According to the securityfix, Florida leads the nation in the number of networks with signs of computers infested with the sony rootkit. In total, 12,588 networks in Florida seem to have computers with the rootkit. Now, these numbers could reflect as few as one machine per network….
Category: Computers
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Tools of the trade – Compactflash card reader
I’ve probably mentioned before that I like the compactflash format for “digital media”. My camera uses Compactflash, so does the nexia audio player I use and the old used pda I’ve got, uses compactflash, so…. I have a variety of cards around, I’ve got an 8MB, 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 512MB and 1024MB card around somewhere. With all those cards and just three devices…. well, when I started thinking “usb memory stick” to replace floppy discs to move files from one machine to another… I thought, why should I pay for something with the memory built in… so, I found something that did well….
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Windows Wireless vulnerability
Brian Krebs has a post today on a Windows wireless networking “feature” which can be somewhat of a security risk. You see, it seems that With wireless networking enabled, Windows remembers the last wireless SSID that you connected to, so let’s say you were at a public Wireless access point called “Bob’s hotel” and you carry your laptop somewhere else. When the machine boots up, Windows tries to find “Bob’s hotel”, but of course, it’s not available at this other location, so… it assigns a 169.254.x.x ip address and broadcasts looking for “Bob’s hotel” the most recent wireless lan.
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MS responds to “intentional backdoor”, WMF claim
Microsoft is disputing claims by Steve Gibson, that the WMF vulnerability was an intentionally placed backdoor. There is a response to the claims in the Microsoft Security Incident Response blog. Apparently since the SetAbortProc procedure relates to printing, previous versions of Windows ignored the call unless printing was involved. (Why did windows start paying attention to it otherwise?)
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Mozilla Firefox 1.5 for Mandriva 2006
Mandriva 2006 released without Mozilla Firefox 1.5, it came with 1.0.6 (which included security fixes and other patches from 1.0.7)…. anyway, source rpm’s for Firefox 1.5 became available in cooker, so I’ve built rpm’s for Mandriva 2006 for easy management on my systems. I’ll post links here as they may be of use to others as well. …. These are provided as is, with no warranty express or implied, etc. etc. etc. The src.rpm is straight from cooker, so, if you like, you could build it yourself….
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WMF vulnerability not an accident? Was it an intentional backdoor?
I’m not quite sure if I’m willing to attribute to design, what I could attribute to a mistake… but, slashdot has pointed out that Steve Gibson in his latest Security Now! podcast (link is to transcript), is suggesting that it appears as though the WMF vulnerability of recent weeks appears (to him) to have been INTENTIONALLY included as a means of a remote backdoor.
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Mondorescue manually restoring from an afio.bz2 file
For several years now, I’ve used Mondorescue as a backup solution for those customers with a Linux server. It makes for a nice, easily scriptable backup that can go ahead and burn to disc, *(or tape or another pc….) My preferred way of doing this has been a full mondorescue backup to dvd (usually one or two discs) and a couple “incremental” backups each week. The client site handles swapping the discs as needed *(I’ve got reminder emails scripted) and they rotate through two sets of discs. Since mostly, these backups are kept onsite, once a month I burn a copy to move offsite.
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Clamav 0.88 for Mandrake 10.0
I’ve got a couple of older Mandrake 10.0 servers that I’m still maintaining. They’re systems that it hasn’t been practical (yet) to do an upgrade to a more recent release of the base operating system. Two of those are currenlty using Clamantivirus for their mailscanning. So, with the recent security vulnerability an update was needed. I basically took the clamav 0.88 source rpm from cooker and rebuilt on a 10.0 system. For convenience I’m posting ALL of these for download. So…. I’ll post the original src rpm from Mandriva cooker. (Which you could make use of to rebuild for another release of Mandrake.) And also the resulting built rpm’s….
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Microsoft Support extensions for XP
Good news for Windows XP users (especially XP Home). Microsoft has extended the support period for XP Home and Pro. Originally, security patch related support was expected to end December 31st of this year. According to the article for XP Home…
So for the consumer versions of Windows XP, mainstream support was going to end on December 31, 2006 and there was no guarantee of any security hot-fixes beyond that time. Microsoft has now extended the mainstream support deadline for the consumer versions to an undefined date that is two years after the release of the follow-on operating system.
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Apple Quicktime security vulnerabilites and update
There are a number of vulnerabilites reported with Apple Quicktime player related to the way it handles various file formats. Quicktime Player 7.0.4 is the current released GOOD version, everything from 7.0.3 and prior are vulnerable. The Security Fix has some details. There were a total of about 8 vulnerabilities fixed in 7.0.4 and they affect both Windows And Mac….