Security

First introduced in beta in April, Panda Cloud Antivirus graduates to a stable, public release and signifies a major security vendor taking aim at the freeware competition--instead of the other way around. Cloud Antivirus was notable on its beta release for being one of the few security options available to users that contained most of its protections in the cloud. This allowed it to protect users while consuming significantly fewer resources than many competing programs.

Panda Cloud Antivirus leaves beta--photos

Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 is notable as a free security solution for two reasons: Panda is a reputable security vendor, and the program achieves its goal of freeing up system resources. In a press release, Panda Security CEO Juan Santana described Cloud Antivirus as a game-changer. It's not clear quite yet that that's the case, but at the very least the program looks to fill a niche created by resource-conscious netbooks.

As light on resources as advertised, Cloud Antivirus offers strong reputation-based protection for those who want their security program out of sight and out of mind. A third-party efficacy evaluation wasn't available at the time of writing, but in empirical testing the program only used 9 MB of RAM while idle, and only 56 MB of RAM when scanning. Many other security programs will run scans at 150 MB of RAM or more.

Despite keeping most of its database in the cloud, Panda Security's Senior Research Advisor, Pedro Bustamante, noted during an interview in October that Cloud Antivirus isn't disabled just because the host computer is disconnected from the Internet. "Panda has an offline mode that uses a small cached copy of Collective Intelligence on your local drive, it's only the most recent threats on a real time wild list." Collective Intelligence is the name that Panda gave its cloud system when it was introduced in 2007.

When you open Cloud Antivirus, the main window lets you know whether you're safe or not with a big red or green icon. Cloud Antivirus works as other antivirus solutions do, offering a Quick Scan and a Custom scan for specific folder, files, and drives, but its ancillary features are exceptionally light. The Quick Scan took 13 minutes on my Windows 7 Lenovo T400 laptop.

Dragging an active Cloud Antivirus window, in Windows 7 at least, will turn it translucent.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

You can opt out of contributing anonymous data to the cloud, but that also opts you out of automatic threat management. There's a network connection proxy option should you need it, and a reporting feature that will show you what kind of threats have been detected and removed from your computer. You can filter the report by All, Last 24 hours, Last Week, or Last Month, and there's a Recycle Bin pane from which you can recover a false positive, should you need it. Unfortunately, the Recycle Bin is hidden behind an obnoxious "flipping" screen that cheesily rotates when you need to access it.

If you're familiar with the minimalist Microsoft Security Essentials, Cloud Antivirus is even simpler. I did notice some odd interface rendering around the minimize and close buttons in Windows XP, but not in Windows 7. There are other more serious concerns about the program. Most notably, it lacks a scheduler, and it removes user input from update functions. Scans are also limited: you can tell the program what to scan, but not what to look for, so forget about toggling heuristics or rootkits. Then again, the point of this kind of security is that it's all wrapped into one.

Keeping in mind its limited feature set, and that we don't have efficacy numbers at the time of reviewing, Panda Cloud Antivirus makes good security choice for those willing to take the plunge.

Apple on Monday released a large security update for Mac OS X that fixes dozens of vulnerabilities and provides protection against potential attacks exploiting a weakness in the protocol used to verify that a domain is legitimate.

There are 43 specific issues addressed in the 2009-006 update, released the same day as Mac OS X v.10.6.2.

It plugs a variety of holes for the Mac OS X v10.5.8, 10.6, 10.6.1, and Mac OS X Server v10.6 and 10.6.1, many of which could lead to arbitrary code execution and allow an attacker to take control of a computer.

Several updates affect Apache and QuickTime. Others target AFP Client, Apple Type Services, Core Graphics, CoreMedia, Dictionary, Disk Images, Dovecot, Directory Service, fetch mail, FTP Server, Help Viewer, Kernel, PHP, QuickDraw Manager and Spotlight.

One update fixes a hole in Adaptive Firewall that could allow a brute force or dictionary attack to guess an SSH log-in password, and another update addresses a vulnerability in Login Window that could allow a user to log in to any account without supplying a password.

