According to a report in the Financial Times, Google are phasing out the use of Microsoft's Windows within the company because of security concerns. Citing several Google employees, the FT report reports that new hires are offered the option of using Apple Mac systems or PCs running Linux. The move is believed to be related to a directive issued after Google's Chinese operations were attacked in January. In that attack, Chinese hackers took advantage of vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer on a Windows PC used by a Google employee and from there gained deeper access to Google's single sign on service.

"We're not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort"  one un-named Google employee told the FT. Other un-named employees are quoted as saying "A lot of people here are using Macs for security" while another employee added "Linux is open source and we feel good about it. Microsoft we don't feel so good about". According to the report, Google employees who want to continue using Windows or get a new Windows system now require CIO approval. The move has generated "mild discontent" among employees who have grown used to being allowed to select any operating system to work with, but according to another employee "It would have upset more people if they banned Macs rather than Windows".

I just went and manually downloaded the froyo update - Android 2.2 - signed-passion-FRF50-from-ERE27.1e519a24.zip

Download it from us now!

signed-passion-FRF50-from-ERE27.1e519a24.zip

From the Seattle Times:

Wow - I never thought Exchange server would change so drastically in one revision :)

For the record, exchange 2010 is VERY different than other versions.  If you are into tinkering like we are, beware.  In the past it was safe to mess around a little bit with the way the virtual hosts on your exchange server bind so that you can play with the default website a bit more than you would want to with the site containing all the exchange items.

This is bad.

What we just did: added a vhost to bind to port 80, an hostname, that would just redirect you to the other virtual host on port 443 (where Exchange items are sitting)

Seems simple enough?

What we found: Exchange management console broke the next time we tried to open it, said it couldn't find a server.  The error did have the string 'http' in it, which should have been a clue sooner. (took me 40 minutes to figure out!)

We got an error saying 'getcomputersite' failed, we think it was a coincidence that there were also errors from mad.exe and others saying it couldn't contact a GC.  When we switched back the vhost config to default, everything seems to have started working again.

It appears other parts of the infrastructure rely on HTTP (not even HTTPS) for functionality - if you are aware of this your tweaks will be happier!

kneber botnet is making lots of news outlets today so I thought we would share the love and spread it - all of our clients already have detection in place,

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189717/kneber_botnet_attacks_pcs_worldwide_faq.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35456838/ns/technology_and_science-security/

This virus is using a botnet to steal financial and email logins that will then ultimately be in the hands of organized crime organizations that will exploit it as far as they can.  Keep your machines clean everybody!

User Rating: / 1
PoorBest 

I do a 10 minute talk about this, I've done it 4 times now - and every time people have great questions and seem to be really amazed to hear what is happening out there.  I thought I would put it in an article format for a permanent presence on the internet.

You probably remember when 'getting a virus' on your computer meant that your files would be deleted,

We started asking clients for testimonials and got a really good response, you'll start to see more and more of them come on to the site..

We got 5 new virus infected computers on our workbench yesterday, 2 of them "were only on facebook" - We have warned against using major sites like Facebook without practicing the normal safe browsing habits, and here comes a story from a major news outlet of a mass infection via facebook.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/11/facebook_charging_rumour_malfeasance/

False Facebook charge group used to spread malware

Malware pokes outraged users

A false rumour suggesting that Facebook is to start charging is being used to bait malware traps.

Thousands of disgruntled punters, angry at the $4.99 a month charge for using the social networking site that will supposedly kick in from June (or July, according to other false reports) have been induced to visit "protest group" sites in response to spam emails. However, in reality, there is no such plan and the protest pages often contain malware, as urban myth debunking site Snopes warns