Archive for March, 2006

Windows Defender Beta 2 Review

Suzi Turner, of SpywareWarrior.com fame, had said she would do a review of Windows Defender Beta 2, and she’s finally gotten around to it. I myself plan on reviewing it, but it’s little league baseball time and I have been very busy in the evenings. I may end up waiting until my son get’s his machine all infected again.

As promised a few days ago, I finally got a virtual machine upgraded to Service Pack 2 for testing Windows Defender Beta 2. For the sake of convenience, I’ll refer to it as WD for most of this post. When I wrote about WD previously, I mentioned the review at PCMag.com where WD was tested against 6 keyloggers, which is not a particularly valuable test in my opinion.

The tests were done on a virtual machine with Windows XP with SP2, fully patched, running in VMware Workstation 5.5.1. Testing consisted of two parts. For the first test, I had WD running with all components of real-time protection turned on. I surfed to Claria’s website and downloaded two Claria apps, GotSmiley and a screensaver. When I downloaded the apps, Windows Defender presented an alert and asked whether or not to remove, get more information or ignore. I chose ignore and allowed the installation. After installation, I did the full scan and WD detected both apps correctly and asked me to select an action.

In the second test, I went to a website known to spyware researchers as a consistently reliable source of spyware. Immediately prior to going to the site, I ran InCtrl5 in order to track changes to the system. I turned off WD’s real-time protection for this test so I could test scan and removal capabilities. I had to restart the test twice because the vm quickly became so infested it froze. On the third try, after about 5 minutes on the site, I disconnected NAT, killing the internet connection for the vm, so I didn’t lose control of the machine. Before running any scans I ran InCtrl5 again. In less than 6 minutes, the spyware had added 230 registry keys, deleted 32 keys, added 386 values, deleted 82 values, changed 46 values, added 16 folders, and added 389 files. I ended up with the following:

SpySheriff
QuickLinks
CmdServices, also known as Command
ZToolbar
AzeSearch
NetMon aka Network Monitor
Paytime.exe, related to CoolWebSearch
AvenueMedia/Internet Optimizer also known as DyFuCa
Targetsavers
SurfSideKick
Smitfraud-C
CAS-Client (ConsumerAlertSystem)
AproposMedia
Trojan.VB.TG
Trojan.Downloader.VB.TW
Trojan.Tofger.CD
TagASaurus, aka enbrowser
Trojan.StartPage.GEN
ADSlime
W32.Spybot.Worm
Look2Me
drsmartload1.exe aka Troj/Drsmartl-N
MoneyTree Dialer
Service: Windows Overlay Components – file name C:\WINDOWS\tihotdj.exe, aka Trojan.Adclicker
My homepage was changed to c:\secure32.html

Click here to read the results, they are very interesting as it includes some info about the major free anti spyware programs. I just wish she would’ve included X-Cleaner in it as well, as it is one of the best programs, in my personal opinion. Suzi posted an article about the review here, but that just links to the zdnet post, the main reason to click there is to read everything else, loads and loads of spyware info, including research and info on our favorite spyware app, 180solutions.

Universities Most Vulnerable to Spyware

Was browsing the net this morning and noticed this article from ITP.net, where Trend Micro was outlining what Universities need to do to help protect themselves and their users from malware, spyware, adware and other IT threats.

?College campuses typically have thousands of computers and few staff dedicated to maintenance and security issues,? Doo explained. ?Administrators say that makes it extremely difficult to monitor what?s happening on every single server and desktop connected to a university system. Academic institutions want to maintain the free exchange of ideas and information between faculty, students and researchers, both on campus and from university to university. At the same time you can?t just put a whole campus behind a firewall. That presents a challenge for keeping networks secure.?

The first priority toward maintaining the appropriate balance between security and freedom, said Doo, is ?to educate users on security risks.? This is where Trend Micro?s university campaign comes in, as the firm and its staff aim to educate institutions about how to best protect their systems.

Trend Micro?s claim is that computer users in universities are under attack from spyware, adware, hacker tools and other unsolicited applications that are often installed without the user?s permission or knowledge. Besides designating a senior administrator to oversee IT security, Doo claims regional universities need to define, communicate, update and enforce university wide security policies. In addition, all network users should use anti -virus software and security considerations need to be included in every IT project. Source: ITP.net.

But there is an easier way, I have been beta testing a solution to all of the problems that Universities face, and as soon as it gets out of beta and I am able to start selling it, then I will detail it more here. But, this solution will remove all forms of malware, spyware, adware, loyalty ware, from your computers, it will inoculate them to keep them from getting infected again and it will discover and find all of the pc’s by itself, all you need to do is setup the policy, and even that is simple, you select when and what it does, deep scan, quick scan, inoculate and then you pick when you want it to run and when you want it to discover the new machines. Sounds pretty simple huh? Well it is, and all you need to run it is a Windows 2003 computer, it will update itself, so you will never, ever have to worry about spyware again, it is working great on our domain, and as soon as the option for multiple domains is added, I will be completely set.

You can also add a piece of hardware to your network, and it works in conjunction with the software to find out how much bandwidth is being used by p2p network usage and instant messaging, and more. Imagine, a spyware free network, with no peer to peer usage eating up your bandwidth. It is possible, it’s not expensive and it’s a piece of cake to use. Stay tuned!

Mac Mini with the Intel Core Duo Processor

Apple has unveiled the new Mac mini with the Intel Core Duo processor, delivering performance up to four times faster than its predecessor and providing even greater expansion in the same innovative and incredibly compact design. Starting at just $599, the Mac mini is the most affordable way to enjoy iLife ’06, the next generation of Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications, and features the Apple Remote and Front Row so you can play your music, enjoy your photo slideshows, watch your DVDs, iMovies, music videos and television shows from across the room.

Mac mini makes it easy and affordable to work with digital photos, movies, music, and the web. And now it all happens with the blazing speed of the Intel Core, in either Solo or Duo configurations.

Napster Says it’s Microsoft’s Fault it’s not Beating Apple

Thought this was interesting…

Technical glitches by Microsoft and the digital music device makers have hampered Napster Inc.’s ability to close the gap with Apple’s iTunes, the dominant online music service, Napster’s chief executive said on Tuesday.

“There is no question that their execution has been less than brilliant over the last 12 months,” Napster Chairman and Chief Executive Chris Gorog said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York.

“Our business does rely on Microsoft’s digital rights management software and our business model also relies on Microsoft’s ecosystem of device manufacturers,” he added.

Microsoft Corp., he noted, had to grapple with the complexities of dealing with a number of different services and device makers.

“It’s a lot more complex to get organized properly than it is to build one device and one service as Apple has done,” Gorog said. “It’s always been painful at the introduction of new technologies. But it always takes shape like it’s done in the past.”

“We have not been as successful as we might in articulating the real value of this business,” he said. Napster’s market capitalization is about $160 million, but it has cash assets of about $112 million, leaving it with a relatively small enterprise value. Source: Reuters.

They also mentioned it’s way to early still since only 5% of music sales are happening online, so there is plenty of room to grow and plenty of room for competition for apple and it’s iTunes. Well, whatever they come up with, it’s going to have to be good, the click wheel and seemless updates once plugged into your pc are great feeatures for apple. The new devices will have to have atleast as good of a way to browse through the music, it will have to be easy for us to copy the songs ourselves, meaning, we won’t need any special software to copy or find the songs on the new device, and it will need to be cheaper, atleast to start out. We shall see. Meanwhile, I’ll be playing with my iPod.