Several updates address holes that could allow domain spoofing or man-in-the-middle attacks involving SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) used for encrypting data in transit, including a significant weakness in the X.509 protocol for generating SSL connections.

One of the updates affects the libsecurity feature and is billed as a "proactive change to protect users in advance of improved attacks against the MD2 hash algorithm" that could expose users to spoofing and information disclosure.

"There are known cryptographic weaknesses in the MD2 hash algorithm. Further research could allow the creation of X.509 certificates with attacker controlled values that are trusted by the system," the update says. "This could expose X.509 based protocols to spoofing, man in the middle attacks, and information disclosure. While it is not yet considered computationally feasible to mount an attack using these weaknesses, this update disables support for an X.509 certificate with an MD2 hash for any use other than as trusted root certificate."

That major weakness was revealed by security researcher Dan Kaminsky at the Defcon hacker conference in July. Kaminsky was able to trick a Certificate Authority into providing a certificate verifying authenticity for a domain that belonged to someone else.

The updates can be downloaded from Apple's site.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft launched its new Forefront Protection 2010 antimalware for Exchange on Monday.

The company also announced at the TechEd Europe conference in Berlin the availability of Forefront Online Protection for Exchange designed for enterprise customers who want Microsoft to host the security solution.

Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange incorporates malware engines from Microsoft and various partners, providing 38 times faster malware detection and decreasing spam to the point where only one out of 250,000 spam messages gets through, said Joel Sider, senior project manager for Microsoft's Infrastructure division.

Integration with Exchange provides the ability to scan messages and documents simultaneously, while built-in information protection with Active Directory rights management services give users and IT administrators more control over what e-mail and documents can do and who can receive them, he said.

The announcements were made in conjunction with the scheduled launch this week of Exchange 2010, the new version of Microsoft's e-mail and communications server.

Meanwhile, Microsoft said last month it was delaying the release of its Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 for Windows desktops until the second half of next year.

The company will be rolling out over the next year all the pieces of its Forefront Protection Suite, formerly code-named "Stirling."

Update at 10:09 a.m. PST with comments from Microsoft.

Nothing has ever changed the world as quickly as the Internet.

Less than a decade ago, "60 Minutes" went to the Pentagon to do a story on something called information warfare, or cyberwar as some people called it. It involved using computers and the Internet as weapons.

Much of it was still theory, but we were told that before too long it might be possible for a hacker with a computer to disable critical infrastructure in a major city and disrupt essential services, steal millions of dollars from banks all over the world, infiltrate defense systems, extort millions from public companies, and even sabotage our weapons systems.

Today it's not only possible, all of that has actually happened. And there's a lot more we don't even know about.

It's why President Obama has made cyberwar defense a top national priority and why some people are already saying that the next big war is less likely to begin with a bang than with a blackout.

"Can you imagine your life without electric power?" Ret. Adm. Mike McConnell asked "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft...

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Read more of "Cyber War: Sabotaging the System" at CBSNews.com.

Microsoft said on Thursday it will issue six patches next week for 15 vulnerabilities, including three critical bulletins affecting Windows and two important Office-related bulletins.

Affected software includes Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Office XP, Office 2003, 2007 Microsoft Office System, Office 2004 for Mac, and Office 2008 for Mac, the company said in an advisory.

November's Patch Tuesday is a contrast to the record number of fixes issued last month--13 bulletins for 34 vulnerabilities.

Updated 2:52 p.m. PST to correct that there will be six patches fixing 15 vulnerabilities.

Google's biggest threat is no longer Microsoft. It is itself.

As the company harvests copious quantities of personal data, it becomes dramatically better at serving customer needs...

...and at freaking them out over privacy concerns.

In other words, Google gets stronger with every Google Doc created, every Google Voice call dialed, and every Gmail e-mail sent. It becomes stronger because data is the heart of the Web's biggest businesses, as Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady implies.

But in so doing Google also becomes more threatening to the very consumers it is trying to serve.

