS ON LATEST MICROSOFT BUG

One day after Microsoft issued a rare emergency Windows security patch, the bad guys have a few new ways to take advantage of the bug.
By Friday, security researchers had identified a new worm, called Gimmiv, which exploited the vulnerability, and a hacker had posted an early sample of code that could be used to exploit the flaw on the Web.
Microsoft issued the patch more than two weeks ahead of its next security updates because the bug could be used to create an Internet worm attack and Microsoft had already seen a small number of attacks that exploited the flaw.
This vulnerability lies in the Windows Server service used to connect with other devices on networks. Although the firewall software that ships with Windows will block the worm from spreading, security experts are worried that the flaw could be used to spread infections between machines on a local area network, which are not typically protected by firewalls.
And that's exactly what the Gimmiv worm is designed to do, according to Ben Greenbaum, a senior research manager with Symantec. "It is downloaded onto a target machine via social engineering and then proceeds to scan and exploit machines on the same network, using this newly disclosed vulnerability in the Server service," he said.
The worm then loads software that steals passwords, security experts say.
Both Symantec and McAfee said Friday that they had seen only a very small number of attacks based on this exploit, but Symantec says that, starting Thursday evening, they found a 25 percent jump in network scans looking for potentially vulnerable machines. That could be a sign that more attacks are coming.
That scenario becomes more likely, too, as more tools that exploit the flaw are released to the public. On Friday, sample exploit code was posted to the Milw0rm.com hacker site, and over the next few days hackers are expected to move that code into attack tools that are easy to use.
Greenbaum predicted that the attack code will soon be used to build botnet networks of infected computers. "What we are going to see is this attack being added to the arsenal of botcode," he said.
"Once it evolves to the point where people really don't have to know much about the exploit ... those are the situations where people write the worms that do a lot of [damage]," said McAfee researcher Craig Schmugar.
Does he expect a damaging worm to emerge from this latest bug? "If history is a lesson, then yes," he said.
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

REMOVING A MALICIOUS EXE. {My Search and Destroy against kavo exe.}

File extensions are the last characters after the period in the name of a file and identifies the type of data found in the file like .gif, .jpg, .bmp associates with image files. Legitimate .exe extensions are executable files that contains code for a program that helps run your computer and the infected ones and allow parasites associated with the file to operate invisibly in background unless the malicious file is removed.
Thats what usually happens, I leave my computer unattended, now comes someone, who wants to copy/save a file, then without thinking inserts a virus infected usb device into my computer without AV scanning..and voila.. a malicious .exe found a new habitat in my computer. I know at that time I'm dealing with a "nobody tells situation" so I have to deal with that malicious .exe directly firsthand.
Now various anti virus and anti rootkit scans reveals vague malicious autorun.ini or autorun.inf files which refreshes everytime after deletion. I then checked my task manager and various auturuns monitors, but the system appears normal, and this .exe hid itself pretty well or already masking as a legitimate file. Unexpectedly, the autorun monitor of my Revo Uninstaller reveals a kavo .exe in my Windows folder. Online research reveals that kavo .exe is used by PWSteal.Lineage, a trojan lineage game password stealer. Opting for manual removal, first I end/block it's process with my Revo's autorun monitor then I reboot my computer into safemode but with System Restore setting Off to prevent the malicious file from creating backups. Words of caution, be careful when deleting or blocking processes with autoruns monitor or you maybe targetting a legitimate file as well. Then I proceeded to the Windows folder and deleted the kavo .exe and to play it safe, the newly saved Word files and images from the infected usb device, sorry to the owner. I then reboot to normal mode, updated my AVG 7.5 Free Edition and run a scan again. Results detected the TrojanPSW, autoruns .ini and .inf, and and finally a kavo .exe who found its way in the System Volume. After wiping off all the malicious files and cleaning my registry files I reboot my computer to Normal Mode and then turn the System Restore back On. For an added security measure I installed MyUSBOnly thereby locking all device ports in my computer and setting the device whitelist to empty, just a precaution because I sometimes left my own devices lying around.
Kavo .exe is rated from moderate to low danger level trojan in various sites. Now with the new and more dangerous trojans/spywares, dealing with them will not be a simple story, and fighting with updated security suites and tools always helps. And last but not the least, as Sun Tzu stated, "Know Your Enemy", read all you can, be informed and updated of all new Virus Definitions Updates from various sites.

