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1 In 5 U.S. PCs Have No Antivirus Protection
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Nearly a fifth of Windows PCs in the U.S. lack any active security protection, an antivirus vendor stated on Wednesday, citing numbers from a year-long project.
“The scale of this is unprecedented,” argued Gary Davis, the director of global consumer product marketing for McAfee, talking about the scope of his company’s sampling of PC security.
McAfee took measurements from scans of more than 280 million PCs over the last 12 months, and found that 19.3% of all U.S. Windows computers browsed the Web sans security software. Owners of those systems downloaded and used McAfee’s free Security Scan Plus, a tool that checks for antivirus programs and enabled firewalls.
Globally, the average rate was 17%, putting the U.S. in the top 5 most-unprotected countries of the 24 represented in the scans.
Of the unprotected PCs in the U.S., 63% had no security software at all, while the remaining 37% had an AV program that was no longer active. The latter were likely trial versions of commercial antivirus software that had expired.
Antivirus trials are a fact of life in the Windows world. Most new machines come with security software that runs for a limited time. Some new Dell PCs, for example, come with a 30-day trial of McAfee’s Security Center program.
Microsoft’s Vista Infection Rates Climb
Microsoft said last week that an uptick in more security exploits on Windows Vista can be attributed to the demise of support for the operating system’s first service pack.
Data from the company’s newest security intelligence report showed that in the second half of 2011, Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was 17% more likely to be infected by malware than Windows XP SP3, the final upgrade to the nearly-11-year-old operating system.
That’s counter to the usual trend, which holds that newer editions of Windows are more secure, and thus exploited at a lower rate, than older versions like XP. Some editions of Windows 7, for example, boast an infection rate half that of XP.
Tim Rains, the director of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, attributed the rise of successful attacks on Vista SP1 to the edition’s retirement from security support.
“This means that Windows Vista SP1-based systems no longer automatically receive security updates and helps explain why there [was] a sudden and sharp increase in the malware infection rate on that specific platform,” said Rains in a blog post last week.
Twitter Wants To Email You
May 23, 2012 by admin
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Twitter will begin delivering a weekly email digest to highlight for users of the micro-blogging site the tweets they are most likely to be interested in, the company stated on Monday.
The feature marks a departure for a social network that typically emphasizes real-time delivery of information.
How will Twitter determine which tweets a user may want to see? Twitter spokesman Robert Weeks said the digest will feature the tweets that the “people you’re connected to on Twitter are engaging with the most.”
From the email digest, users will be able to see the conversation about a particular tweet, follow shared links and send out their own tweets. The digest will include tweets not just from a user’s own feed but also from the feeds of people he or she follows.
Jury Finds Google Liable
May 14, 2012 by admin
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A jury has found Google liable for copyright infringement in its use of Java in Android, but so far has not decided whether that infringement was protected by rules governing “fair use.”
The verdict, delivered Monday after a week of deliberations by the jury, is a partial victory for Oracle in its lawsuit against Google. But Oracle will have to wait longer — possibly for a retrial — to see whether Google will escape liability by claiming fair use.
Google’s attorney, Robert Van Nest, immediately told the judge that Google would file for a mistrial. Google’s argument will be that the same jury must decide both the copyright infringement and fair use issues.
The jury also decided that Sun’s public statements about Java might have suggested to Google that it did not need a license for Java.
But in another setback for Google, it decided there was insufficient evidence to show that Google relied on that information.
Is Internet Explorer Making A Comeback?
May 8, 2012 by admin
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Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) in April again managed to grab more user share, the third time in the year’s first four months, to stay well above the 50% mark and remain the world’s top browser, a Web analytics company said on Tuesday.
Google’s Chrome’s share also climbed in April, said Net Applications, ending that browser’s three-month decline.
IE boosted its share by about three-tenths of a percentage point last month to average 54.1% in April. That returns IE to a mark comparable to its September 2011 share.
Since Jan.1, IE has increased its usage share by 2.2 percentage points for a 4% gain since the end of 2011. The turnaround has been IE’s largest and longest since the browser began shedding share years ago to Firefox, then later, Chrome.
Microsoft has pinned its hopes almost entirely on IE9, the 2011 edition that runs only on Windows Vista and Windows 7.
On Tuesday, Microsoft again stayed on message, highlighting the gains made by IE9 on Windows 7 — the pairing the firm has said is the only metric it cares about — but ignoring the overall IE increases this year.
Asus Stakes Claim In Tablets Market
May 4, 2012 by admin
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Asus has won critical acclaim for its early tablets, including the quad-core Transformer Prime TF201 that was debuted last year and the new quad-core Transformer Pad TF300T that will be available in some U.S. retail stores next week.
And it continues to improve its place in the crowded market — jumping into the Top 5 list of suppliers for the first time in 2011, according to the latest research from IDC. Asus ranked fifth in tablet shipments in both the U.S. and world in 2011 with a 2.3% share of the U.S. tablet market and a 2.5% share of the worldwide market.
