A private security company has found a way to nuke the controversial callback component in Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy tool. Firewall Leak Tester, a company that provides tools to test the quality of personal firewall software, has released a utility called RemoveWGA that blocks Microsoft from “phoning home” from Windows PCs on a daily basis.

“Once the WGA Notification tool has checked your OS and has confirmed you had a legit copy, there is no decent point or reason to check it again and again every boot,” the company said in a note explaining its motive for releasing the tool.

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Source: eWeek via MSFN

Even though Windows XP Service Pack 3 has a long way to go before being released to the public, word is out that Microsoft has Service Pack 4 in the works. SP3, set to be released in mid-2007, will be a massive update for XP, and many people have said it may be the last for the OS because of Vista. But rumor has it that because of the massive delays with Windows Vista, Microsoft may be forced to release one final hotfix pack to keep corporate IT customers happy due to the predicted delay in switching to Vista for many companies.

A Chinese version of PC Magazine spilled some small tidbits about SP4 last year that went unnoticed, stating that it’s on Microsoft’s release timeline. A quick search of the internet can find scattered referrals to the package as well. We’ve heard that there will be no new features with SP4, but most likely there will be many fixes for both IE7 and WMP11 as the products mature. Although no known fixes have been designated to SP4 just yet, TheHotfix.net will be the first to bring them to you when they begin arriving, most likely early next year.

Source: TheHotfix

I have written a review about NOD32 Anti-Virus.

NOD32 by Eset is a lightweight Anti-Virus application that has low impact on your computer resources, but is full of features. It has the highest performance and detection rate than any other Anti-Virus software on the market today with 2% to 5% more performance, and a detection rate of 85%, as tested by VirusBulletin. NOD32 has advanced and reliable detection of Polymorphic and Metamorphic Viruses, Worms, Trojans and Malware, and consists of AMON, IMON, EMON and DMON.

View: NOD32 Anti-Virus Review

Microsoft has issued patches for 21 flaws in its software, saying all but two of them could let an intruder run malicious code on a compromised computer. The company sent out a dozen security bulletins on Tuesday as part of its regular monthly patch cycle. Eight of the bulletins are labeled “critical,” which is Microsoft’s highest risk rating. They cover problems with Windows, Internet Explorer, Word, PowerPoint and Exchange Server.

The number of vulnerabilities mean this is Microsoft’s largest clutch of patches to date, security experts said. “There has never been a Microsoft security update to address 21 issues and never one with 19 potential remote execution flaws,” said Amol Sarwate, the manager of the Vulnerability Management Lab at flaw management specialist Qualys.

View: Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for June, 2006
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Source: ZDNet News via MSFN

Mozilla’s Firefox browser has been updated to fix 13 security vulnerabilities, five rated critical. The open-source group on June 1 shipped Firefox 1.5.0.4, a security and stability release to correct flaws that could cause security bypass, cross-site scripting, system access and HTTP response-smuggling attacks.

Security alerts aggregator Secunia rates the update as “highly critical” because of the risk of remote code execution exploitation. According to Mozilla’s advisory, the most serious flaws occur because of errors in the browser engine that could be exploited to cause a memory corruption. This may allow arbitrary code execution attacks.

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Source: eWeek via MSFN

A security feature used in the open-source world is now helping to harden Windows Vista against buffer overrun exploits. Microsoft has quietly fitted the feature, called ALSR (Address Space Layout Randomization) in Windows Vista Beta 2 as part of a larger plan to make it more difficult to automate attacks against the operating system.

“Not only is it in Beta 2, it’s on by default too,” said Michael Howard, senior security program manager at Microsoft in a blog entry announcing the news. “We added ASLR pretty late in the game, but we decided that adding it to beta 2 and enabling it by default was important so we can understand how well it performs in the field,” Howard said.

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Source: eWeek via MSFN

Microsoft’s next version of Internet Explorer will tackle many of the criticisms levelled at the current version, especially over security, says the head of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer division. Internet Explorer 7 is currently out in its second beta version, with the final version due for release in the second half of this year. It’s the first significant update of the browser since version 6 was released in 2001.

Microsoft’s group program manager for Internet Explorer, Tony Chor, detailed the browser’s new features during the Webstock web design conference in Wellington last week. Most importantly, Mr Chor says the new version improves the browser’s security, one of the main complaints with version 6. In Vista, the browser will run in “protected mode”, writing only to a temporary cache. Mr Chor says this will stop attacks that use the browsers’ default administrator privileges to install spyware.

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Source: Stuff via MSFN

Symantec disclosed this week that researchers have discovered a software vulnerability that could allow hackers to take remote control of a PC and that it is working to verify the hole and provide a patch.

Symantec was at pains to point out that its mass market Norton products are not affected. More importantly, it said no customers had been affected and there is no known exploit.

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Source: The Register via Flexbeta

A test has revealed that a Linux server is far less likely to be compromised. In fact, unpatched Red Hat and SuSE servers were not breached at all during a six-week trial, while the equivalent Windows systems were compromised within hours. An unpatched Windows 2000 Server was the quickest to be compromised, at an hour and 17 minutes, while unpatched Windows Server 2003 lasted slightly longer. Windows XP Professional, unpatched, lasted one hour and 12 seconds. Meanwhile, Unpatched Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and SuSE Linux 9 Desktop weren’t compromised during the month and a half it was exposed to the Internet.

However, patching does make a difference. Patched versions of Windows fared far better, remaining untouched throughout the test, as did the Red Hat and Suse deployments. The results of the test were confirmed by Symantec’s other finding, Companies were at risk from unpatched software bugs for an average of 42 days per bug during the second half of last year, according to the company’s latest semi-annual Internet Security Threat Report, released this week.

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Source: Tech World via MSFN

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has warned that people should not download Google Desktop because it “greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy”.

A spokesEFF said that if the toolbar chooses to use it, the new “Search Across Computers” feature stores copies of the user’s Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google’s own servers.

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Source: The Inquirer via Flexbeta