Worms are most prevalent security problem

The Conficker worm continues to be one of the most prevalent threats facing PCs running Windows, according to a new security report published by Microsoft.

For the first six months of the year, Microsoft found that more than 5 million computers were infected with Conficker, according to its latest Security Intelligence Report.

Conficker spreads either by exploiting a vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows Server service, through infected removable media or brute-forcing weak passwords on other PCs.

Conficker alarmed Microsoft so much when it appeared that Microsoft issued an emergency patch in October 2008 for the software vulnerability that allowed it to spread rapidly.

The worm is still circulating, mainly in enterprises, said Vinny Gullotto, general manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center. Due to its password-cracking ability, if Conficker gets on one PC in a company, it can often then rapidly spread.

Microsoft collects data on infections from its free security products such as Windows Defender, the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), Security Essentials as well as ones the company sells.

Another worm -- called Taterf -- took the number two spot for the most infections at 4.9 million. Taterf steals authentication and account information for massively multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft and Lineage, among others, and spreads through infected drives such as a USB stick or an infected network drive.

Microsoft did see a decline of machines infected with Zlob, a notorious Trojan horse that spread by tricking people into believing it was actually a media codec, which is software used to encode and decode audio or video.

Microsoft's free tools such as MSRT will remove Zlob. For the first half of the year, Microsoft saw only 2.3 million infections, dropping drastically from the 21.1 million infections the company counted for the same period a year prior.

Gullotto said that Microsoft received an e-mail from the supposed creators of Zlob saying that they were now "closing soon." The e-mail, in broken English allegedly from "Russia," complimented Microsoft on responding quickly to the threats.

But it's just a small victory, as there are plenty of other security problems. Fake antivirus programs are among those.

Small thing about Hacking....

As i know Hacking is de interesting for user who using & Danger one for against whom it s used... The tricks may vary, but the aim mostly common...

Let's come to the point....-->>>

It’s one thing to know that your systems generally are under fire from hackers around the world. It’s another to understand specific attacks against your systems that are possible.

Many information-security vulnerabilities aren’t critical by themselves.
However, exploiting several vulnerabilities at the same time can take its toll.

For example, a default Windows OS configuration, a weak SQL Server administrator password, and a server hosted on a wireless network may not be major security concerns separately. But exploiting all three of these vulnerabilities at the same time can be a serious issue.

Nontechnical attacks

• Exploits that involve manipulating people — end users and even yourself —are the greatest vulnerability within any computer or network infrastructure.
• Humans are trusting by nature, which can lead to social-engineering exploits.
• Social engineering is defined as the exploitation of the trusting nature of human beings to gain information for malicious purposes.

Network-infrastructure attacks

Hacker attacks against network infrastructures can be easy, because many networks can be reached from anywhere in the world via the Internet. Here are some examples of network-infrastructure attacks:

• Connecting into a network through a rogue modem attached to a
  computer behind a firewall
• Exploiting weaknesses in network transport mechanisms, such as TCP/IP and NetBIOS
• Flooding a network with too many requests, creating a denial of service (DoS) for legitimate requests
• Installing a network analyzer on a network and capturing every packet that travels across it, revealing confidential information in clear text configuration
• Piggybacking onto a network through an insecure 802.11b wireless

Operating-system attacks
Hacking operating systems (OSs) is a preferred method of the bad guys. OSs comprise a large portion of hacker attacks simply because every computer has one and so many well-known exploits can be used against them.

Occasionally, some operating systems that are more secure out of the box — such as flavours of BSD UNIX but hackers prefer attacking operating systems like Windows because they are widely used and better known for their vulnerabilities.

• Exploiting specific protocol implementation
• Attacking built-in authentication systems
• Breaking file-system security
• Cracking passwords and encryption mechanisms

Application and other specialized attacks
Applications take a lot of hits by hackers. Programs such as e-mail server
software and Web applications often are beaten down:

• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) applications are frequently attacked because most firewalls and other security mechanisms are configured to allow full access to these programs from the Internet.
• Malicious software (malware) includes viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware. Malware clogs networks and takes down systems.
• Spam (junk e-mail) is wreaking havoc on system availability and storagespace. And it can carry malware.
• Ethical hacking helps reveal such attacks against your computer systems.

Try Windows 7....

The research firm NPD Group says, retail sales of boxed copies of Windows 7 are 234% higher than Vista's were at launch, absolutely crushing the older operating system’s launch sales figures (which, admittedly, the older operating system pretty much deserves).

Windows 7 launched on October 22, and unit sales of Windows PCs between October 18 and 24 were up 49% over the same period a year ago, and 95% over the preceding week. But it says far more about how great Windows 7 is, and how smart Microsoft's marketing was in the months leading up to launch day.

One important point to notice is --> Microsoft's strategy of offering free, pre-release versions of Windows 7 (90 days trail version) paid off, giving consumers plenty of time to learn that what is new in dis OS and more or less this trail version used to practice , finding best features with others OS s . I’ve personally had that build running on my laptop for months with no issues whatsoever.

But the Microsoft advertising strategy worked as well, concentrating on the features and strengths of the OS rather than whining about Apple. And compared to the insipid and pompously hip Apple “I’m a Mac” ads, their ad strategy has been a real relief (the recent Apple ads that attempt to blunt the positive responses to Windows 7 are particularly pathetic and irritating: weak an unimaginative, they ought to have their tag lines changed from “I’m a Mac” to “I’m a douche”).

And let me mention one thing before you claim I’m simply a Microsoft Kool-Aid drinker: For years....

But I made the switch to Windows 7 on my home office system in early October (yes, I was geeky enough to be selected to host a launch party , not only has it been a pleasure both functionally and aesthetically, it's robust as hell: not one single crash or issue of any kind since I installed it.

Finally, Microsoft has released an operating system that deserves to be called great. And people have apparently noticed....

Try this dis new version make your s/m work efficiency...