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Invitation Facebook, Virus Warning, Olympic Torch Virus is a hoax

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Facebook users are once again warning their online friends about a threat – the only problem this time is that it doesn’t really exist.

Article published by Sophos

 

Messages are being sent across Facebook by well-intentioned Facebook users advising their friends to beware a virus that could “burn the whole hard disc.. C of your computer” while displaying an Olympic Torch.

A virus that actually physically burns your whole hard disk? Wow.. that sounds nasty. Especially if you’re resting a notebook on your lap at the time.

Could it even be possible? After all, you might have vaguely heard about how hackers might be able to set fire to your MacBook’s battery recently.

The truth is that the warning being spread on Facebook is nonsense, and although users are sounding the alarm to their online friends, they are actually doing nothing more than perpetuating a virus myth.

Here’s what a typical warning message posted on Facebook looks like:

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS NOTICE TO YOUR CONTACTS!
In the coming days, you should be aware! Do not open any message with an attachment called: Invitation FACEBOOK, regardless of who sent it.
It is a virus that opens an Olympic torch that burns the whole hard …disc C of your computer.
This virus will be received from someone you had in your address book .. If you receive a mail called: Invitation FACEBOOK, though sent by a friend,
DO NOT OPEN IT and DELETE IT IMEDIATELY

Sound familiar? It did to me.

After all, there has been an “Olympic Torch” hoax (albeit one that doesn’t mention Facebook) doing the rounds for over five years already.

So what seems to have happened here is that a hoax has made the jump from traditional email to social networking site, and gained a Facebook-related element at the same time.

Remember to always get your computer security advice from a computer security company. Friends may be well-intentioned in passing on warnings, but it’s always good to check your facts before forwarding them any further.

If you want to learn about the real threats on Facebook you should join the Sophos Facebook page, where we’ll keep you up-to-date on the latest rogue applications, scams and malware attacks threatening social network users.

PLEASE CLICK ON PICTURE BELOW

42 New Threats Appear Every Minute

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Information just released from Panda Security confirms that Viral activity is getting worse.

 

 

It is time that you checked your systems to ensure they are safe.

42 Threats every Minute may not sound that bad but that equates to 60,480 every Day or 22 Million Every Year.

We can check your systems to ensure you are adequately protected and advise on how to stay protected.

Please Phone 0800-0407048 or 07411-149666 to book a 1 Hour Health Check. 

Microsoft’s OmniTouch

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Information courtesy of silicon.com 18/10/2011

Photos: Microsoft’s OmniTouch – The tech that turns any surface into a touchscreen

The world at your fingertips…

Researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University have shown off technology that can turn any surface into a touchscreen.

The OmniTouch is a wearable device that projects a graphical user interface, such as a computer desktop or a virtual keypad, onto any surface, from a table to a hand. Users can interact with these virtual interfaces using their fingers, which are tracked by sensors built into OmniTouch, in the same way they would use a touchscreen.

The prototype technology is on display at UIST 2012, the Association for Computing Machinery’s 24th Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, that is being held in Santa Barbara, California.

OmniTouch is designed to be wearable. The prototype is a shoulder-mounted device made up of a laser-based pico projector and a depth-sensing camera, similar to that found in the Microsoft Kinect.

The OmniTouch uses the depth-sensing camera to build a graphical model of the world which allows it to calculate how far away objects are. The system’s software can recognise fingers, and a depth map allows it to determine whether a finger is touching a surface. When a finger touches a surface onto which an interface is projected, users can interact with the screen, clicking buttons or dragging icons, in the same way they would with any other touchscreen.

The ability of the system to track finger movements allows it to support a wide range of gestures, such as drawing with fingers, as seen here.

The system can be set up to allow users to create touchscreen interfaces on any surface. For example, the system could be configured to recognise a finger being dragged diagonally, as seen here, as a gesture telling it to create a new interface on that surface. The size of the interface would correspond to the distance the finger is dragged

Because the system can trace the movement of fingers on any surface, it can be set up to recognise gestures such as pinch-zooming on a map.

Microsoft Research Redmond researcher Hrvoje Benko said in a statement: “We wanted the ability to use any surface.

“Let the user define the area where they want the interface to be, and have the system do its best to track it frame to frame. This creates a highly flexible, on-demand user interface.”

Another potential use for OmniTouch is tracking the movement of fingers to highlight text in a printed document.

In this picture, the user is selecting apps from a menu on his hand which are then run on the interface projected onto the table.

Researchers say the wearable shoulder-mounted prototype could be reduced to a matchbox-sized device that could be worn on a watch or a pendant.

A shot showing how the system recognises and traces fingers.

