Tech Tuesday: Horny Security

Morning, folks. The Ox is back with another edition of Tech Tuesday, and today he's got some links that will provide you a brief preview of what the future has in store for the next few years, as well as some stuff that's already available for y'all to get and download. Since security is a big issue these days, what with Sobig, Blaster and the like running circles around sysAdmins and consumers world wide, today's edition will talk about some other threats to your system, and how you can make your beige/brown/silver box safer. Again, this is all thanks to Lockergnome and Cnet. Feel free to spread the news and tips to friends, relatives or anyone with a PC that's connected to the internet.

First off: Computer Cops has a short article on CoolWebSearch, a notorious form of spyware that's more common than you think. On receiving the article, I remembered that for awhile, one of the PCs at the faculty kept getting hijacked by this weird search site..and strangely enough the name was CoolWebSearch. The scary thing about CoolWebSearch is, and I quote:

"CoolWebSearch is a name given to a wide range of different browser hijackers. The code is very different between variants, but all are currently used to redirect users to coolwebsearch.com and other sites affiliated with its operators. The alarming trend with this hijacker is rapid metamorphosis and the increasing difficulty of removal.."

Now that in itself should already set you on your toes, but it gets worse:

"Manual removal is possible for most of the variants, but can be time consuming. As of this writing, most anti-spyware programs aren't currently addressing all variants. "

The article points you to a download that should enable removal, but there's no link embedded into the document, so I Googled it and here's the page for you. Hope it helps.

On a related thread, here's an article from the BBC on why people write viruses. An enlightening read, it provides a new perspective on how these people work, and also how society views virus writers. Definitely recommended. Finally, here's a link to an article taken from the Economic Times on enforcement efforts underway to unearth Internet worm writers.

Hmm. Right. Now to less serious matters. Everyone's waiting for the latest release of Bill Gates' money machine. Codenamed Longhorn, it's supposed to be better, faster, smoother and what not. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find an unbiased opinion on the subject, at least online. This is why Paul Thurrot's site is amazing, IMO. An industry analyst, his site checks up on major Windows releases and provides previews and reviews. The latest article on the road to Longhorn is here, and it DOES look promising, especially the distribution method. Head on to his site for that and many others.

Well, that's all the time we have for Tech Tuesday. As always, feel free to submit any other tips or info that you think is useful. Have a good week and happy computing!