GOOD NEWS FOR NOKIA TWEAKERS-Nokia Goes After Google with Open Source Symbian

Nokia has announced its Symbian mobile operating system will join the likes of Android and will become an open source operating system. The announcement was made Tuesday at the Smartphone Show in London and is seen as a bid to maintain and possibly grow its developer base. This move comes at the same time Google makes its Android source code available to developers. The Nokia news contradicts previous reports on Nokia adopting Android OS.

Fantastic Four
With four major mobile platforms competing with each other now -- from Apple, Blackberry, Google and Nokia -- the competition to gain our hearts and money in exchange for a mobile phone just got hotter. While Apple and Blackberry's platforms are proprietary, Google and Nokia's are left now to battle on the open source realm.
T-Mobile G1, using Google's Android OS, goes on sale today. The next two contenders in the touchscreen smartphone challenge will be the Blackberry Storm (available later this year) and Nokia 5800 Music Express (available early next year).

Style Counts
The actual hardware design of the smartphone may play a big part in driving sales. But the software inside is what actually makes all the difference on the long run. Can you imagine Apple's iPhone running a cumbersome OS with little innovation such as gesture support? That's why Google never built its own gPhone hardware and is focused on nurturing the Android OS. The Android OS will be used by various manufacturers such as Kyocera who will now be able to focus more on the hardware.
Up until now Nokia built its own hardware and develops its own software for its phones just as Apple and Blackberry do. That will change once the Symbian OS becomes an open source project welcoming many more developers to help build the OS. And certainly Nokia will not be the only one benefiting from open source community. Nokia shares its platform with Samsung and Sony Ericsson -- both members of the Symbian Foundation.
Between Nokia's existing support for its Symbian OS and Google's growing support for Android are shaping up to be quite the mobile OS smackdown.
Only time will tell whether Nokia or Google will be the dominant open source smartphone OS. But placing a bet is quite hard to make taking in consideration Nokia's experience with mobile phones and Google's long term commitment to innovation.

MALWARE ALERT: 'Experimental' Security Fix Is Malware, Microsoft Says

Scammers are sending out phoney e-mails that claim to include critical Windows security alerts, Microsoft warned Monday.
The fake alerts describe themselves as part of a new "experimental private version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users," Microsoft said in a note on the scam, posted Monday.
The e-mails then instruct the victim to download an attachment, which is actually a malicious Trojan Horse program known as Win32/Haxdoor. This software records sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers and sends this data back to the attackers who are running the scam.
The malware well-known, however, and is detected by antivirus programs as well as Microsoft's free Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT).
The warning comes the day before Microsoft is set to deliver 11 genuine security fixes. These updates, due Tuesday at around 10 a.m. Pacific include critical security updates for Windows Active Directory, Internet Explorer, Excel and the Microsoft Host Integration Server.
But they will be delivered via Microsoft's standard automated update tools. Major software vendors such as Microsoft simply do not distribute security patches via email.
"As a matter of company policy, Microsoft will never send you an executable attachment," wrote Microsoft spokesman Christopher Budd in a blog posting on the scam. "If you get an e-mail that claims to be a security notification with an attachment, delete it. It is always a spoof."
Microsoft does, however, send out security notification emails to customers who have asked to be told whenever patches are released or updated. These emails are in plain text and never contain any sort of attachment, Budd said.
Users who have doubts about any security notification email they've received can go to Microsoft's Tech Net security Web site, which contains the same information as its e-mail notifications.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

UPDATE: HERE's WHY IT's WINDOWS 7

The mystery of Microsoft's Windows version count has been solved. A day after announcing (in the Windows Vista blog) that the next release of Windows will be called Windows 7, Mike Nash (Microsoft Corporate VP, Windows Product Management) added a post laying out Microsoft's Windows version numbers since Windows 3.x.

Basically, they go like this:

Version 4: Windows 95

Version 4 point releases: Windows 98, 98SE, and ME (4.0.1998, 4.10.2222 and 4.90.3000, respectively).

Version 5: Windows 2000

Version 5 point releases: Windows XP (5.1)

Version 6: Windows Vista

I was surprised to realize that Windows XP (in which Microsoft unified the code bases for Windows 9x and NT/2000) was only a point release. But at least we now know how they got to Windows 7.

Yardena Arar
Oct 15, 2008 8:20 am

OPERA 9.6-Final FOR PC NOW AVAILABLE

I have been using Opera browsers, both the PC and the mobile-symbian 8.65 and mini opera versions for a long time now. Now this is the browser I turn to when there's topic or any item that needs speed searching and when blog posting. Although I have not yet given the 9.6 a complete run, their usual speed dial, anti-phising security, customize panels are retained in this version. The cool new feature, Previewed Feeds, really works with my Feed Burner.