Windows 8 to reduce memory usage

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Windows 8 will use less memory than Windows 7, says Microsoft

 

 

Microsoft announced that memory usage was a ‘key engineering tenet’ of Windows 8, adding that the firm is setting out to significantly reduce the memory requirements of the operating system.

Writing on the Building Windows 8 Blog, Microsoft’s performance team boss Bill Karagounis said that minimizing memory also prolonged battery life and was particularly important on the low power SoC (system-on-chip) based mobile devices that Windows 8 would also run on.

Karagounis compared the memory free on a fresh install of Windows 8 on a 1GB system with that of Windows 7, revealing that the upcoming OS currently leaves 733MB free, compared with 609MB of Windows 7.

“Windows 8 has a better scheme for the prioritization of memory allocations made by applications and system components. This means that Windows can make better decisions about what memory to keep around and what memory to remove sooner,” said Karagounis.

“We’ve already come a long way but we’re not done,” he added.

Beware Bogus Microsoft Phone Calls

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“Hello I am representing Microsoft and we have detected your PC has problems”

 

URGENT
Watch out for bogus calls from companies claiming to be representing Microsoft.

We have had Three of our Customers approached within the last 24 hours.

If they ring you tell them you are registered with the TPS (Telephone Preference Service) and put the phone down immediately.

In one instance the Customer said he did not have a PC and the caller said you must have, thereby confirming that it was a random call.

These are scams

An example is shown below
I had a call from xxx (said representing Microsoft) saying I had problems. The woman lead me to Widows Logs.. The woman from xxx said that “a local computer repairer” would not be able to fix these issues and wanted to take over my computer,

There are several Company names being used all claiming to represent Microsoft.

They are asking people to look at a log file kept on their system. This file contains errors which are perfectly normal errors that occur regularly and do not cause any problems. It could be as simple as you trying to connect to the internet before your router has logged on.

If you were to have a major software problem Microsoft could go back through this log file to detect the fault and resolve.

If you are not sure or would like us to check out your PC please do not hesitate to contact us

Microsoft previews Windows 8

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Microsoft unveiled a preview of the upcoming Windows 8 operating system at the D9 conference which the firm dubbed a ‘reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface.’

 

Information courtesy of PCR Magazine 02/06/2011

Microsoft has taken the wraps off its Windows 8 operating system with demos at the D9 conference in San Francisco and the Computex trade show in Taiwan this week.

Pictured above is the Start screen for Windows 8, which borrows elements of the tiled interface from Windows Phone 7.

The OS will work on laptops, desktops and tablets, and will run on any computer that runs Windows 7.

It is designed to be used with both a touchscreen interface and a mouse and keyboard.

Windows 8 is expected to launch at some point next year.

The software giant described future Windows 8-based PCs as ” a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse.”

Taking a break from the classic Windows Start menu, Microsoft unveiled a tile-based Start screen reminiscent of the UI of the firm’s Windows Phone. Microsoft described it as a “customisable, scalable full-screen view” of applications.

The Start street tiles are not merely larger touch-friendly icons, although this is clearly part of Microsoft’s design philosophy, but rather rather the ‘Live tiles’ provide a window into the status of each application including notifications.

Microsoft were keen to highlight the fact that the radical new UI was equally at home under touch control as with control by a mouse.

“Although the new user interface is designed and optimized for touch, it works equally well with a mouse and keyboard. Our approach means no compromises – you get to use whatever kind of device you prefer, with peripherals you choose, to run the apps you love,” said Microsoft Windows Experience boss Julie Larson-Green.

The UI is not, the firm claims, the only aspect of Windows to be overhauled. “Every level of the Windows architecture – the kernel, networking, storage, devices, user interface,” would all get the Windows ‘reimagine’ treatment, the firm said.

Another of the interesting new directions Microsoft demonstrated for the next-gen OS is that of allowing developers greater ability to enhance the operating system.

“Windows 8 apps can use a broad set of new libraries and controls, designed for fluid interaction and seamless connectivity. Apps can add new capabilities to Windows and to other apps, connecting with one another through the new interface,” Larson-green said.

In a demonstration Microsoft showed how an extended file picker UI made it possible to select the developer’s application content from another application. Even before Windows 8 Microsoft was known to be looking at ways to move beyond the tradition disk filing system but such research was bumped from previous Windows.

It seems Microsoft has instead decided to let developers decide how best to provide access to the content from their applications to the user.

Apple Under Attack

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AppleCare rep: Mac malware is “getting worse” 19/05/2011
Apple finally moves to address Mac Defender malware 25/05/11
New Mac malware strikes 26/05/2011

information courtesy of PCR-online.biz

 

AppleCare rep: Mac malware is “getting worse” 19/05/2011
“Even though they’re using a Mac, they need antivirus”

An employee at one of Apple’s AppleCare call centres has spoken about the recent rise in malware reports on Apple machines, specifically with relation to the ‘Mac Defender’ trojan.

