Apple Patches Java To Block Flashback Trojan Affecting 600,000 Macs Globally

By 2 Comments

Apple’s Mac platform is always promoted as one of the safest platform than the competition. But the scenario is changing soon as Macs market share is growing. With its growth, the platform is now becoming a target just like its competition.

According to two independent security companies, Dr. Web and Kaspersky, an estimated 600,000 Mac computers worldwide are infected by the Flashback Trojan. Most infected Macs are based in the United States (around 55%), Canada (around 20%) and the UK (around 13%). The trojan is designed to steal personal information and disguises itself as the popular Adobe Flash browser plug-in. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Apple, Security

Windows Defender Offline For Disinfecting PCs That Can’t Go Online [Beta]

By No Comments

Microsoft has released Windows Defender Offline, an offline antivirus tool, for PCs that are badly infected by malicious and other potentially unwanted software, including rootkits, to even get full access to the Internet.

The offline antivirus tool basically allows a user to boot their infected Windows computer system from a CD, DVD or USB flash drive. It uses the most recent definition update available to scan the PC for malicious and other potentially unwanted software. It then helps the user to disinfect the PC from the hard to detect threats.

This tool is particularly useful to remove certain kinds of malware that prevents the user from visiting any security or antivirus website. Many malicious programs uses methods to prevent users from accessing those websites to prevent detection and cleaning. Sometimes, they corrupt Windows files to prevent any kind of network access. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Security, Vista, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8

Free Tools To Check If Carrier IQ Is Running On Your Android Device

By No Comments

Recently, there is a huge controversy going on around Carrier IQ and the Internet has been abuzz with mentions of it.

If you don’t know what Carrier IQ is, well here is a brief introduction about it. Carrier IQ is a software that runs on more than 140 million mobile phones (according to Carrier IQ website). It is a monitoring software to track user activities, including their personal information, locations, network communications, phone calls, messages and more. If you want to know about Carrier IQ in-depth read this article by Engadget.

Carrier IQ was apparently designed to give metrics to help mobile carriers improve their services, but in some circumstances, the software is not offered as an opt-out feature and in many cases users don’t even know it’s there, tracking all interactions with their mobile phone.

Coming back to the main purpose of this article, we are here sharing some free tools for Android users that will help them find out if their Android device has Carrier IQ or not. Click on the title of the app to download it from the Android Market.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Android, Mobile, Security

SSDownloader: Directly Download Any Security Software For Windows

By 3 Comments

Security Software Downloader in-short SSDownloader is a Windows application which helps Windows users to directly download any security software. The application is very handy when you have reformatted Windows or have brought a new PC. It provides direct download links to various free/trial security suites. Using the user interface of the application, you can download your favorite security software directly from the official makers of the suite.

Security Software Downloader 2, the latest version released by its developers features a completely revamped user interface. SSDownloader 2 is an Open Source software hosted at SourceForge.net.

Using this program you can easily download various security software like Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG Antivirus, Avast! Antivirus, Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and many more. The program also provides download links to many popular trialware like Kaspersky Internet Security, Norton Internet Security. You can also download various Windows utilities like CCleaner, AutoRuns, AppRemover and more. In total the program offers around 50 download links to useful software. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Security, Utilities, Windows

Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper

By No Comments

Microsoft through Connect has released a beta version of Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper. It is basically a system recovery software disguised as a recovery CD or USB application that Windows users can use to remove malware from a system. It can start an infected PC and performing offline scan to help find and remove rootkits and other advanced malware.

Update: Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper is now Windows Defender Offline

The security application can effectively remove viruses, trojans, rootkits and other forms of malware. In addition, the security application can be used if you cannot install or start an antivirus solution on your PC, or if the installed solution can’t detect or remove malware on your PC.

System Sweeper is available as a free download for both Windows 32-bit or 64-bit version users. Users will need an active Internet connection and CD or DVD to burn all contents, or a USB stick with at least 250 MB of space. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Security, Vista, Windows, Windows 7

Avast Free Antivirus for Mac Beta [Mac Security]

By No Comments

Avast has announced availability of the beta version of avast! Free Antivirus for Mac.

“The new version has been almost totally reworked compared with our previous solution for the Mac OS,” said Vlk, in an announcement at Avast official forum. Avast Free Antivirus for Mac features three shields and an on-demand scanner. The Web Shield together with the Mail Shield checks incoming data from the Internet for malware. While the File Shield scans all programs stored and executed from your Mac hard drive.

It was earlier thought that Mac doesn’t need any anti-virus. With the recent Mac Defender malware outbreak, users are thinking otherwise. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Apple, News and Updates, Security

Secure Your Web Browser using BitDefender TrafficLight

By 2 Comments

Web browsers are the primary application used to browse the Internet by all users. Hence, it’s attacked the most from various forms of malicious threats. The most common example that we can see is when computer systems are getting infected without user’s knowledge during web browsing.

Even though most security systems are capable of blocking this attacks but, isn’t it a better idea to prevent the infection from the browser itself? BitDefender TrafficLight warns users about malicious websites and filters malicious web traffic.

Although, almost every major antivirus company offers similar solution today, but BitDefender TrafficLight has one key advantage over them: it’s available on all five major browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Browsers, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Security, Windows

Avast Antivirus 6.0 Free Released

By 2 Comments

AVAST Software has released Avast Antivirus’s most awaited latest version, version 6.0. Avast Antivirus 6 comes with many new features and improvements. We talked about some of these when we wrote about the beta release.

Avast Antivirus 6 now also comes with a completely revamped user interface for easier scanning. One of the most important changes coming into avast! 6 is the AutoSandbox feature that executes suspicious files in a sandbox environment isolated from the system and based on the file’s behavior, it decides whether the file is a threat or not. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Security, Windows