Here is what's new in Opera 9.6

Expanded Opera Link
Opera lets you take your favorite search engines and the browser history you enter wherever you go. Opera Link also synchronizes notes taken in your Opera browser, your bookmarks, Speed Dial and personal bar.

Optimized Opera Mail
Stuck with a slow connection? Our built-in e-mail client, Opera Mail, now includes “low-bandwidth mode” to retrieve mails even faster when bandwidth is limited.

Prioritized e-mail
Opera Mail has two new ways to manage e-mail conversations. Keep an eye on important threads and contacts by following them, or ignore less important threads and contacts with a single click.

Increased speed:
Opera 9.6 improves the quick responsiveness and page loading of Opera 9.5.

Previewed feeds
Look before you feed. Now you can see an RSS feed’s content before subscribing to it or even bookmarking it. Opera gives you a clean, multi-column preview for each RSS feed so you know what to expect before you subscribe.

Improved fluency
Opera is pleased to add support for Indonesian, Ukrainian, Estonian, Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil languages.

To find out more about Opera 9.6 just visit Opera.com

WARCRAFT MOBILE THEMES 3 Themes Pack.zip

For DOTA and WoW fans, sample my themes creations I've created ages ago at OwnSkin, being a DOTA fan myself. Along with the 3 mentioned themes, and to complete the pack, I added a Monster Kill.mp3 ringtone at 193kbs. I have uploaded these themes at Zedge, and was edited/deleted right away for copyright reasons. But being persistent, I uploaded it again with little file renaming, and up to now these themes are still earning high star ratings.

Applicable Devices:

Lenovo
P930

Nokia
3230, 6260, 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 6680, 6681, 6682, 7610, N70, N72

Panasonic
X700

Samsung
SGH-D720, SGH-D730, SGH-Z600


Download WARCRAFT THEMES and ringtone .zip

HOW ABOUT A LITTLE DISK MANAGEMENT HELP

After discussing autoruns monitors in my past post, now I am going to introduce a colorful tool. This free tool, WinDirStat, scans and checks all your drive's files and displays a result in form of a colorful treemap.

Now this colorful treemap shows each file in your drives, MP3s, DATs, JPGs, even game's BIKs, in a colored rectangle form and it's size is in proportion to the file's size. With this tool, you now have the data which file occupies a large space in your drives and its location with options to relocate or delete. As the screenshot illustrates, I have a rather large mp3 file as indicated by the blue colored rectangle, followed by dat files, which are to be converted saved movies from discs for my ipod and cell phone. Then clicking on my main drive on the left panel, there's 325mb unknown file that needs to be check. You can click on a colored rectangle and in an instant leads you to the location of that file. You can also click a file in both right and left panel and it leads you to its location on colored treemap below. With WinDirStat I can now monitor my PC in a colorful different perspective and once installed it occupies a mere 1.41 mb space in my drive.

Download WinDirStat

NEW NOKIA TOUCHSCREEN 5800 XPRESS MUSIC

Armed with a roomy touch display, stereo speakers, and—eventually—a year's worth of free music, Nokia's long-awaited touchscreen phone, and dubbed as the IPhone Killer, will make its debut in London today. Can it compete with the iPhone and T-Mobile's Google-powered G1?
First, let's cover the specs: Measuring 4.4 by 2 by 0.6 inches, the 3G- and Wi-Fi-enabled 5800 (set for global release by the end of the year, but not in North America until the "early part" of 2009) is more or less the same size as the iPhone 3G and the G1, although at 3.8 ounces, it's significantly lighter than both of its touchscreen competitors (the iPhone is about 4.8 ounces, while the G1 weighs in at a hefty 5.6 ounces}.
Regarding the 5800's 3.2-inch touchscreeen, without a chance to try it in person, but the Symbian-powered display looks (from the press images, at least) reasonably sleek—somewhere between the clunkier interface on the G1 and the iPhone's eye-popping UI. No multitouch (so no "pinch"-type gestures), mind you, but the 5800 has an accelerometer that lets you turn the phone sideways for a virtual, landscape-oriented QWERTY keypad. You'll also be able to enter text using a half-size, portrait QWERTY keypad (with a stylus, if you like), T9 text prediction, or handwriting recognition.

