02.27.09
Microsoft Shamelessly Lies About Windows Security (Yet Again)
JUST OVER a week ago, Microsoft went to great lengths to blame other parties for its own recklessness. It didn’t want people to know that security problems were its own fault; it wanted to be left alone because many critics said the truth which was not good for business. Microsoft is quietly pulling some similar stunts at the moment. It fixes a serious design issue which had NASA spaceships and even US army bases [1, 2, 3] become victims of Windows viruses and sometimes zombie chaos.
Microsoft is arrogantly pretending that the fix is not a security fix. The Register explains this paradox, on which it begs to differ.
Microsoft aims ‘non-security’ update at gaping security hole
[...]
We’re not sure about that. What we do know is that if this update is the difference between Autorun being enabled or disabled, it will make users infinitely safer, and that can only be a good thing.
Microsoft is known for its censorship of journalists who say the truth about Windows vulnerabilities — issues that UNIX/Linux are inherently immune to.
In other security news from this week:
i. Experts sound scam threat warning
Hackers are tricking people with a false warning, saying that the computer is infected with a Trojan and getting users to buy a fake anti-virus product.
According to the Telegraph Jack Straw has confirmed that he “started getting phone calls from various constituents asking if I was really in Nigeria needing 3,000 dollars.”
iii. Spammers Play to Recession Fears, Emotions
“At a time when concerned consumers may not be surprised to hear from their banks, phishing attacks have risen to one in 190.4 e-mails, from one in 396.2 in January 2009,” the report states.
iv. Fraud linked to US payment processor breach
The breach was significant but affected fewer records than were involved in the recent breach of Heartland Payment Systems, another US-based e-commerce payment processing firm. Heartland said that hackers planted malware on its systems, but didn’t say how many records were disclosed as a result.
It’s important never to forget where SPAM comes from: Windows zombies. A lot of scams (and malware) are enabled by mass mailing from computers that are not under the control of their owner. █
