Version 12.01 of the Opera web browser was announced yesterday. This is a security and stability release.
The version 12.01 changelog has all the details.
Update 2012Aug03: One of the changes in version 12.01 is a fix for problems using the new Outlook.com email service with Opera.
High profile events like celebrity deaths are seen as opportunities by malicious hackers and other nefarious persons on the Internet. Recent malicious email campaigns focus on the Olympics, trying to lure unsuspecting recipients into clicking web links or opening attachments, both resulting in the installation of backdoor/trojan software.
Please be extremely wary of all Olympic-themed email you receive during the Olympics.
The Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team has more information on Olympic malmail.
Microsoft has completed preparations for the release of Windows 8. System builders and participants in various related programs will get access in the next few weeks, and retail copies will appear on store shelves on October 26.
Technet subscribers will get access to the new O/S on August 15.
Ars Technica and The Verge have more details.
Version 21.0.1180.60 of Google Chrome was released yesterday. The new version includes several security updates as well as some new features.
Since I originally posted this, I learned that Adobe released version 11.3.300.268 to address this problem. It remains to be seen whether the problem has actually been resolved.
The latest version (11.3.300.265) of the ubiquitous Flash plugin found in most web browsers seems to be causing web browsers running on Windows 7 and Vista to crash. A quick search of Google shows that there are reports of this happening in Firefox, Chrome and Opera. Internet Explorer seems unaffected so far, possibly due to the fact that IE uses a separate (ActiveX) version of the Flash player.
Reports indicate that Mozilla is working with Adobe to resolve this problem, and presumably the other browser developers are doing the same. Meanwhile, if you’re running Windows 7 and you watch video on the web, you may run into this problem. As awful as it sounds, the only useful workaround at this point is to switch – temporarily – to Internet Explorer.
Update 2012Jul31:
I’ve been digging through reports from all over the web, and it looks like this problem has actually been going on since as far back as 2009 and Flash 10.0.42.34. Internet Explorer may also be affected, although recent reports seem to exclude IE. Some reports imply that only 64 bit versions of Windows are affected. There are even reports that Windows XP and Mac OSX are affected. But it seems clear that something happened to Flash in version 10 that made it unstable in web browsers on Windows 7 and Vista, and the problem still exists in the most recent version of Flash, 11.3.300.265. It’s possible we’re looking at more than one problem, or one that has morphed somewhat as the Adobe developers try to fix it. An old problem that was previously fixed may have reappeared when Adobe changed something in a later version. Clearly, not all Windows 7 users are affected; if everyone who uses Youtube (the highest-profile Flash video source) on Windows 7 was having this problem, we would have heard more about it by now.
The problem seems to take slightly different forms: it may crash the browser; the plugin itself may crash, leaving the browser running; and in some cases Windows may crash. The web browser may freeze for a few minutes before any crash occurs, and Windows may become unresponsive. In most cases, the problem occurs after two or three minutes of Flash video, but it make take up to fifteen minutes. The most common scenarios involve long Youtube videos and Facebook games (both use Flash).
Here are some of the more interesting problem reports I’ve found:
Possible solutions:
Prediction: if Adobe doesn’t figure this out, and Google has heard enough complaints about it, Google might be inclined to switch Youtube from Flash to HTML5. Everyone else in the world will follow Youtube, and then Flash will disappear forever and not be missed.
Update 2012Aug03: Adobe snuck a Flash update past me on July 26. Version 11.3.300.268 attempts to address crashing problems that occur on Windows and Mac computers when playing Flash content. Adobe doesn’t seem to be convinced that the problem is resolved, however: in the version announcement, they ask users for assistance in troubleshooting the problem.
ZeroAccess appeared in the wild in early 2012 and shows no signs of slowing down. This insidious malware is part of a botnet which is apparently focused on clickfraud: infected computers simulate clicking on web advertisements, thereby generating ad revenue for the botnet’s perpetrators and their customers.
What makes ZeroAccess particularly nasty is that it can use a lot of bandwidth, causing infected computers to reach and surpass bandwidth caps. Unsuspecting users may find bandwidth overage charges on their ISP’s bills.
Most up to date anti-malware software can detect and remove ZeroAccess, so if you’re not already using such software, you should start. If you’ve noticed a spike in your Internet bandwidth usage, you should scan your computer immediately. Free on-line scanners such as Housecall, as well as free offline scanners like Microsoft Security Essentials will do the job.
Additional details:
Valve is one of the most successful – and influential – gaming companies around. Valve’s boss, Gabe Newell, has expressed his feelings about Microsoft’s upcoming version of Windows, and they are not good.
In fact, Newell is so worried about Windows 8 that he is predicting major OEM players will bail completely. And Valve is actively looking at porting its Source gaming engine and Steam client to Linux. The hugely popular Valve game Left 4 Dead 2 has already been ported to Ubuntu Linux.
Having Steam and Valve games on Linux might just be the push needed to get Linux gaming off the ground at last. Once Linux is seen as a viable gaming platform, Microsoft will be in serious trouble.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether Windows 8 is the disaster predicted by Newell. But Gabe is a smart guy, and he spent some time working at Microsoft. If he’s right, we’re about to witness a major shift in consumer operating system preference.
Update 2012Aug01: Richard Stallman, an outspoken leader of the free software movement, isn’t happy about the idea of non-free games running on an otherwise free software platform. Still, he agrees that if you want to run non-free software, you’re better off running it on a free software platform like Linux.
One of the world’s largest spam botnets has finally been eradicated. At its peak – as recently as January 2012 – the Grum botnet was the largest spamming network in the world.
Spam levels worldwide are expected to drop as a result, although it seems probable that newer, more sophisticated botnets will rise to take Grum’s place. Enjoy the respite while you can.
Credit goes to several dedicated security researchers and anti-spam companies, including FireEye researcher Atif Mushtaq, researchers from anti-spam organisation Spamhaus, the Russian Computer Security Incident Response Team and other experts in the field.
Techweek Europe has all the details in their article on Grum’s demise.
A new version of Firefox was released yesterday: 14.0.1. You can download the new version from the Mozilla site.
This new version contains fixes for several security vulnerabilities, as outlined on the Firefox security advisories page.
The new version also sports several new features, including secure search, which changes the search bar to use secure searching if available. This follows Google’s recent change to use secure search by default for users logged in to Google. Secure browsing is now shown by a lock icon at the far left of the address bar, which replaces the favicon previously shown there.
The official release announcement for version 14.0.1 contains all the details.
According to The Verge, the next version of Microsoft Office (2013) will not run on Windows Vista or XP.
So, now there’s another good reason to avoid the latest version of Office, as if you needed one. Microsoft has struggled to get people to upgrade Office. Many users still run – and are perfectly happy with – much earlier versions. The general perception is that while new versions may look fancy, they tend to increase bloat, while randomly removing useful features, adding useless new features, introducing fun new bugs, and changing the user interface to make everything harder to find.
I predict that people will stay away from Office 2013 in even greater numbers than for previous versions.
boot13