Nokia promises a couple of key one-touch interface features, including a "Contacts Bar" that gives you quick access to your "favorite" four contacts, along with a "Media Bar" that'll let you tap into your music, videos, and images. Not bad, although I'd also like to see a status/alerts toolbar like the G1's.
As its name implies, the 5800 XpressMusic is more about tunes than productivity, so don't expect out-of-the-box support for BlackBerry or Exchange servers (although this being a Symbian phone, there's nothing stopping third parties from filling the void). Instead, the 5800 comes with stereo speakers, support for stereo Bluetooth headsets, a 3.5mm headset jack (which doubles as a TV-out port), and up to 16GB of microSD memeory expansion for your tunes.
The phone also comes with a 3.2MP camera, complete with Carl Zeiss optics, a dual LED flash, and video recording (up to 30fps). GPS and Nokia Maps are included for navigation. Sorry, gamers—no N-Gage support on the 5800, at least for now.
Price:no US price details yet
Europe- 279 euros, or about US$385

NEW CELL PHONES FOR FALL -My Personal Picks In Lieu Symbian Nokia

PC WORLD announced the new cool cellphones series for release this Fall. In this series are 12 new units ranging from LG, Touch Diamond, Blackberry, Samsung, Virgin Mobile, Sony Ericson, Motorola. While eye shopping along these lines I made 3 picks for their {with emphasis on, in lieu of Symbian Nokia, for the SymbianOS tweaks addict that I am} innovativeness, design, with a capital C for curious.


MotoZine ZN5 Packs a 5-Megapixel Camera


The first product from Motorola's partnership with Kodak, the Motorola MotoZine ZN5 features a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, Xenon flash, 4GB of optional external memory, and settings for low-light environments. The camera also has a fun panoramic mode, which stitches together continuous shots into a single extended image. Pictures can be uploaded and shared in one click to the Kodak gallery or any other photosharing site. Other notable features of the Motozine include a 2.4-inch high-resolution screen, dual compatibility for GSM and Wi-Fi, and stereo Bluetooth.
Already available in China, the MotoZine ZN5 is expected to roll out worldwide later in 2008. Motorola has not yet announced pricing or a carrier for North America.


BlackBerry's Clamshell Pearl
Since the beginning of the BlackBerry, this iconic messaging device has been synonymous with the flat, easy-access candy bar style phone. But with the new BlackBerry Pearl 8220 Flip--Research in Motion's first flip phone--the paradigm changes. And it's about time: Flip phones hold a lot of appeal, and a recent J.D. Power study noted that nearly 70 percent of current cell phone customers use a flip phone. The Pearl 8220 Flip is more compact than other BlackBerry models, making it easy to slip into a pocket. The phone has an outside secondary display for previewing calls and messages, and for viewing the time. The keyboard looks similar to that on other Pearl models: It has 20 keys, and uses SureType Technology coupled with a spelling checker. The new phone has surprisingly strong multimedia chops, too: Turn the phone on its side to watch video in wide-screen mode; upload pictures to Facebook or Flickr; or use BlackBerry Media Sync to transfer music from your iTunes collection to your phone. The built-in GPS and integrated BlackBerry Maps (for location-based information and directions) will help you find your way, and integrated Wi-Fi supports phone calls and data streaming.
The BlackBerry Pearl 8220 Flip will be sold via T-Mobile in the third quarter of this year.


Affordable Samsung Rant


Ideal for text messaging, the Samsung Rant has a horizontal-slide full QWERTY keyboard. The handset also comes with a 2-megapixel camera/camcorder, stereo Bluetooth, expandable memory (up to 16GB), and quick access to Sprint Navigation, Sprint Music Store, and Sprint TV. The Rant is one of many new phones to adopt Sprint's new OneClick user interface, which allows users to customize their phone's home screen with their favorite features and content.
The Samsung Rant will be available in October for $50 with a two-year contract. It comes in red or black, though Best Buy will offer an exclusive purple option as well.
Cool New Cell Phones for Fall
Ginny Mies and Melissa J. Perenson, PC World

BUTTERFLY AWARD FROM NORTURE

Hurraaah !!! My blogspot which evolved from just an upload for my Picasa Albums is two months old as of tomorrow. After a quick and very brief assessment, I've made 25 posts, member to 8 blog groups, millions and millions away in traffic rank, most important I've made Friends and Contacts and I want to thank you, Guyz.
Happy Blogging to Us All.

Timely as that, I received a Butterfly Award and I'm very happy and thankful. I want to thank Norture for bestowing me this award.

Now I'm forwarding this award to:
1.Shevonne
2.RIZE W0rkShOp
3.Cars and Bikes
4.Let's All Be Friends
5.Life is full of mystery
6.Healthy Solutions
7.Mobile Phones UK


Sponsor message:
1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs
>>>PASS IT ON . . .