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A rise in fake antivirus offerings on Web sites around the globe shows that scammers are increasingly turning to social engineering to get malware on computers rather than exploiting holes in software, a Google study to be released on Tuesday indicates.

Fake antivirus–false pop-up warnings designed to scare money out of computer users–represents 15 percent of all malware that Google detects on Web sites, according to 13-month analysis the company conducted between January 2009 and February 2010.

That’s a five-fold increase from when the company first started its analysis, Niels Provos, a principal software engineer at Google, said in an interview.

Meanwhile, fake antivirus scams represent half of all malware delivered via advertisements, which is becoming a problem for high-profile sites that rely on their advertisers and ad networks to distribute clean ads.

Google analyzed 240 million Web pages and uncovered more than 11,000 domains involved in fake antivirus distribution for the study, which Google is set to unveil at the Usenix Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats Tuesday in San Jose, Calif.

Researchers also found that over the course of the study, domains used for distributing the malware were online for shorter and shorter periods of time in the face of Google’s Safe Browsing technology. Used in Chrome and Firefox, Safe Browsing helps alert Web browsers to sites hosting malware, Provos said.

“As early as 2003, malware authors prompted users to download fake AV software by sending messages via a vulnerability in the Microsoft Messenger service. We observed the first form of fake AV attack involving Web sites, e.g. Malwarealarm.com, in our systems on March 3, 2007,” the report says. “At that time, fake AV attacks employed simple JavaScript to display an alert that asked users to download a fake AV executable.”

“More recent fake AV sites have evolved to use complex JavaScript to mimic the look and feel of the Windows user interface,” the report continues. “In some cases, the fake AV detects even the operating system version running on the target machine and adjusts its interface to match.”

Fake antivirus is easy money for scammers, Provos said.

“Once it is installed on the user system, it’s difficult to uninstall, you can’t run Windows updates anymore or install other antivirus products, and you must install the [operating] system,” rending it unusable until it is cleaned up, he said.

Provos said when encountering a fake antivirus message, Web surfers should close the browser and restart the program. People who are duped by the scam may have to get professional help in cleaning up the computer, he said. They should also monitor their credit card accounts because scammers can use the credit card information for identity fraud.

source:- Cnet News

Be aware that Snow Leopard seems to have a problem with how guest accounts are handled on systems that had them enabled before upgrading from Leopard. In several cases, people have accidentally logged in to their guest accounts and upon logging out and back into their normal accounts have found their data missing. We reported on this problem in the past, but here are some extra options for restoring the lost home folder from a backup.

This problem seems to be occurring with people who have had the guest account enabled for log-in before upgrading to Snow Leopard. After the upgrade, some problem with the account configuration can result in a non-guest account being cleared and reset the same way guest accounts are reset upon logout .

So far this has not happened for computers where the guest account has been enabled after upgrading. As such, one preventative measure is to disable the guest account’s ability to log in (and then disable the account altogether), and re-enable it so Snow Leopard sets it up instead of using the configuration that Leopard set up. I tested this out on my Snow Leopard upgrade (upgraded from 10.5.8 to 10.6) and the guest account worked as expected when enabled in Snow Leopard.

Additionally, if you do not need the guest account, just disable it. If you do need guest log-in functionality and do not want to take any chances, you can create a managed user account without a password to use instead of the guest account. Parental controls can then be used to apply extra restrictions to the account (the only main difference will be the account will not reset upon logout).

As for tackling the lost home folder problem when it has occurred, you will need to have a backup of your data. We strongly urge everyone to use Time Machine or a similar full system backup for this very purpose, and hopefully those who are affected have a recent backup handy. Here are the ways to restore your home folder from a backup:

Immediately restore the entire system

If this problem just occurred, and you have Time Machine running all the time, you should be able to restore your whole system installation to the most recent backup (within the hour). To do this, follow these steps:

1. Boot from the Snow Leopard DVD (hold “C” at start-up with the disk in the drive).
2. Select your language and choose “Restore from Backup” from the “Utilities” menu.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions and be sure to select the most recent backup from the list of available restore points.
4. Click “Restore” and wait for the procedure to complete (may take an hour or two).

After this process is completed, try disabling and re-enabling the guest account, or using the alternatives I suggested above.

Restore the home folder

You can restore the lost home folder from a backup without restoring the full system (though the first method is the most straightforward). To do this, follow these instructions:

1. Create a new admin account in the “Accounts” system preferences (new name, new password).
2. Log out, and log into the new account.
3. Go to the /Macintosh HD/Users/ directory in the Finder and invoke Time Machine.
4. Navigate back in time to where you can see the most recent intact home folder that was lost.
5. Select and restore that folder to the Users directory using the “Restore” button.

(Skip the following steps for the alternative method below.)
6. Go back to the Accounts system preferences and right-click the account with the lost home folder, and choose “Advanced Options.”
7. Next to the “Home directory” field click “Choose” and select the restored home folder.
8. Click “OK” and save the changes, and then log out of the new admin account.
9. Log into the old account.

An additional step to this is to ensure the old account is working properly. After step five above, where you restore the folder to the Users directory, follow these steps instead of the remainder of the steps in the above procedure:

6. Go to the Accounts system preferences and delete the old account.
7. Use the “+” sign to create a new account, giving it the same short and long names as the previous one, with the same password.
8. If the system claims an old home folder exists with that name, select the option to use that folder.
9. Check that the new account is using the old home folder by right-clicking it and in the “Advanced Options” check the home directory path (changing it as described above if it is different than that of the restored home folder).
10. Log out and log back into the newly created account to test it.

This alternative procedure will ensure the old account is refreshed and started new, but keeping the data in it preserved. This will give it new user and group IDs, along with other unique identifier numbers that may have been in conflict with the “guest” account, resulting in the lost home folder upon logout of the guest account.

source :- Cnet reviews

Source :- Zoom-in.com

Gates: Vista is doing just fine

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says sales of Windows Vista have been “rapid”, with more than 140 million copies sold worldwide.

Gates, speaking in Tokyo, said the figure represented “a very rapid sales rate,” according to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday.

Despite the sales figures, Microsoft has admitted to struggling with the public’s perception of Vista. Windows XP, Vista’s 7-year-old predecessor, is still popular among both businesses and consumers.

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