“The Adobe Flash Player 6 was provided with Windows XP and contains multiple vulnerabilities that could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page.

Adobe has addressed these vulnerabilities in newer versions of Adobe Flash Player. Microsoft recommends that users of Windows XP with Adobe Flash Player 6 installed update to the most current version of Flash Player available from Adobe.”

Now we have found the uninstaller for Flash Player 6.0 does work perfectly, and then impact the installation of newer versions. The total uninstallation involved manual file removal and registry cleanup.

We highly recommend all Windows XP users check their version of Adobe Flash Player, ensure Adobe Flash Player 6.0 is removed, and Version 10 installed.

As always if you need assistance with this, we are on hand to help you.

The company said in a security notice that the models affected were “privacy” editions of the DataTraveler Secure, DataTraveler Elite and DataTraveler Blackbox.

Kingston said the security flaw could allow a wrongdoer to hack into the memory sticks. “A skilled person with the proper tools and physical access to the drives may be able to gain unauthorised access to data,” warned the vendor.

Kingston added that a number of its USB drives weren’t affected by the security flaw.
Customers whose drives could be exploited by the security loophole should return the product, where Kingston said it would apply a factory update.

Kingston had claimed that its Data Traveler Secure drive was the first of its kind to protect “100 per cent of data on-the-fly via 256-bit hardware-based AES encrpytion”.

It’s also supposed to “meet enterprise-level security and compliance requirements”, according to blurb about the drive on the firm’s website.

[Via The Register]

If you have one of these drives act now to protect your data. We offer 100GB storage for just £59.99 per year. That’s alot cheaper than these potentially insecure flash drives.

So with this in mind what is the cost to your business if your IT system goes down and no one can get to you? If your email is down, customer relationship management tool. What do you do?

There is another option… Remote Unlimited Instant 24/7 Support. Also what do you do if you yourself cannot get to your office where all your business information is? Again another option. Office In A Box. Access your email, Calendar, CRM, Accounts, and more from anywhere you have an internet connection.

Great value, reliable services which keep you running even when the country grinds to a hault. For more info Contact zuuMedia Swindon.

McAfee Labs Threat Predictions for 2010:

Social Networks Will Be Platform of Choice for Emerging Threats
Facebook, Twitter, and third-party applications on these sites are rapidly changing the criminal toolkit, giving cybercriminals new technologies to work with and hot spots of activity that can be exploited. Users will become more vulnerable to attacks that blindly distribute rogue apps across their networks, and cybercriminals will take advantage of friends trusting friends to get users to click on links they might otherwise treat cautiously. The use of abbreviated URLs on sites like Twitter make it even easier for cybercriminals to mask and direct users to malicious Web sites. McAfee Labs predicts that cybercriminals will increasingly use these tactics across the most popular social networking sites in 2010.

Web Evolution Will Give Cybercriminals New Opportunities to Write Malware
The release of Google Chrome OS and the technological advancements of HTML 5 will continue to shift user activity from desktop to online applications, creating yet another opportunity for malware writers to prey on users. HTML 5’s anticipated cross-platform support also provides an additional motivation for attackers, enabling them to reach users of many mainstream browsers.

Banking Trojans, Email Attachments Delivering Malware Will Rise in Volume, Sophistication
McAfee Labs warns that banking Trojans, having demonstrated new tactics in 2009, will become even more sophisticated in 2010 and easily get around current protections used by banks. New techniques include a Trojan’s ability to silently interrupt a legitimate transaction to make an unauthorized withdrawal and simultaneously check the user’s transaction limits to stay below them and avoid alerting the bank. Email attachments, a longstanding delivery method for malware, will continue to rise in volume and increasingly target corporations, journalists, and individual users.

Cybercriminals Continue to Target Adobe Reader, Flash
In 2009, McAfee Labs saw an increase in attacks targeting client software. Due to the growing popularity of Adobe applications, McAfee Labs expects that cybercriminals will continue to target Adobe products, primarily Acrobat Reader and Flash, two of the most widely deployed applications in the world. McAfee Labs expects Adobe product exploitation will likely surpass that of Microsoft Office applications in 2010.

