bkis

Updated at 9:13 p.m. PDT with information provided by BKIS stating that its free version of BKAV antivirus software can remove the worm from any infected computer.

There's been a lot of fuss about the Conficker worm. And here's the a $250,000 question: what is the origin of the virus?

$250,000 is the amount of money Microsoft is putting up as a reward for any information leading to an arrest related to the case. Folks at BKIS, a Vietnamese security firm that makes the BKAV antivirus software, announced Monday that they found clues that the virus may have originated in China. Previously, there were rumors that it might have been from Russia or Europe.

The firm's conclusion is based on its analysis of the virus' coding. It found that Conficker's code is closely related to that of the notorious Nimda, a virus that wreaked havoc on the Net and e-mail in 2001. At that time, BKIS determined that Nimda was made in China, based on the firm's own data.

It's important to note that the origin of Nimda was never verified. Though Nimda contained text indicating that it may have originated from China, that is in no way hard evidence. … Read more

Updated at 1:14 p.m. PST Friday, December 5 with comment from Lenovo.

Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending the month of December in his homeland of Vietnam and plans to file occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HANOI, Vietnam--Regardless of what some people seem to think, we Asians do not all look the same. But according to the current face recognition algorithm used in laptops, our faces are all about as flat as a piece of paper.

That's according to BKIS, the Vietnamese Internetwork Security Center that makes the antivirus software I mentioned in a blog post Monday. At a press conference here Tuesday, the company demonstrated vulnerabilities in laptops' face recognition-based authentication mechanisms that let anyone log in to a computer easily with a "special" photo of the legit owner, even at the highest authentication level.

Using your face as the password to log in to a computer--an alternative to the fingerprint method or the traditional username and password--marks a new trend found in laptops from Lenovo, Asus, and Toshiba. As far as I know, only these three vendors currently offer this technology in their laptops. These computers come with a built-in Webcam that's used to capture and analyze faces.

I've been impressed by this new way to log in and have found it to be so much more convenient than the fingerprint reader of my Dell XPS 1330. The finger scanner is a pain when my finger is wet or dirty. Unfortunately, on Tuesday I discovered that this new and exciting technology may not be such an effective security measure.

I participated in a demonstration on a Lenovo Y430, running Windows Vista, and here's how it panned out:… Read more

Editors note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending the next month in his homeland of Vietnam and plans to file occasional dispatches chronicling his impressions of how technology has permeated the culture there. Click here for more of Dong's stories from abroad.

HANOI, Vietnam--If you use any Internet-connected computer in Vietnam--and there are lots of them, with Internet cafes and Wi-Fi spots abounding in any city--chances are you'll find a little red plus sign at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

That's the icon of the most popular antivirus software here. It's called BKAV.

(A bit of background: if you've recently read reviews of Internet security products by our security editor Rob Vamosi, know that I am the one who designed the methodology involved in testing these applications. It's therefore natural for me to be curious about how people in various parts of the world are protected against malicious software.)

BKAV is short for Bach Khoa AntiVirus, with "Bach Khoa" being the Vietnamese name for the Hanoi University of Technology. The software was originally developed as a hobby by Quang Tu Nguyen, a student-turned-lecturer at the school. It's currently the flagship product of Bach Khoa Internetwork Security center (BKIS), of which Quang, now 33, is director.

Quang still lectures once in awhile, but he's primarily known as the man who has changed the landscape of network and computer security in Vietnam. His creation, BKAV, is in many ways just about the best security software you can find.… Read more