Google Dashboard is meant to change this by putting consumer data back in the hands of consumers. It's a move that follows on Google's earlier pledge to "open data" and its Data Liberation Front.

Yes, but will he give me better search?

(Credit: U.S. Army)

As CNET reports, Dashboard lets people review the personal data Google has stored for them, delete it, and alter future collection policies. It's a great way for Google to mollify concerned users, putting control back in their hands.

Still, it's almost certainly never going to be used by the vast majority of Google users. Ever.

Why? Because for all our hand-wringing over privacy--and for good reason--the reality is that most of us, most of the time, really don't care. Or, rather, if accessing useful services or getting work done more efficiently requires some privacy concessions, we gladly concede.

It's not that we don't value our privacy. It's just that in many contexts, we value other things as much or more. We weigh the risks versus the benefits, and often the benefits trump the privacy risks.

It's the same thing with file formats. For years we've been agonizing over Microsoft's lock-in of customers through proprietary file formats (.pst, .doc, etc.). Now Microsoft is opening up the specifications for file formats like .pst (Outlook file format), and yet it will almost certainly change little to nothing in what products most people use most of the time.

People don't use Microsoft Office because they're forced to. They do so because it's convenient. (Yes, an argument can be made that it's convenient because Microsoft has forced network effects through lock-in.)

This, incidentally, is exactly the reason that Wednesday night I declared a ban on Microsoft Office in our family in favor of Google Docs--and didn't opt for OpenOffice (which we also use). I got sick of having to recover documents and perform other IT tasks related to a locally installed office suite, open source or proprietary. And I find it easier to let Google handle the back-end IT operations.

I wasn't trying to evade lock-in. I was trying to increase personal happiness.

Am I concerned about Google snooping on the documents we write and store in Google Docs? Let's just say I worry more about my time fixing Office than whether Google gleans any information from my 12-year old's seventh-grade essay.

Dashboard leaves Google in the prime position of being able to honestly say that it doesn't control user data, while still delivering increasingly beneficial services based on that data. It will not change the way that the vast majority of consumers use Google, but it just might change the way they think about Google.

A very smart move by Google, one that all data-driven businesses should emulate.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

A zero-day flaw in the TLS and SSL protocols, which are commonly used to encrypt Web pages, has been made public.

Security researchers Marsh Ray and Steve Dispensa unveiled the TLS (Transport Layer Security) flaw on Wednesday, following the disclosure of separate, but similar, security findings. TLS and its predecessor, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), are typically used by online retailers and banks to provide security for Web transactions.

Ray, who works with Dispensa at two-factor authentication company PhoneFactor, explained in a blog post this week that he had initially discovered the flaw in August and demonstrated a working exploit to Dispensa at the beginning of September.

Read more of "Zero-day flaw found in web encryption" at ZDNet UK.

The Lose/Lose game warns players before they launch the application that they are likely to have files deleted.

(Credit: Lose/Lose)

As part of his Master of Fine Arts thesis project, Zach Gage wrote a game to run on Macintosh computers that resembles Space Invaders but with a digital roulette twist--for every alien space ship the player destroys a random file on the computer is deleted.

"Lose/Lose is a video-game with real life consequences. Each alien in the game is created based on a random file on the player's computer. If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted. If the player's ship is destroyed, the application itself is deleted," the computer technology design major wrote on his Web site.

"At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data?" he asks.

On September 14, Gage posted his "Lose/Lose" game on his Web site and at the Experimental Gameplay Project, which links back to his site where he has a big warning in red: "KILLING ALIENS IN LOSE/LOSE WILL DELETE FILES ON YOUR HARDDRIVE PERMANENTLY." The application also displays a warning when it is launched.

This week, Symantec announced that it has flagged the application as malware, a Trojan it has dubbed OSX.Loosemaque. Sophos is calling it a Trojan too, OSX/LoseGame-A and Intego has named it OSX/LoserGame.

