Bitdefender Relaunches Clueful as Free Social Web-Guide on iOS App Behavior

Former iOS Privacy App made available again with more features for consumers to learn how Apps treat their data and privacy

Bitdefender, the award-winning provider of innovative antivirussolutions, today announced the relaunch of Clueful, the first security application to empower iPhone owners to distinguish privacy violating apps. Replacing the controversially removed iOS App Store version, Clueful returns as a free web-app globally.

 Available for free at http://www.cluefulapp.com via iPhones, iPads and PCs alike, the new Clueful adds more features and more vital privacy information for users. Users are informed of Apps that are careless with usernames and passwords, track location, read and use address books, access calendars, drain a device’s battery, overly target users with ads, don't encrypt personal data or transmissions, track and aggregate the owner’s usage through multiple analytics networks, and more.

Alongside access to Top App listing information, users can now add comments on any App’s clue card and comment on how developers handle their privacy.

“The iPhone is the most personal of your personal devices, storing large amounts of private information that app developers would love to access. We feel Clueful is one of the most useful and valuable tools available to consumers and are excited to relaunch it,” said Bitdefender’s Chief Security Researcher, Catalin Cosoi. “We’re putting Clueful out as a comprehensive, full-featured guide to iOS apps with added social features and are preparing further advances for this new technology. There will be much more about Clueful coming soon.”

Bitdefender®, the award-winning provider of innovative antivirussolutions, continues to work with Apple to bringing the initially approved and later pulled Clueful back on the App Store.

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PandaLabs Offers Security Tips to Stay Safe This Summer

PandaLabs, the anti-malware laboratory of Panda Security, The Cloud Security Company, today published its annual security tips for consumers to stay safe this summer and avoid falling victim to computer fraud. During the summer, people (especially children) have more spare time on their hands for using computers and connecting to the Internet more frequently, thus increasing the risk of falling victim to malicious code.

One of the newest scams that has surfaced recently involves sending fake flight confirmation emails. The potential victim receives a fake confirmation for ‘recently purchased tickets’ with instructions on how to open an attachment to view the ticket. The file, however, is a Trojan of the Sinowal family that is designed to steal users’ confidential information.

“In the summer, many people book flights online to get to their holiday destinations,” said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs. “Cyber-crooks are taking advantage of this situation to send a new wave of fake emails aimed at tricking users into opening the attachments and infecting their computers.”

Security Tips for Summer Vacation

PandaLabs is continually analyzing the latest Internet trends, and with this in mind, offers the following advice to help safeguard users’ security this season:

Use caution with social networking sites: People give out too much information about their holiday plans on social networking sites, even tipping criminals off about their empty homes. Check privacy settings and avoid sharing private information on social networks.

• Install parental controls: Children spend more time in front of computers during summer vacation. Installing a good parental control program on the computer will help minimize children’s vulnerability on the Internet.

• If you can avoid it, never use a shared computer: If using a shared or public computer on vacation is a must, prevent identity theft by making sure your account doesn’t automatically save your password and user ID. If you suspect the computer’s security has been compromised by a virus, leave it and use another. Take care when connecting an external device to the computer, as it may become infected without your knowledge.

• Take care with email: Email is one of the main virus entry points, so pay special attention to it. Do not open messages from unknown senders or click on dubious links.

• Beware of public Wi-Fi networks: You could be hooking up to a network set up by hackers to steal any information that you share across the Internet. When you connect to email, social networking sites or online stores, make sure you are using a secure connection (https), so that traffic is encrypted and no one else can access the information.

• Keep your computer up-to-date: Malware seeks to exploit existing security holes in systems to infect them. Make sure all necessary security patches and updates are properly installed.

• Protect your computer: Make sure you have reliable, up-to-date protection installed on your computer. There are many free, reliable solutions on the market, like Panda Cloud Antivirus, available for download at www.cloudantivirus.com.

“By following PandaLabs’ tips for staying secure, users can enjoy their summer vacations with greater peace of mind. Just as people would lock all doors and windows before going on vacation, consumers should also take great care to protect their digital worlds,” added Corrons.

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50% of users cannot recognize a phishing message

The standard data theft method is social engineering – a potential victim is lured onto an infected web-page or is duped into opening a file attached to an e-mail. It is not always easy to recognize such a message, as a survey conducted in May 2012 by O+ K Research at the request of Kaspersky Lab demonstrates. During the survey, 50% claimed they are incapable of recognizing a phishing message or a forged web-site.

The overwhelming majority of phishing messages are delivered through e-mail or social networks. The reason is simple: these are currently the most wide-spread means of communication. According the same research, 86% of PC users check their e-mails regularly, and 73% communicate in social networks. 54% of users chat on the Internet regularly with their smartphones. Cybercriminals who use phishing as a tool to steal data are primarily interested in gaining unauthorized access to social network accounts, accounts in online banking and payment systems, and e-shops. According Kaspersky Lab, in June 68% of phishing messages related to such services were targeted at data theft.

The results give indirect evidence that the mass messaging method bears fruit: about half of the O+K Research respondents noticed they have already encountered suspicious correspondence in social networks or e-mail. Thus, 47% of PC users got a message with a suspicious link or an attachment, and 29% of respondents got letters on the name of a bank (social network, another service, etc.) with a request for confidential information.

Moreover 26% of users admitted that their computers had been infected as a result of opening an attachment to a letter, and 13% of respondents had entered personal or financial data at suspicious pages. Therefore when fighting against fake and infected messages and web-sites, instead of relying upon your own efforts it is better to use specific solutions. The new Safe Money technology, presented as a part of Kaspersky Internet Security 2013, helps to detect and block attempts to steal your sensitive data via phishing web-pages and malware linked to online shopping or banking services.