Apple’s iPad remained at the top of both lists.
Though Asus still lags somewhat behind the market leaders, its influence on the market is clearly on the rise and could move it further up the tablet list, analysts say.
For instance, along with launching an array of powerful higher-priced new tablets, Asus is reported to be Google’s choice to supply a low-priced $200 device said to be called Google Play. The Google tablet would run Ice Cream Sandwich and a Tegra 3 quad-core processor, reports say.
The reports suggest Google is looking to launch the new tablet at its Google I/O developer conference in late June.
Privacy Advocates & Lawmakers Push For Google Probe
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Privacy groups and lawmakers are pushing for a new and more expansive investigation into Google and its privacy practices after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced that it found no evidence that the company violated eavesdropping laws.
Late last week, the FCC reported that there was no legal precedent to find fault with Google collecting unprotected home Wi-Fi data, such as personal email, passwords and search histories, with its roaming Street View cars between 2007 and 2010.
However, the FCC did fine Google $25,000 for obstructing its investigation.
A Google spokesperson took issue with the fine.
“We disagree with the FCC’s characterization of our cooperation in their investigation and will be filing a response,” said the spokesperson in an email to Computerworld. “It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We have worked with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns.”
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a national privacy watchdog, disagreed with the FCC findings.
In a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today, EPIC asked that the Department of Justice investigate Google’s surreptitious collecting of Wi-Fi data from residential networks.
“Given the inadequacy of the FCC’s investigation and the law enforcement responsibilities of the attorney general, EPIC urges the Department of Justice to investigate Google’s collection of Wi-Fi data from residential Wi-Fi networks,” wrote Mark Rotenberg, executive director of the advocacy group.
“By the [FCC’s] own admission, the investigation conducted was inadequate and did not address the applicability of federal wiretap law to Google’s interception of emails, usernames, passwords, browsing histories and other personal information,” Rotenberg added.
More Trojan Malware Found On Macs
Following the outbreak of the Flashback Mac Trojan, security researchers have identified two more cases of Mac OS X malware. The good news is most Mac owners have little reason to worry about them.
Both cases are variants on the same Trojan, called SabPub, Kaspersky Lab Expert Costin Raiu wrote on Securelist.
The first variant is known as Backdoor.OSX.SabPub.a. Like Flashback, this new threat was likely spread through Java exploits on Websites, and allows for remote control of affected systems. It was created roughly one month ago.
Fortunately, this malware isn’t a threat to most users for a few reasons: It may have only been used in targeted attacks, Raiu wrote, with links to malicious Websites sent via e-mail, and the domain used to fetch instructions for infected Macs has since been shut down.
Furthermore, Apple’s security update for Flashback helps render future Java-based attacks harmless. In addition to removing the Flashback malware, the update automatically deactivates the Java browser plug-in and Java Web Start if they remain unused for 35 days. Users must then manually re-enable Java when they encounter applets on a Web page or a Web Start application.
The second SabPub variant is old-school compared to its sibling. Instead of attacking through malicious Websites, it uses infected Microsoft Word documents as vector, distributed by e-mail.
Is E-Commerce Next For Facebook?
April 13, 2012 by admin
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A group of e-commerce start-ups, backed by some of the tech world’s most respected financiers, are hoping that Facebook Inc will become an e-commerce powerhouse to rival Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc.
As the world’s largest social network moves toward a $5 billion initial public offering, it will come under more pressure from Wall Street to generate new sources of profit growth and reduce its reliance on advertising, which accounted for 85 percent of its 2011 revenue.
Some entrepreneurs and investors increasingly think “f-commerce” – meaning e-commerce on Facebook – is the answer. Start-ups such as BeachMint, Yardsellr, Oodle and Fab.com are coming up with novel ways to persuade Facebook users to not just connect with friends on the social network, but to shop as well.
Backed by tens of millions of dollars from venture capital firms like Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, and other big investors like Goldman Sachs, these start-ups are pushing out shopping apps, hosting online garage sales and testing out new business models on Facebook.
“E-commerce is a huge category with very strong tailwinds and it’s a natural move for Facebook,” said Sam Schwerin of Millennium Technology Value Partners, which owns Facebook shares and has a stake in BeachMint.
Amazon revolutionized online shopping by crunching lots of customer and purchase data to come up with relevant, personalized recommendations. In the same vein, Facebook’s combination of data, analytics and payment technology could fuel the next generation of e-commerce, Schwerin said.
Samsung Making Ultra MicroSD Card
Samsung Electronics has started mass producing a microSD card that uses an Ultra High Speed-1 (UHS-1) interface to greatly improve data transfer speeds, the company said in an announcement on Wednesday.
The microSD HC card stores up to 16GB and has a maximum sequential read speed of 80MBps (megabytes per second), according to internal tests conducted by Samsung. That is more than four times the read speed of today’s advanced microSD cards, which have speeds up to 21MBps, Samsung said.
What real-world speeds that will translate into remains to be seen. The card will be a good fit for LTE smartphones and tablets, according to Samsung.