The new technical prototype of Kaspersky Anti-Virus is designed to secure computers running under Windows 7. The beta test version of Microsoft Windows 7 operating system was released at the beginning of January 2009. Kaspersky Lab simultaneously released its technical prototype providing greater efficiency and complex antivirus protection for the new operating system.
“We knew the release of the new version of Windows would be a huge event for the IT community, which is why we were prepared for it,” said Alexey Kalgin, Director, Product Marketing, Corporate Business Division, Kaspersky Lab. “Our company has always made support for Microsoft’s new operating systems a top priority. For example Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows Vista was released simultaneously with the operating system’s official launch. When Windows Server 2008 was released, Kaspersky Anti-Virus was the only antivirus product on the market certified by Microsoft. Users can now see for themselves how our antivirus protection technologies perform on the new platform.”
Kaspersky Lab’s technical preview is a comprehensive solution, including not only an antivirus pattern-recognition component but also a heuristic analyzer which can detect and block as-yet-unknown malicious programs based on their suspicious characteristics, a firewall and an anti-spam filter. The prototype is intended to provide effective protection from all types of Internet threats – viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, hacker attacks and spam.
At the heart of the new technical prototype is Kaspersky Lab’s new antivirus engine which is even more effective at detecting malicious programs than its predecessor. The new engine dramatically increases system scanning speed thanks to improved processing of objects and optimized use of system resources, particularly on dual- and quad-core processor platforms. The unique product architecture ensures high productivity and one of the lowest uses of system resources in the industry. The prototype is fully compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system. Both inexperienced and advanced users will find the solution to be user-friendly and easy to install and configure.
“The new Microsoft Windows operating system promises to be even more popular than its predecessor and we expect a high level of migration after its official release. We have already received numerous requests from companies planning to migrate to Windows 7 and who are now testing its efficiency and compatibility with the products they use. We see it as our duty to provide these companies with the most secure and reliable solution for business-level protection, which is why the prototype for Windows 7 was developed on the basis of our corporate solution,” added Alexey Kalgin.
Moreover, Kaspersky Lab plans to provide centralized administration tools during the testing stage of the new operating system. By the time Windows 7 is officially released, Kaspersky Lab intends to launch a full range of products providing comprehensive protection for both home and corporate users of the new operating system.
You can download Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7 here.
Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, warns users of a surge in malicious spam messages.
As of Saturday 17 January, Kaspersky Lab’s content filtration laboratory has been detecting a surge in malicious spam messages stating that Barack Obama’s inauguration on 20 January could be cancelled. A number of sensational reasons are given in the emails with a link to a website that supposedly gives more details. Almost all the site domain names contain the new president’s name and are similar to Obama’s campaign sites.
The links in the emails direct to malicious websites where users are enticed into clicking on a news link that downloads an .exe file to the user’s computer. According to Kaspersky Lab’s malware classification, the malicious program is an email worm and is detected as Email-Worm.Win32.Iksmas. The corresponding record was added to Kaspersky Lab’s antivirus databases on 17 January. In addition, the heuristic analyzer integrated into the company’s products alerts users to the file and blocks attempts to download it.
“The inauguration of the US president is one of the most hotly discussed topics around the world. Any piece of news arouses a great deal of interest. It appears that spammers have decided to exploit the presidential theme to attract as much attention as possible. This is yet another example of spammers and virus writers working together, making clever use of social engineering techniques,” says Tatyana Kulikova, a senior Kaspersky Lab spam analyst. “They have created lots of similar sites, but all of them contain the same malicious file.”
Kaspersky Lab recommends all its users to be very careful when visiting unknown sites and to update antivirus databases regularly.
last week, Kaspersky Lab experts detected a new malicious program for Symbian that targets customers of an Indonesian mobile phone operator. The Trojan is written in Python, a script language. It sends SMS messages to a short number with instructions to transfer part of the money in the user’s account to another account, which belongs to the cybercriminals.
There are five known variants of Trojan-SMS.Python.Flocker, from .ab to.af. The amounts transferred range from $0.45 to $0.90. Thus, if the cybercriminals behind the Trojan manage to infect a large number of phones, the amount transferred to their mobile phone account as a result could be quite substantial.
