This week in computer security

Any Microsoft product?

Well I have to say that I've been extremely impressed with Windows 7 so far. I've been using it for almost a year now, and have had almost zero problems with it. Definitely their best OS to date imo.

Usually their best will be after 3 attempts…… so windows 8 will be interesting.

Yikes! It was the security team at Google who found 400 bugs for this latest Flash update, yielding 106 bug reports, then resulting in some 80 fixes in total.

If you have Windows XP (SP3), Vista, or Windows 7, there is a freely available antivirus from Microsoft called Security Essentials. You can download it from here if you have a valid license (use x86 for 32-bit Windows and amd64 for 64-bit Windows).

I have it - and is almost any time stalls my game demo downloads completely. It is as if the WHOLE PC suddenly becomes "frozen", after a few percent of downloading (had this with the HOMM6 demo the last time), with the download sometimes breaking off at that point.

I have no clue what's actually hapening there, but turnung this Microsoft Ant-Virus programm off during downloads really helps. It maybe (I'm not sure about it) even seems to speed up the whole download as such.

To me, it's almost as if this Microsoft Anti-Virus program would reach onto the server where the demo I want to download lies on - and scans the whole package there !

I know, this sounds unbelievable, but the only other explanation I have that the program "suddenly" "decides" to scan through the windows program folders a few seconds after starting the donload …

Anyway, the freeze, which usually goes on for several minutes, is quite a nuisance to me.

There are two options you can disable: (1) Scan all downloads (2) Scan archive files.

I've not experienced any problems with downloads in Firefox with those two options enabled though.

Hm, okay, thanks.

Uh … : http://www.h-online.com/news/item/Ma…e-1346594.html

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Uh … : http://www.h-online.com/news/item/Ma…e-1346594.html

Do you think it's safe to install?

LOL

I wouldn't dare to - it could be infected all by itself, too !

Google's massive effort couldn't save Flash from new critial security vulnerabilities.

Download: Adobe Flash Player 10.3.183.10
Check: your current version

It seems like Firefox and Flash are asking to install updates on a weekly basis…

Originally Posted by Drithius
It seems like Firefox and Flash are asking to install updates on a weekly basis…

Incidentally, Mozilla is working on a new system programming language that address a lot of these issues, when it is done that is. Their plan is rewriting a lot of the webbrowser in this language.

I'm really starting to get sick of all of the continuous stream of software updates that are invading my life. Seems like everyday I'm being asked to upgrade something be it Adobe, Java, Chrome, Firefox, Playstation, … That or having to accept eulas again with lots of websites so they can either take my information or prevent me from suing them.

I'm just hoping that these are actually benefiting me in some concrete way. I do run high security with firewalls and blockers like noscript, ghostery, adblock, peerblock, … but still doesn't seem like its enough.

Originally Posted by figment
I'm just hoping that these are actually benefiting me in some concrete way. I do run high security with firewalls and blockers like noscript, ghostery, adblock, peerblock, … but still doesn't seem like its enough.

Then let me add another one to your list: RequestPolicy

The addon simple blocks anything the website you're visiting try to include from other websites, be it css, javascript, images, flash, etc. You can either whiteliste the entire webpage (which defeats its purpose), or you can manually enable each external sites it tries to include. This restriction is recursively applied to any included site you allow. It's been very effective for me atleast in removing crap. Even an sql exploit here on RPGWatch.

It replaced noscript on my pc a couple of years ago. Partly because I like the features, but also because the author of noscript cannot be trusted. He became involved in a "plugin war" with the adblock people. In the end he resorted to "manually fixing" people's adblock addon through his noscript addon.

Originally Posted by hishadow
Then let me add another one to your list: RequestPolicy
…

It replaced noscript on my pc a couple of years ago. Partly because I like the features, but also because the author of noscript cannot be trusted. He became involved in a "plugin war" with the adblock people. In the end he resorted to "manually fixing" people's adblock addon through his noscript addon.

But the requestpolicy site recommends using both Requestpolicy and Noscript, saying they don't replace each other (https://www.requestpolicy.com/faq#faq-noscript).

?

Originally Posted by pibbur0x2a
But the requestpolicy site recommends using both Requestpolicy and Noscript, saying they don't replace each other (https://www.requestpolicy.com/faq#faq-noscript). ?

I rejected it for the reason stated , but also because the noscript plugin didn't prevent the security breach here on RPGWatch. If I remember correctly the exploit was a username/password logger. Being RPGWatch I naturally allowed it on noscript, but since the database here got compromised, some naughty javascript code bypassed noscript's protection since RPGWatch.com should be trusted, which allowed the naughty code to report any gathered information to an external site. RequestPolicy would have blocked that external connection until you allowed it.

Ok. I'll probably use both.

says pibbur who thinks a lot of what the high shadow writes makes sense.

What happened to the old account, pibbur?