In an interview with ZDNet, the anonymous employee stated that they had received a growing number of calls from Mac users who had been infected by the malware. Mac Defender takes the form of ‘pesterware’ anti-virus software, which gives repeated alerts informing the user that they must purchase a full version – by entering credit card details, naturally – in order to get rid of a malware infection.

In the case of Mac Defender, if the user refuses to enter their details, the software pops a number of inappropriate images up on screen.

“We started getting a trickle of calls a couple weeks ago,” said the employee. “However, this last week over 50 per cent of our calls have been about it. In two days last week I personally took 60 calls that referred to Mac Defender.”

Disturbingly, the employee also revealed that AppleCare employees are not supposed to help users remove malware from their devices.

Apple finally moves to address Mac Defender malware 25/05/11
Follows weeks of support staff ordered not to help

Weeks after the appearance of the ‘Mac Defender’ malware, Apple has finally acknowledged the issue and announced that a Mac OS X update will soon arrive which will remove the malicious application.

The issue has until now been met with a familiar Apple strategy, chiefly that of total silence. ZDNet’s Ed Bott said that while the firm’s lack of communication made the scale of the infection “impossible to know for sure” he went on to claim that Mac support calls about the issue numbered as many as 10,000 and 20,000 a day.

“In the coming days, Apple will deliver a Mac OS X software update that will automatically find and remove Mac Defender malware and its known variants,” the firm said in a support article published on Tuesday.

“The update will also help protect users by providing an explicit warning if they download this malware.”

Bott said that Apple support staff morale at one of Apple’s third-party contract support firms was “horrid” with orders from above that they were not to help customers with the Mac Defender malware.

A document Bott purports to be a directive to support staff dated the 20th of May contains a raft of directives, at the direction of ‘the client’ (Apple), forbidding the support staff from providing any advice that might actually assist with removing the malware.

New Mac malware strikes 26/05/2011
MacGuard variant hits less than 12 hours after Apple patches Mac Defender

Less than twelve hours after Apple’s belated move to help users get rid of the Mac Defender virus, a more dangerous variant of the malware – MacGuard – has been reported.

The new variant was detected by Mac security company Intego, which warns that unlike Mac Defender, MacGuard doesn’t require the user to enter a password in order for the software to install itself on a system.

Like its predecessor, the goal of the program is to trick the user in to entering their credit card details, and apparently uses the same tactic of opening pornographic webpages every few minutes as incentive to do so.

However, this version apparently utilises an option in the Safari browser, which ensures that ‘safe’ files are opened immediately after download, ensuring that the installation process is started without any checks by the user.

Interestingly, this variant is most dangerous to Mac users using the Safari browser. Apple currently holds 9.5 per cent of the global PC market and Safari comprises just 7.2 per cent of browser usage, suggesting that these instances of malware are specifically targeted at Apple and its products.

Windows XP infection rate 5 times that of Windows 7

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64-bit Windows 7 most secure

Information courtesy of PCR Magazine

 

 

Microsoft release the firm’s 10th Security Intelligence Report saying Java-based infections rose sharply but users of newer operating systems such as Windows 7 were much less likely to be infected than users of Windows XP.

Neowin summarised Microsoft’s data, calculating that the quarterly malware infection rate of Windows 7 was around half of the infection rate of Windows Vista service pack 2 and less than one fifth the infection rate of Windows XP.

“As in previous periods, infection rates for more recently released Microsoft operating systems and service packs are consistently lower than older ones,” Microsoft said in the report, adding that infection rates for 64-bit versions were lower still.

“One reason may be that 64-bit versions of Windows still appeal to a more technically savvy audience than their 32-bit counterparts, despite increasing sales of 64-bit Windows versions among the general computing population,” the report said.

The report also found that other 64-bit exclusive security features, such as the Kernel Patch Protection (KPP), may also contribute to the difference by preventing certain types of malware

 

Prototype device is a whole computer in one cubic mm

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Researchers at the University of Michigan have unveiled a tiny prototype computer which they say heralds a new era of ‘millimetre-scale’ computing.

 

 

The tiny device, believed to be the first completely ‘millimetre-scale computer’ was designed to implant in order to monitor eye pressure for glaucoma sufferers. The tiny device measures just one cubic millimetre yet packs in a microprocessor, pressure sensor, memory, battery, solar sell and wireless radio.

“Our work is unique in the sense that we’re thinking about complete systems in which all the components are low-power and fit on the chip. We can collect data, store it and transmit it. The applications for systems of this size are endless.” said UMich Professor David Blaauw.

The researchers pointed towards improvements in the radio capability which would provide the ability of a network of millimetre-scale computers to communicate with each other in wireless sensor networks.