Computer Support Blog

Millions of pounds are spend these days on repairing damage done by hackers, viruses and other forms of malware. The current top 20 can be seen here http://www.sans.org/top20/ . Please make sure that you or your IT support/ services team are on top of all the latest patches and updates so that you are not affected.
These well known vulnerabilities are referred to as Common Vulnerability and Exposures or CVE’s.
Do not have down time on your IT systems caused by these types of attacks please act today.

On Tuesday, Grisoft started to offer a free tool for removing rootkit’s. Rootkits are a type of Virus that can hide on your computer. If you suspect that you have a Rootkit virus, then it is well worth using this tool if your current anti virus software does not support this feature yet. You can download the tool from grisoft.com - here.

Copying files OUT OF MEMORY! Solution
Kaspersky is still my number one choice for malware/ virus protection and now also supports Windows Vista.
After testing though there is one problem that i have hit… a big problem. If you attempt to copy/ move more than about 6000 files from one disk to another Kaspersky causes Windows Vista to give an out of memory error. The only current solution is to completely uninstall Kaspersky, but there will be a patch available on the 21st March to resolve this from www.kaspersky.co.uk I have been reliably informed by one of their support guys.

A quick way to find out about the new Windows Vista and to see if your system is compatible, software and hardware please get this great tool from the www.windowsvista.co.uk website.

Download it from the Microsoft website or click here.

You will get a list of all the programs that you use, any problems that you may encounter with them, any hardware upgrades or incompatabilities.

During the scan it you are also able to compare all the different versions that are available of Vista and which one is for you.

Free broadband is not the answer, with poor customer service. So called bundled free broadband in a recent survey of 50,000 has shown that most customers are unhappy with their suppliers.
USwitch reported that there were 10 million UK broadband users in March, and predict that this figure will rise to 11.7 million by the end of this year. That will be even more less experienced users needing better customer service.
Please be wise when choosing a broadband supplier, do not just look at the price, especially if you are a business user.
If you would like any futher advise please contact us at CertainIT so we can help you choose the right solution.

On Tuesday Microsoft plan to deliver several security updates, and will finally patch the Microsoft zero-day XML flaw . They are not giving specific information about all the updates.

There will also be a new malicious software detector released so please be sure your automatic internet updates on.

ScanSafe’s analytical data demonstrated that Web viruses dropped down 47 per cent in September even though Microsoft vulnerabilities appeared high-profile recently.
This analytical result surprised ScanSafe as they thought that they may see an increase when they paid attention to Microsoft vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits.
The internet virus disaster didn’t happen in September.

Read the rest of this entry »

Internet Explorer 7 is available now, but i would recommend that you wait a while before installing it. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft Windows Vista has now been 5 years in development. You can expect it to be available in January 2007.

Last week a very close to final version was released to BETA testers, intended for developers. The general consensus is that although there are concerns around its compatibility with all the software out there, it is a great leap forward and you can expect a lot more inbuilt protection against malware and hackers.

Most improvements that you will notice are clarity in how to do things, an increase in your confidence using windows, and a closer link to your education and multimedia experience easily.

Aesthetically it looks far superior with many more rich tools, e.g. live previews including video instead of the standard alt tab. Much better graphic capabilities. Windows Side bar, keeping update information at your finger tips without cluttering the desktop. More tools to find information when it is important to you more easily.

The only real big concern that we have at the moment is that Microsoft have implemented a technology called PatchGuard which protects the Kernel of the Operating System (OS) against known malicious software which can take control of the OS. However PatchGuard will make it harder for third parties like McAfee and Symantec to function in Vista. They have effectively forced security vendors to bring a knife to a gun fight, even though it has been noticed that some of the bad guys have already found a back door to this protection.

It seems to me like Microsoft can not win, if they don’t create protection against hackers then they are said to write bad software, and when they do provide protection, they are accused of not allowing fair business competition stopping others from being able to write software for their OS.

If you would like install the beta version of Vista, please make sure you do not install it on a machine that is mission critical, and understand that it is an evaluation version, so it will contain bugs and should not be relied upon. It can be downloaded from click here and is available in 32 and 64 bit versions.

A lot of time and money these days is invested in protecting your business from SPAM by your IT support people and it is good news to hear the the LAW is getting more pro active in dealing with the people that create it.

The federal trade commission has just shut down four illegal Internet spam operations.

They were ordered to pay £200,000 GBP.

The law is finally changing and been used against companies like this now. They were sending e-mail that offered the opportunity to “date lonely wives” and that violated nearly every provision of the Can-Spam Act, the FTC said in a statement on Thursday.