Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – September 9, 2010

10 Tips for Public Wi-Fi Hotspot Security – Public Wi-Fi Hotspots can be a hacker’s paradise. Networking guru Samara Lynn offers 10 basic security tips that can mean the difference between safe surfing and an identity-theft or data-loss nightmare.

Mozilla patches DLL load hijacking vulnerability – Mozilla has joined Apple in being among the first to fix the DLL load hijacking attack vector that continues to haunt hundreds of Windows applications. The open-source group released Firefox 3.6.9 with patches for a total of 15 vulnerabilities (11 rated critical), including the publicly known DLL load hijacking flaw that exposes Windows users to remote code execution attacks.

Cyber Arms: Hackers Targeting Teens and Young Surfers – Recently I put four Windows 7 systems, fully patched & updated, with current anti-virus, through the most difficult security test that I could image. I loosed seven teenagers upon them. The teens were given no restrictions, or pre-security warnings, just to surf as they normally would. Two hours later, each computer was full of viruses. Each machine was infected numerous times, even though anti-virus and anti-spyware was installed and up to date.

New Adobe PDF zero-day under attack – Adobe today sounded an alarm for a new zero-day flaw in its PDF Reader/Acrobat software, warning that hackers are actively exploiting the vulnerability in-the-wild.

Symantec: Nearly Two-Thirds of Users Hit by Cyber-Crime – According to “The Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact” 65 percent of about 7,000 users globally that were surveyed reported falling victim to cyber-crimes ranging from online credit card fraud to having their machines infected with malware. In the United States that figure was 73 percent. China led the way with 83 percent, while Brazil and India were tied at 76 percent.

Google Instant: Quick, Quick, Quick But Not Psychic – Google Instant aims to give you what you really meant, quick, quick, quick. So far, I haven’t found Instant to be the great leap forward that Google seems to think it is.

Network Administrator: Five favorite Sysinternals tools and what they do – Derek Schauland lists his favorite Sysinternals tools — the ones he uses the most often — and shows what each of them does.

SystemRescueCd – SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It requires no installation. It can be used on linux servers, linux desktops or windows boxes. The kernel supports the important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

Company News:

A Google TV Refresher: What We Know So Far – Google TV’s planned fall launch is not news, but given that Google hasn’t said much about its television plans since May, it’s time for a refresher. Here’s a quick rundown of everything to know about Google TV as anticipation grows for the imminent launch of the service.

Trend Micro Revamps Entire Product Line With ‘Titanium’ – Following up Norton’s new product launch early Wednesday, Trend Micro announced an overhaul of its entire home user product line on Wednesday, under the moniker “Titanium.” The new products, Titanium Internet Security, Titanium Maximum Security, and Titanium Antivirus+, include new features that use cloud computing for malware detection.

Invincea Browser Protection – Learn how you can stop Web-Borne attacks against your organization with Invincea Browser Protection. Invincea anticipates having a consumer version ready by early 2011.

Google Acquisitions Target Social Apps to Build Google Me – Google has rarely been shy about snapping up companies where it sees a need: in advertising, e-mail security, collaboration, social networking, gaming … Lately, there’s a trend. Take a look.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Security vs. popularity – Security is not obscurity. Popularity is not the only reason MS Windows is so poorly secured in general use. Maybe. Chad Perrin explains why this might be.

Burning the Koran: A Requiem for Reason – Herewith a searing insight for the ever-puzzled State Department: Actions have consequences. If you support Batista, you will engender Fidel. If you support the Shah, you will get Khomeini. If you attack Moslems, you will get bin Laden. It might be better to stay home and read a book. (submitted by Dar)

Hookers and the Battle for Craigslist – Craigslist has been the target of an on-going war against prostitution. It’s all a mess of misdirected efforts.

Cracked: The 5 Strangest Things Evolution Left in Your Body – If you don’t believe in evolution, you have to spend a lot of time wondering about the useless shit the creator threw into our bodies. Why don’t our wisdom teeth fit in our heads? Why do we need an appendix? The answer is that evolution is a sloppy and haphazard process. Take a close look at your body and you’ll see some of the leftover junk. Like…

Today’s Quote:

“When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.”

–    Will Rogers

Today’s Free Downloads:

SmillaEnlarger – SmillaEnlarger takes small image files and turns them into usable, full-size images. The program’s algorithm does a remarkable job of turning even an incredibly minute bitmap into something close to a blurry snapshot.

Avast Free 5 – Avast Free 5, an A-list freeware antivirus app, provides the same steadfast protection of well-known, pricier antivirus programs. Avast is remarkable for both its effectiveness and arguably providing the most complete free antivirus on the market.

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