update

With thousands of computer security companies spending millions of dollars in research and product development each year, some might question how the influence of hackers continues to be a growing problem. One company has apparently found success in ... reducing the spread of viruses and malware by doing things the "hard" way. Hardware-Based Antivirus Best for Rootkits Kaspersky Lab announced the acquisition of a U.S. patent for a hardware-based antivirus solution. The success of this form of antivirus will limit the amount of damage done by the stealthiest of malware because the ... (view more)

Microsoft has admitted it knew about the latest Internet Explorer zero-day flaw more than three months ago, news that's likely to prompt criticism about the way the firm prioritizes security issues. The bug, which involves an invalid pointer ... reference, was first reported to Microsoft by Israeli security expert Eyal Gruner on August 26. He says that because it was so easy to discover the vulnerability, he expected less scrupulous people would also find it and develop ways to exploit it. MS Confirmed Flaw in September Microsoft says it received this warning and confirmed it in early September. ... (view more)

On the same day Microsoft unloaded a record-breaking 34 fixes , eight of which were listed as critical, Adobe has made a similar gargantuan patch offering. The company, best known for its Reader and Acrobat software, yesterday fixed a total of 29 ... vulnerabilities, including one labeled critical. That software covered by the fixes includes version 9.1.3 of both Acrobat and Reader, version 8.1.6 of Acrobat for Windows, Mac, and Unix, and version 7.1.3 of Acrobat and Reader for Windows and Mac. Adobe encourages everyone using its programs to download the update, warning users that if they fail to ... (view more)

Here's the good and bad news on the upcoming Microsoft's monthly Windows Update: the good news is that Microsoft only has five security problems to fix. The bad news is that they are all marked critical. Patch is Due Next Tuesday, but Few Details In ... an unusual move, the company isn't releasing any details about the problems which are being fixed in the next Patch Tuesday update, scheduled for release next week. It's possible the firm doesn't want to tip off hackers who might try to exploit the problems before the fixes are released, but it's unusual that Microsoft wouldn't at least outline ... (view more)

Mozilla has released the first minor point release in its Firefox 3.5 series, Firefox 3.5.1. The reason? To fix a critical security flaw within the browser's TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. Rest assured, TraceMonkey itself, despite the suspicious ... name, is not a new Conficker virus or something of the sort. On the contrary, TraceMoney is a tool created by Mozilla that improves the JavaScript web browser performance through something called a just-in-time, or JIT compilation engine. Simply put, JIT compiles code earlier and improves the performance of the Mozilla web browser. Mozilla Tracing ... (view more)

Users of Mozilla's Firefox web browser may have received an unpleasant surprise when they performed a routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component. Tens of millions of computers have quietly installed an extra Firefox add-on whether ... users wanted it or not. Firefox .NET ClickOnce Addon The Firefox add-on shipped with a bundle of updates via Microsoft's .NET Framework Service Pack that was made available to users through the Windows Update Web site. If a user installs the .NET update, it automatically installs its own ClickOnce Firefox add-on that is both difficult and dangerous to ... (view more)

Microsoft plans to start pushing its Internet Explorer 8 ( IE 8 ) browser to consumers who have Windows Automatic-Update feature turned on. Last month, Microsoft released IE 8 for download and said it planned to start notifying users of IE 6 or IE 7 ... on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 through Automatic Update beginning on or about the third week of April this year. It's worth noting that new versions of software are inevitably buggy and prone to incompatibility problems with other software that has not been discovered and/or documented. Therefore it is not ... (view more)

A new variation of a fake Microsoft security notification email is reportedly being circulated. Attackers appear to be taking advantage of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday to send legitimate looking emails claiming to be a security email from Microsoft ... with an executable file attached, which it claims is the latest security update. It encourages the recipient to run the attached executable so their computer will be safe. The email is different than previous versions as it claims to be signed by Steve Lipner, an actual Microsoft employee, and has what appears to be a PGP signature block attached to ... (view more)

In my last article I discussed building a table of contents using custom styles. This article will show you how to build on that information. As you continue to edit your document and add headings, you'll periodically need to update the table of ... contents. As noted in the preceding section, the table of contents is a field, meaning that Word created it for you based on the styles in your document. Word gives you four ways to update a table of contents, so choose the method that works best for you: Shortcut menu. Alternate-click anywhere in the table of contents and choose Update Field from the ... (view more)

Users of some firewall software, including the popular Zone Alarm, have found Microsoft's latest security update works a little too well: it effectively blocks their Internet access completely. The offending update fixes a pretty serious flaw in ... Windows which would have allowed hackers to redirect network traffic. However, it's proved incompatible with the entire ZoneAlarm series of software, leaving its users unable to access websites, instant messaging, email or any other Internet services. (Source: channelregister.co.uk ) ZoneAlarm has published three possible solutions. The first is to ... (view more)