computers

The creators of the Flame virus now appear to be attempting to remove it from the computers it has infected. This bizarre move from hackers, who normally seek to increase rather than decrease the number of machines their code infects, may be part of ... a belated attempt to prevent further analysis of how Flame works. The existence of Flame was announced late last month by security firm Kaspersky Lab. At the time, Kaspersky noted the virus was exceptionally sophisticated and had been designed specifically to harvest data using tactics as diverse as taking screenshots and eavesdropping on phone ... (view more)

Prominent security firm Sophos has discovered that approximately one out of every five Mac computers is infected with Windows malware. And while such infections pose little threat to the Macs themselves, they could spread to Windows computers. The ... report is the result of Sophos' work in analyzing the contents of about 100,000 Apple Macintosh computers, using the company's own anti-virus software for the Mac world. The analysis shows that 20 per cent of the computers are carrying some kind of Windows-oriented malware. About 2.7 per cent of the Mac computers, or about one in thirty-seven of the ... (view more)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that computers infected with a particular type of malware could lose their Internet connections this coming summer. Fortunately, there appears to be relatively simple solution for the problem. According ... to the FBI, computers infected with the malware called "DNSChanger," which first emerged in 2007 and which has since infected millions of computers worldwide, could go offline in July, 2012, until repaired. Cybercriminals Have Re-Routed Internet Traffic Normally, when a computer user enters a web address into their browser, their computer ... (view more)

Doctor Web, a Russian antivirus company, recently announced its discovery of covert, zero-day-exploiting Trojan Horse malware which it believes has infiltrated more than 600,000 Macintosh systems worldwide. A number of other security companies later ... confirmed that staggering figure is probably accurate. "Flashback" Trojan Largest Mac Botnet Ever Doctor Web originally estimated that more than half a million machines were infected with "Flashback." This particular instance of malware gets installed on an unsuspecting user's computer during a visit to a previously-compromised website. Once ... (view more)

Microsoft has struck a blow against cybercriminals, thanks to a major takedown of servers being used to steal login information and passwords from computers around the world. Experts say the move could place a huge restraint on what is considered ... one of the world's most advanced cybercrime schemes. On Monday, Microsoft revealed that its special cybercrime investigation division had executed both legal and technical maneuvers to reduce the number of computers capable of spreading Zeus. This is important because Zeus is malicious software designed to infect innocent users' computers and steal ... (view more)

Members of the hacking group Anonymous have apparently been duped into installing malware on their own machines. The malicious software was disguised as an update to one of the main tools used by the group. Anonymous has little or no formal ... structure; it's often described as an idea rather than an organization. Members generally take action as a form of protest rather than in pursuit of financial gain, portraying most of their victims as opponents of Internet freedoms. The most common tactic used by Anonymous is the distributed denial of service attack. This involves using a network of ... (view more)

According to a new set of statistics from tech analyst firm Canalys, Apple is now the world's largest manufacturer of computers. But the figures include gadgets such as the iPad tablet device, causing some to wonder exactly what it takes for a ... device to be defined as a computer. The figures cover shipments during the last three months of 2011 . They show that Apple shipped 20 million "personal computing devices," accounting for 17 per cent of the worldwide total. In second place belongs to Hewlett-Packard (HP) with 12.7 per cent, followed by Lenovo at 11.2 per cent, Dell at 9.9 per cent and ... (view more)

Apple says it sold 15.4 million iPads globally last quarter, more than double sales during the same period in 2010. This makes for an incredible 39 per cent increase over the iPad's former record quarter, when Apple sold 11.1 million units. Industry ... analysts at IDC (International Data Corporation) say they believe Apple sold more iPads than HP, Lenovo, or Dell sold 'traditional' computers in the quarter. Expert: Pressure From iPad Will Help PC Market However, it may not be all doom and gloom for the PC. David Daoud at IDC thinks that pressure from Apple's tablet could lead to widespread ... (view more)

The number of computers sent to stores at the end of 2011 appears to have taken a surprising dip, leaving the industry anxious about the expected release of Windows 8 later in 2012 . Manufacturers' US shipments dropped 6.71 per cent during the last ... quarter of 2011, while the global figure fell just a little: about 1,600 fewer computers in a sea of more than 90 million units. At this stage, it appears the total shipments for the year will rise, compared with 2010, but by the smallest margin since 2001. (Source: betanews.com ) Big Sales Increases Year-to-Year the Norm It's worth noting that a ... (view more)

Seven people have been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly infiltrating millions of computers and using them to pocket some $14 million in fraudulent advertising revenue. Six of the defendants hail from Estonia and one from ... Russia. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the seven were able to gain access to an estimated four million computers worldwide, and infect them with a form of malware that successfully diverted web traffic to sites that would pay the scheme's participants a percentage of advertising revenue. When users of these infected computers attempted to ... (view more)