zero

IE flaw may allow Windows PCs to be hijacked, Microsoft warns

Microsoft has confirmed that a zero-day vulnerability affecting older versions of Internet Explorer could allow attackers to gain control of Windows-based computers to host malicious Web sites.

The company acknowledged the issue in a security advisory yesterday that included advice on how users can mitigate the threat posed by the flaw.

"Microsoft is aware of targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer 8," Microsoft said, noting that more recent versions of the Web browser, including IE 9 and IE 10, were unaffected.

The remote code execution vulnerability affects the way the browser accesses memory, … Read more

Hot new games for iOS

The stars lined up just right this week (read: gift-giving season is here!) to have a number of awesome game sequels and new releases launch all at once. Frankly, there are so many new games that there is no better time than the present to check out what the App Store has to offer.

Rick Broida already wrote about Grand Theft Auto: Vice City earlier today, but there are plenty more that would make nice additions to your iOS gaming collection.

This week's collection of apps is a group of excellent games released over the course of this week. … Read more

Wikipedia now totally free to mobile users in the Middle East

A full 25 million mobile users in the Middle East can now use Wikipedia without worrying about data charges.

The Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) have teamed up to offer the free access through a program known as Wikipedia Zero. The goal behind this initiative is to help people in developing countries more easily get information through Wikipedia. Many users in these countries surf the Internet via mobile devices, so the Wikimedia Foundation tries to work with local carriers to eliminate data charges and other obstacles.

The foundation has given high priority to Arabic-language countries but has reached out … Read more

NetZero subscribers can share free data with Facebook friends

Facebook friends can now share data with one other courtesy of a new promotion from NetZero.

The new 4G Data Share plan lets NetZero subscribers dole out 1GB of data each month to fellow subscribers on Facebook, with up to five friends getting 200MB a piece.

To partake in the promotion, you need to subscribe to any one of NetZero's five 4G mobile broadband plans, starting at 200MB for free and going up to 4GB for $49.95 a month.

You'll also need to buy NetZero's 4G USB stick or its 4G hotspot device. Both items are … Read more

ExploitShield appears to live up to its name

A new company called ZeroVulnerabilityLabs says that it has solved the Gordian knot of exploits, slicing through the complicated, Hydra-headed problem with a single stroke from a software weapon it calls ExploitShield.

Available exclusively today from Download.com, the first ExploitShield Browser Edition beta (download) appears to stop all manner of exploits, from those affecting browsers directly to browser plug-ins like PDF readers, Flash, and Java, to Microsoft Office components, to a handful of media players. The potential for raising the level of computer security here is huge, as a vast number of threats are actually mutations of malware, sold in kits like BlackHole, … Read more

New Java flaw could hit 1 billion users

It's just a proof of concept for now, but a newly revealed Java vulnerability could have very widespread repercussions.

Security research company Security Explorations has issued a description of a new critical security flaw in Java SE 5 build 1.5.0_22-b03, Java SE 6 build 1.6.0_35-b10, and the latest Java SE 7 build 1.7.0_07-b10. This error is caused by a discrepancy with how the Java virtual machine handles defined data types (a type-safety error) and in doing so violates a fundamental security constraint in the Java runtime, allowing a complete bypass of the Java … Read more

New Internet Explorer weakness already exploited in attacks

A previously unknown security hole in Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9 is being actively exploited to deliver a back door trojan known as "Poison Ivy," researchers warned.

Security blogger Eric Romang, who uncovered the vulnerability this weekend, wrote on his blog yesterday:

I can confirm, the zero-day season is really not over yet. Less than three weeks after the discovery of the Java SE 7 0day, aka CVE-2012-4681, potentially used by the Nitro gang in targeted attacks, a potential Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and 8 zero-day is actually exploited in the wild. Romang found an attack that … Read more

Winklevoss twins get back to social networking with investment

The Winklevoss twins, best known for their courtroom battles with Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook, are taking another stab at the social-networking sector.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have made a $1 million investment SumZero, a social network aimed at professional investors, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company was founded in 2008 by former Harvard classmates Aalap Mahadevia and Divya Narendra, the latter of which was a party to the Winklevoss twins' lawsuit that claimed they were misled about Facebook's value.

The case stemmed from a settlement the Winklevosses and Narendra signed with Facebook in 2008 after claiming Zuckerberg stole … Read more

Planes write out pi over the skies of San Francisco Bay Area

Many denizens of the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley noticed a long series of cloudy numbers in the skies around noon on Wednesday, September 12. No, their coffee wasn't spiked with hallucinogens.

The ephemeral event, known as Pi in the Sky, utilized five aircraft with dot-matrix skywriting technology to write out a thousand numbers of the beloved mathematical constant pi (3.14159..) at a 10,000-foot altitude. If that wasn't impressive enough, the numerals of pi written in the sky each stood nearly a quarter-mile tall, stretched for a 100-mile loop, and undoubtedly caused mass inspiration and confusion all at once. … Read more