mcafee

PCLive.com, a service offered by SecurityCoverage, is attempting to upstage security giants Symantec and McAfee by offering a complete suite of security tools for your desktop--for free. Included within the basic PCLive Security package is a firewall, the open-source ClamAV antivirus product, antispyware capabilities and a pop-up blocker. What's more, PCLive will take out the trash (clean out old temp files) and check for the latest Microsoft Windows updates that haven't yet been applied to your PC. PCLive will also e-mail you a monthly report of any changes it has made on your computer.

SecurityCoverage offers users … Read more

PCLive.com, a service offered by SecurityCoverage Inc., is attempting to upstage security giants Symantec and McAfee by offering a complete suite of security tools for your desktop--for free. Included within the basic PCLive Security package is a firewall, the open source ClamAV antivirus product, antispyware, a pop-up blocker, plus system cleaner (removes old temp files). PCLive will also check for the latest Microsoft Windows updates that haven't yet been applied to your PC. For a mere $4.95 a month, PCLive Premium Security includes all the basic PCLive Security along with Web content filtering, parental controls, disk maintenance … Read more

While we East Coast folks celebrated Columbus Day, McAfee announced its acquisition of privately held SafeBoot for $350 million. SafeBoot provides software for file and full disk encryption.

Now, I certainly understand the rationale behind this deal. McAfee can now bundle encryption software into its PC security software and integrate key management into its ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO). We saw this same market consolidation pattern a few years ago with antispyware, which went from a stand-alone product to an integrated feature in endpoint security suites. In that transition, CA bought antispyware vendor Pest Patrol, while Microsoft grabbed Giant. Obviously, the same … Read more

McAfee on Monday released its 2008 line of security products, including McAfee VirusScan Plus 2008, McAfee Internet Security 2008, and McAfee Total Protection 2008.

In a move that McAfee hopes will distinguish it from the competition, the company is now offering three user licenses for all its desktop products, and is including its SiteAdvisor site-rating software in each product to protect against online fraud. Finally, McAfee is also including VirusScan mobile protection with its desktop Internet Security and Total Protection products.

This "triple play" perhaps makes McAfee's products more economical, but it remains to be seen if … Read more

There's a new zero-day attack in progress against Yahoo Messenger users. The instant messaging solicitation invites users to open their Webcam. However, the code used in this China-based exploit causes a heap overflow to be triggered when the target accepts a Webcam invitation. That means a remote attacker could execute malicious code on a compromised machine.

The McAfee security blog recommends the following: do not accept Webcam invites from untrusted sources until a patch is released, and block outgoing traffic on TCP port 5100 on your firewall until a patch is released.

Yahoo has been informed and says it … Read more

If you're feeling swamped in unsolicited e-mail, you're not alone. Enterprise security vendor Secure Computing this week reported spam increases 53 percent above July's daily average and 70 percent above June's average. That's not, however, a record. The current level of spam is equivalent to those reported during December 2006.

Reasons for the August bump in spam are varied. One, there's been a resurgence of the Storm worm, which is known to relay spam.

Two, enterprise security companies are seeing a higher level of attachment-based spam. In addition to the usual suspects of PDF … Read more

As a computer tech, Jack's used to helping families evict unwanted malware.

What he's not used to is having to perform the same service three times in as many months for the same family. Is malware overpowering their defenses, or is the family relying too heavily on professional services as their safety net for chancy online behavior? Find out in this week's Spyware Horror Story.

William is philosophizing to his toothbrush one minute and contemplating practicing shot put with his computer the next. What burst his bubble?

William blames a virus, and in his tussle with the malignant malware, he learns a few lessons about the risks of sharing a computer with family and friends. But was it actually a virus that got him, and are the lessons he learned the right ones?

After the frustrations of dealing with damaged data, it's easy to generalize about past and future behavior. Set the record straight in a thrilling malware true-and-false in this week's Spyware … Read more

After finishing dead last in a comparative antivirus test, Microsoft Windows Live OneCare recently garnered some positive press. The latest tests performed by AV-Comparatives.org seem to show an improvement, with OneCare moving up two places. While OneCare is certified by West Coast Labs and ICSA, it is the competitive independent antivirus testing results that mean more in terms of how well a product performs in the real world against real malware. Thus, some might argue that things are looking up for the nascent Redmond antimalware team.

That's until you look closer at the tests. AV-Comparatives performed two different … Read more