Botnet Infrastructure Shifts from Centralized Model to Peer-to-Peer Control
Botnets, the versatile infrastructure that launches nearly every type of cyberattack from spamming to identity theft, will continue to use a seemingly infinite supply of stolen computing power and bandwidth around the globe. Following a number of successful botnet takedowns, including the McColo ISP, botnet controllers must adjust to the increasing pressure cybersecurity professionals are placing on them. In 2010, McAfee Labs expects to see a significant adoption of peer-to-peer control, a distributed and resilient botnet infrastructure, rather than the centralized hosting model that we see today. For cybercriminals, the benefits will finally outweigh the costs of the peer-to-peer model, due to the security community’s increasingly aggressive attempts to shut down and deny access to botnets.

Cybercrime: A Good Year for Law Enforcement
Next year marks a decade in the fight that international law enforcement agencies have undertaken against cybercrime. McAfee Labs has seen significant progress in the universal effort to identify, track, and combat cybercrime by governments worldwide. McAfee believes that in 2010 we’ll see many more successes in the pursuit of cybercriminals.

For a full copy of the 2010 McAfee Labs Threat Predictions, please visit: http://www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/white_papers/7985rpt_labs_threat_predict_1209_v2.pdf

Ensure you are fully protected:-

First get a comprehensive no cost security scan.

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Trend Micro threat analysts recently received a spammed message purporting to come from 123greetings.com, a legitimate site that users can access to send e-cards to family and friends. The email message even sported the site’s logo (see Figure 1).

123 Greetings Spam Email

According to 123greetings.com, the e-cards sent from the site are stored on 123greetings.com servers and so should not be attached to emails. In other words, to view e-cards sent from the site, users do not need to download anything, however these spam emails are requiring the user to download a file to view the e-card.

123 Greetings Spam EXE

 We have already had to clean up 2 Swindon residents PC’s of this malware, and are warning all Swindon, Highworth, Faringdon and those in surrounding areas to be careful when opening attachments from anyone!

If you are not sure, don’t open it.

Measures to take to help protect yourself:-

• Ensure your anti-virus software is updated.
• Don’t open attachments from anyone you do not know.
• If you do know the person sending the attachment, and you are unsure of its content or if it is legitimate, then contact the sender and find out what they have sent, and indeed if they sent it.

We are offering comprehensive security scans at no cost to all, to help check your PC for the above, and anything else which may be lurking on your PC’s/Laptop’s. Signup today.

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• Check your system to ensure it is suitable for Windows 7.
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• Advice on any possible upgrades to your machine which will improve performance.
• Advice on software and services which may help you make the best use of technology.

All this for only £99.99. Contact us now for more info 01793 238 221.

Scareware wronguns have devised a neat but dangerous piece of coding designed to dupe prospective marks into believing that Microsoft is endorsing their worthless scamware.

A rogue anti-malware product called DefenceLab redirects infected PCs to Microsoft’s Support portal, but modifies the HTML content so as to appear as if Microsoft is endorsing the software. The ploy, which follows a fake scan and bogus Windows Security Center alert, is designed to persuade Windows users already exposed to infection by agents of the scareware package to pay for a full version of the supposed clean-up utility.

Spyware Scan

Spyware Alert

Such scams are becoming more complex, and harder to establish the legitimate ones from the fake ones. So let us take the pressure off you. We can monitor your systems regularly, and be on hand to find the real security alerts from the fake. 24/7 Unlimited Instant Support from only £9.99 per month. Why not get started today with a No Cost, No Obligation Security Scan with one of our expect technicians?

Your data, work, photos etc are important to you, If you lost them what would the cost be? Most is almost irreplaceable. What could you lose to such scareware? All of it is the honest answer.

Take action today in securing your PC’s, Laptops. Take a No Cost, No Obligation Security Scan to get you started.

Research by the mobile phone comparison website revealed that of those that said they would monitor their emails via theirhandset over the festive period, two third said they would check their phone twice a day.

Furthermore, 45 percent said they would be checking theirphone in case a problem crops up, while a quarter said checking their handset was an unbreakable habit and 11 percent admitted they would do it to impress their boss.

If you need support on Christmas Day, who will you turn to? zuuMedia Swindon are open 24/7, to assist you with all your technology needs. New smartphone, laptop, PC, or connected device? Don’t let Smart Technology outsmart you this Christmas.

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The magazine Which? Computing said it had heard from people around the country who had been called by scammers pretending to be from the computer software giant Microsoft or an internet service provider.

Don’t let yourself be scammed, use only reputed companies for remote support. Smart Technology experts zuuMedia are based in Swindon and here to help. We will come and visit you, so you know who you are dealing with. Local, professional, friendly support.

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