"We are concerned that somebody could take this and modify it in some way where users aren't aware of the consequences," Kevin Haley, director of product management at Symantec Security Response, said in an interview on Wednesday. "We want to make people aware of what's on their machine and they can make the decision on whether to run it or not."

Asked to comment on the stir his project was creating, Gage seemed amused.

"I'm kind of OK with it being labeled malware," he said in a phone interview. "I would categorize it as dangerous software, but not malware because it is dangerous if you use it in a certain manner. Whereas malware implies it was designed to be malicious...Calling it a Trojan is really blowing it out of proportion."

Trojan horses are programs, typically masquerading as a benign program or hidden in legitimate software, which provide an attacker unauthorized access to the system. However, Gage's program explicitly says what it does and what the consequences are.

In addition to exploring the nature of risk and reward with regard to war and the notion of how small wins distract from the larger picture, the game provokes discussion about the risks people take with technology every day, Gage said.

"We need to pay attention to how we behave on computers," he said.

Apparently, some people don't mind playing with fire. The list of high scorers on the game site shows more than 40 players, with the highest score having destroyed nearly 5,000 files, or aliens.

"I'm surprised anyone has played it," Gage said. "I'm shocked."

Asked to comment on any possible beneficial merits of the project, Symantec's Haley said: "I don't see the positive aspect of it, but I suppose if it's art we're not supposed to completely understand it."

Symantec created a video that shows how the game works. When an alien ship is destroyed (on the left) a corresponding file is deleted (on the right).

(Credit: Symantec)

(Credit: FBI)

Criminals have tried to steal an estimated $100 million from corporate bank accounts using targeted malware and money mules, the FBI said on Tuesday.

"Within the last several months, the FBI has seen a significant increase in fraud involving the exploitation of valid online banking credentials belonging to small and medium businesses, municipal governments, and school districts," the agency said in a statement.

The FBI is seeing, on average, several new victim complaints and cases every week, according to a report prepared by the Internet Crime Complaint Center and linked to in the FBI release.

Brian Krebs reported on The Washington Post's Security Fix blog last week that the FBI puts losses from online fraud involving malware and money mules at around $40 million. Krebs is keeping a running list of businesses who have been victims of online theft and detailing the attacks.

Here is how the typical scam works. The criminals may find contact information and an organizational chart of a business online, as well as information about who handles the financial transactions for the company or agency. So-called "spear phishing" e-mails are sent to the employees who can initiate funds transfers, either wire transfers or transfers through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system.

The e-mails contain either an infected file or a link to a Web site hosting malware. Once the file or link is opened, the malware containing a key logger is installed on the recipients' computer. The key logger harvests the user's corporate online banking user name and password and creates another account using that information or initiates a fund transfer masquerading as the authorized user.

The money is typically transferred into accounts opened by willing or unwitting people, known as "money mules," who then forward the deposits overseas. Usually, increments of less than $10,000 are transferred to avoid currency transaction reporting. The money mules are recruited through "work from home" ads or contacted after placing resumes on employment Web sites.

In several cases, banks did not have proper firewalls or antivirus software to protect against such attacks, the FBI said.

Current signature-based anti-virus programs are increasingly ineffective and companies should also consider using heuristic detection, application white listing that allows only known software and libraries to execute on a system, and reducing user privileges, the report advised.

Last week, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) issued a warning to banks and financial institutions about the increased use of money mules in unauthorized electronic funds transfers.

"Money mule activity is essentially electronic money laundering...," the FDIC statement said.

Criminals are shifting their focus to stealing online bank credentials from businesses instead of consumers because there is more money in the corporate bank accounts to plunder, according to Amit Klein, chief technical officer of browser security vendor Trusteer.

"Therefore, criminals can transfer larger sums of money, with a lower risk of raising red flags and being detected by a bank's anti-fraud systems which look for anomalous or unusually large withdrawals or wire transfers," he said in a statement. "Unfortunately, small-medium businesses do not have any better browser security mechanisms than consumers to protect their banking credentials from being stolen."