"Obviously, the authors of the Trojan want to make money,” said Denis Maslennikov, a senior malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab. “It seems that the focus on financial fraud in the mobile malware industry will only get more pronounced over time. Until recently, many people thought that malicious programs that send SMS messages without the user’s knowledge were a purely Russian phenomenon. Now we can see that the problem no longer affects only Russian users - it’s becoming an international issue."
Kaspersky Mobile Security users are protected from the new Trojan: the Kaspersky Lab product blocks malicious programs by not allowing them to run. Kaspersky Lab recommends users to exercise caution when using a smartphone to browse the Internet and to keep antivirus databases up-to-date.
Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, announces that Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 has received a prestigious VB100 award from the authoritative British magazine Virus Bulletin.
In a comparative test published in Virus Bulletin's December issue, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 demonstrated one of the best results for malware detection and received yet another VB100 award. The tests were conducted on 22 popular antivirus products that run on Windows Vista x64 Business Edition.
While running in “on-demand scanning” and “real-time protection” modes, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 neutralized 100% of the viruses from an in-the-wild collection, in addition to worms and Trojans used for testing purposes. Furthermore, Kaspersky Lab’s product successfully dealt with the overwhelming majority of polymorphic viruses (98.24%). During the test, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 did not produce a single false positive.
“We were impressed by the wide range of protection layers offered by Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 as well as the pleasant and informative interface with its range of data displays including rolling graphs of monitored files and blocked attacks,” the article reads. “With the full range of VB100 requirements met without difficulty, Kaspersky makes the grade and wins the award,” Virus Bulletin concluded.
The new version 2009 Kaspersky Lab personal products, which were released in mid-2008, are based on a completely new antivirus engine, offering significantly improved scanning speed. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 were designed to meet the requirements of Windows Vista, ensuring their total compatibility with both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Vista operating system.
JOBS' MOB released Quicktime 7.6 Wednesday to address seven security vulnerabilities in the fruit-themed toymaker's video player application.
Apple doesn't grade security flaws by severity or divulge whether actual exploits have been detected, but its impact descriptions for the security vulnerabilities all refer to "unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution", suggesting that malicious input could crash Quicktime or potentially compromise the integrity of the user's PC operating system.
The security flaws resolved by the new release include vulnerabilities to maliciously-crafted RTSP URLs and QTVR, AVI, MPEG-2, H.263, Cinepak and Quicktime-encoded movie files.
Quicktime 7.6 is available for Mac OS/X Tiger and Leopard as well as the Vole's Windows XP and Vista. It can be installed via Software Update or from the Apple Downloads page.
Despite the fact that Mac OS/X is BSD Unix beneath Apple's proprietary eye-candy desktop GUI, Apple doesn't offer a Linux version of Quicktime. However, Mplayer for Linux handles Quicktime encoded files. Mplayer for Linux is not implicated by Apple's Quicktime video player security flaws. µ
L'Inq
Apple
Apple infected
By Nick Farrell
A SECURITY COMPANY has warned that a pirated version of Apple's iWork 09 software is shipping with a trojan which could take control of the machine.
While many Apple users think they are safe because there have been very few ways of distributing viruses to minority machines, Intego thinks that the malware writers might have hit on a good plan with what they have called OSX.Trojan.iServices.A.
By sticking their Trojans into hot software, it can be guaranteed to find an Apple in the sea of PCs and there is a good chance that the owner knows another Apple user as they tend to hang out in 'smugs' [are you sure that is the collective noun for Apple users?
The Trojan appears as a start-up item as a part of iWorkServices. It has read-write-execute permissions for root control of the computer, Intego said. The malware connects to a remote server over the Internet and allows more stuff to be loaded into the Mac.
More than 20,000 cheapskates have downloaded the virus from several pirate sites rather than getting a kosher free 30-day demo from Apple or stumping up £69 for a full version.
The only sure way for a Mac User to deal with the Trojan so far is to format the hard drive and re-install OSX.
What is amusing is that the Apple press is insisting that it is not 'a virus' because Macs don't get them. Trojans are not the same thing as they cannot spread from one machine to another without help from a stupid user. Also they are denying that it will give anyone control of the machine, when the security advisory says otherwise.
In fact the Trojan will do whatever its bot net rulers tell it to do. All they need to do is write a payload to do it. µ
L'Inq
CNet
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