1 In 5 U.S. PCs Have No Antivirus Protection

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unprotected PCs in the U.S., 63% had no security software at all, while the remaining 37% had an AV program that was no longer active.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.

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Powerful “Flame” Virus Found In Iran

Security experts have uncovered a highly sophisticated computer virus in Iran and other Middle Eastern states that they believe was deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage.

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that claimed responsibility for discovering the virus.

Kaspersky researchers said on Monday they have yet to determine whether Flame had a specific mission like Stuxnet, and declined to say who they think built it.

Iran has accused the United States and Israel of deploying Stuxnet.

Cyber security experts said the discovery publicly demonstrates what experts privy to classified information have long known: that nations have been using pieces of malicious computer code as weapons to promote their security interests for several years.

A cyber security agency in Iran said on its English website that Flame bore a “close relation” to Stuxnet, the notorious computer worm that attacked that country’s nuclear program in 2010 and is the first publicly known example of a cyber weapon.

Iran’s National Computer Emergency Response Team also said Flame might be linked to recent cyber attacks that officials in Tehran have said were responsible for massive data losses on some Iranian computer systems.

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Is A Cyber Warfare On The Horizon?

F-secure’s chief security researcher, Mikko Hypponen, has warned that we are entering into a cyber warfare revolution, and that governments will soon attempt to outdo each other based on their computer weapons’ prowess.

The internet security expert said-any future crisis between technically advanced nations will involve cyber elements.

His comments came after hearing last week that China and the US have been engaging in “war games” simulations.

“I wasn’t expecting [war games] so soon,” Hypponen said.

“I’m surprised and I think it is a good move because everybody is worried about escalation. The way to fight unnecessary escalations is that you know more about how the perceived enemy would act if there would be an escalation. War games are exactly that.”

It was Hypponen’s observations on the war games which led him to remark that we must look at “the bigger picture”.

“We’ve seen a revolution in defence technology and in technology generally over the past 60 to 70 years and I believe we are right now seeing the beginning of the next revolution: a cyber warfare revolution, which is going to as big as the revolutions we’ve seen so far in technology becoming part of defence, and part of wars,” he added.

Hypponen also predicted that it won’t be long before the world sees its first cyber arms race, including cyber war rehearsals to prove how strong countries are and boasting about their cyber skills to make other countries pay attention.

“Like nuclear in the sixties, cyber attacks are a deterrent and deterrents only work if your perceived enemies know that you have it,” he said.

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SanDisk Hurt By Weak Demand, Supply Glut

Flash-memory maker SanDisk Corp warned that tepid demand from mobile phone manufacturers and a glut in supply that has led to lower prices are putting a dent its revenue margins.

The maker of NAND chips — used as storage memory in smartphones and tablets — has recently seen demand taper with some of its key customers scaling back orders.

Smartphones and tablets have caused a boom in NAND production, but SanDisk’s customers have not all done equally well from the explosion in mobile gadgets.

“Anybody who is not a Samsung or an Apple is burning through some (mobile) handset inventory,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Doug Freedman said.

“Until we get the PC market, tablet market and handset market back buying, we’ll see an oversupply situation.”

SanDisk’s weak outlook mirrors warnings from rival flash-memory makers, who have also blamed weak prices and demand for their disappointing results.

Late last month, Micron Technology said it was facing persistently low prices for memory chips and posted a wider loss. Toshiba Corp, Japan’s biggest chip maker, also posted a drop in quarterly sales at its electronics devices business, which includes semiconductors, hit by lower prices for memory chips.

SanDisk in January expressed concerns about weaker demand weighing on sales in the first half of this year and forecast lower-than-expected revenue for the first quarter.

The Milpitas, California-based company, which is set to report results later this month, said its gross margins for the January-March quarter will come in below its prior expectations of 39-42 percent, hurt by lower prices for its chips.

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PayPal Wooing SMB’s With Payments Service

PayPal is focusing on small businesses, service providers, and casual sellers on the move with its new PayPal Here service which allows vendors to process a variety of payments including checks and cards using their mobile phones.

The new service unveiled Thursday includes a free app and encrypted thumb-sized card reader, which allows merchants with an iPhone, and later Android smartphones, to process payments.

Merchants can accept payments by swiping cards in the card reader, scanning cards and checks using their phone cameras, or by entering card information manually into the app, the eBay unit said. They can also send an invoice and set payment terms, and accept PayPal payments from the app. The check facility is however only available in the U.S.

An iPhone version of the card reader and merchant app is available from Thursday to select merchants in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Hong Kong, with general availability in those countries scheduled for April. PayPal also plans to have an Android version of the merchant app by then. It will announce the availability of the service in more countries soon, it said.

Merchants pay a flat rate of 2.7 percent for card swipes and PayPal payments, while checks will be processed free of charge. Scanning of cards or typing the card information will be charged extra. PayPal Here merchants will also receive a business debit card for access to cash and 1 percent cash-back on eligible purchases.

PayPal will be competing with mobile payment systems from other providers such as Square and Intuit.

The key differentiator for PayPal Here in comparison to other small business mobile payment services is that it comes from a trusted brand in the online payments industry, with more than 100 million customers globally, David Marcus, vice president of mobile at PayPal said in a blog post.

Sprint Ending Lightsquared Relationship

Sprint Nextel will end its planned 15-year 4G network relationship with would-be hybrid network operator LightSquared, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The end of the Sprint partnership, which was due to expire on Thursday, would be nearly as big a blow to the foundering LightSquared as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s proposal last month to revoke the carrier’s authorization to build a land-based network.

Since the deal was announced last July, Sprint had been planning to host LightSquared’s radio spectrum on its Network Vision infrastructure. LightSquared was to pay Sprint US$9 billion in cash for that hosting and said the plan would save it $13 billion over eight years.

For its part, Sprint had looked to the partnership for extra spectrum on which to run its own planned LTE network. It would get $4.5 billion worth of credits to use some of LightSquared’s spectrum in addition to its own and that of longtime partner Clearwire. Sprint extended the deal twice to give LightSquared more time to win FCC approval for its network.

Sprint will terminate the LightSquared deal on Friday and return $65 million in prepayments by LightSquared, according to the Journal.

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Is Twitter Selling Your Tweets?

Twitter users are about to become major marketing meat, as two research companies prepare to release information to clients who will pay for the rights to mine that data.

Boulder, Colorado-based Gnip Inc and DataSift Inc, based in the U.K. and San Francisco, are licensed by Twitter to analyze archived tweets and basic information about users, like geographic location. DataSift announced this week that it will release Twitter data in packages that will encompass the last two years of activity for its customers to mine, while Gnip can go back only 30 days.

“Harvesting what someone said a year or more ago is game-changing,” said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego. As details emerge on the kind of information being mined, he and other privacy rights experts are concerned about the implications of user information being released to businesses waiting to pore through it with a fine-tooth comb.

“As we see Twitter grow and social media evolve, this will become a bigger and bigger issue,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for British-based Internet security company Sophos Ltd. “Online companies know which websites we click on, which adverts catch our eye, and what we buy … increasingly, they’re also learning what we’re thinking. And that’s quite a spooky thought.”

Twitter opted not to comment on the sale and deferred questions to DataSift. In 2010, Twitter agreed to share all of its tweets with the U.S. Library of Congress. Details of how that information will be shared publicly are still in development, but there are some stated restrictions, including a six-month delay and a prohibition against using the information for commercial purposes.

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Google Had Developed Own Currency

Google once contemplated the idea of issuing its own currency, to be called Google Bucks, company Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said on stage at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,Spain on Tuesday.

At the end of his keynote speech, Schmidt hit on a wide array of topics in response to audience questions. “We’ve had various proposals to have our own currency we were going to call Google Bucks,” Schmidt said.

The idea was to implement a “peer-to-peer money” system. However, Google discovered that the concept is illegal in most areas, he said. Governments are typically wary of the potential for money laundering with such proposals.

“Ultimately we decided we didn’t want to get into that because of these issues,” Schmidt said.

He also hinted that Google might be preparing for a battle in China once its acquisition of Motorola is complete.

“Google’s been willing to take on China pretty well,” he said in response to a question about whether Google expected to continue to ignore theft of Motorola intellectual property in China, as Motorola has been doing. The acquisition hasn’t closed yet, Schmidt noted. “We’ve taken a pretty strong position on IP. We are well aware of the issues and we are considering your question,” he said.

Google is still waiting for some government approvals of its proposed acquisition of Motorola.

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Big Boys Sign Consumer Privacy Pact

Six of the world’s top consumer technology companies have agreed to provide greater privacy disclosures before customers download applications in order to protect the personal data of millions of consumers, California’s attorney general said on Wednesday.

The agreement binds Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and Hewlett-Packard — and developers on their platforms — to disclose how they use private data before an app may be downloaded, Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said.

“Your personal privacy should not be the cost of using mobile apps, but all too often it is,” said Harris.

Currently 22 of the 30 most downloaded apps do not have privacy notices, said Harris. Some downloaded apps also download a consumer’s contact book.

Google said in a statement that under the California agreement, Android users will have “even more ways to make informed decisions when it comes to their privacy.”

Apple confirmed the agreement but did not elaborate.

Harris was also among U.S. state lawmakers who on Wednesday signed a letter to Google CEO Larry Page to express “serious concerns” over the web giant’s recent decision to consolidate its privacy policy.

The policy change would give Google access to user information across its products, such as GMail and Google Plus, without the proper ability for consumers to opt out, said the 36 U.S. attorneys general in their letter.

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Nokia To Unveil Cheaper Windows Phone

Nokia debuted a new, cheaper and more budget-friendly smartphone using Microsoft’s Windows Phone software, targeting a wider market for its new range of smartphones.

Cheaper phones are the key for Nokia and Microsoft in their battle to win a larger share of the market, analysts say.

In addition to the new Lumia 610 Nokia will also unveil at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona a global version of its high-end Lumia 900 phone, which AT&T is scheduled to roll out in the United States, the sources said.

Nokia is set to unveil the phones at a news conference next Monday, on February 27.

Nokia last year dumped its own smartphone software platforms in favor of Microsoft’s Windows Phone, which has so far had a limited impact due to the high prices of phones using it.

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