Quite a high percentage of users fell prey to phishing on their mobile devices. 24% of tablet users and 18% of smartphone owners received correspondence with suspicious links and attachments. 14% and 11% respectively had letters on behalf of a bank or social network. One can presume that as we see more and more mobile devices going online, the amount of phishing letters for mobile platforms will also grow. Therefore it is high time to think of protecting you mobile devices with specific anti-phishing solutions. This function is already available in Kaspersky Mobile Security and Kaspersky Tablet Security.

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Facebook connects users to free antivirus software

Facebook is now directing users who think their computer might be infected to sites where they can get free antivirus software.

The Malware Checkpoint for Facebook sends people either to sign up for Microsoft Security Essentials or McAfee Scan and Repair. Mac users are referred to an Apple Security Updates site.

Facebook already notifies users when the site detects a possible malware infection on an individual machine, and provides these users free antivirus software to clean up the infection. The social network has now opened up its anti-malware campaign to all users in order to them them proactively protect themselves, according to a post on the Facebook Security page:

If you are concerned that your device may have been infected by malware, you can visit http://on.fb.me/infectedMSE or http://on.fb.me/infectedMcA to be self-enrolled in either our Microsoft Security Essentials or McAfee Scan and Repair malware checkpoints...
1. The McAfee option will download a small program onto your Windows computer to perform a one-time scan of your system for malware. It will not interfere with your existing anti-virus or other security products. After it scans your system, it will give you the option to automatically or manually remove the files it flags as malicious.
2. The Microsoft Security Essentials option is a full anti-virus product. Upon download and install, it will add anti-virus software to your computer that will continue to protect your system with the latest anti-virus signatures from Microsoft.

Last year, Facebook added new security features, including Login Approvals and warnings when users are about to get hit by clickjacking and cross-site scripting attacks or malicious links on sites. Earlier this year, the site began offering free antivirus assistance and improved its external blacklist system to protect users from malicious Web sites.

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Nasty Trojan that encrypts your files

There is a lot of nasty malware out there and a new one popped up this week. This particular malware is a Trojan and the idea behind it is not new though the Trojan now has new and improved ways to spread. Unsuspecting users can be infected by the Trojan by clicking on infected links, particularly in forums.

This Trojan is a ransomware that encrypts your files (documents, image and shortcut files) and demands a password to decrypt the files. This password is available for the small price of €50. If the user attempts to enter a password, he will get five attempts before the files are locked and sealed, impossible to decrypt. The Trojan is called Trojan:W32/Ransomcrypt. Once the files have been encrypted, the EnCiPhErEd ending is added to their file name. A text message is displayed, offering the user to enter a password. If the password is wrong (which it of course is because the user has no idea what it could be), another text message appears that offers the release of the encrypted files after the ransom has been paid. F-PROT Antivirus users will be happy to know that a virus definition for this infection has already been released. F-PROT Antivirus users with updated programs should be safe from this malicious Trojan.

To avoid infection of this type, we encourage users to avoid clicking on suspicious links and never to enter their credit card number or transfer money after a mysterious pop-up message from a product or service that you did not request is displayed on their computer. Installing and using a good antivirus is also essential. Also, and this can not be said too many times, it is absolutely vital to have a back up of all files, photos and documents. Regularly take a back up of all your computer data and store it in a safe place.

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McAfee antivirus update hits enterprise customers

DAT 6807 and 6808 updates crippled antivirus programs and left some computers without an Internet connection

A buggy update released last week by security vendor McAfee for its consumer and enterprise antivirus products, left the computers of its customers unprotected and, in some cases, unable to access the internet.

The incident affected both home and business users, some of whom were still trying to sort out the problems caused by the updates on Monday and Tuesday, according to messages posted on McAfee's community forums and Facebook page.

The problems were introduced by McAfee updates DAT 6807, released on 17 August and the subsequent DAT 6808, depending on which product was used.
After installing these updates some home users started encountering errors when accessing the McAfee Security Center console, which prevented them from performing any action inside the program. Other users experienced a loss of internet connection on their computers.

McAfee confirmed these problems on Sunday in a technical document that described two possible solutions, both requiring users to update to a newly released DAT 6809 file.

One workaround, intended for users who lost internet connectivity on their computers, involved uninstalling the product, rebooting the computer, downloading an updated version of the product from McAfee's website and installing it.

The other solution described automatic and manual methods of updating existing installations to DAT 6809. Users who continued to encounter errors after updating to this DAT version were advised to uninstall the product using a specialised tool called McAfee Consumer Product Removal (MCPR) and then install the updated version of the product.

Users of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise (VSE) 8.8.x, the company's flagship enterprise antivirus product, had to wait until Monday for a so-called superDAT hotfix that wouldn't require them to reinstall the product on thousands or hundreds of affected computers.

For VSE, the bad updates caused issues with the on-access scanner (OAS), a critical component that checks all files accessed by the system for signs of malware, the company said in a support document published on August 20.

Some administrators in charge of antivirus deployment in corporate environments expressed concern that while the OAS remains disabled a user could get infected and the malware could spread to other computers on the network.

"I have 46 out of 152 computers, having this issue," said a user on the McAfee community forum for business products. "I currently have over 3000 endpoints with this problem - solution asap please McAfee," another user said.

"The issue is well over 24 hours old now, and it's been 'officially' confirmed for nearly 24. That's a very long time to have AV [antivirus] in a faulty state," one wrote hours before McAfee released VSE 8.8 Hotfix 793640 to remediate the issue. "At least one saving grace is that many customers had their machine switched off over the weekend," he said in a later post.

VSE 8.8 Hotfix 793640 is mandatory and includes the full DAT 6809 package, McAfee said.

Because of this the file is approximately 100MB in size and deploying it to thousands of machines posed a challenge for some administrators.

"McAfee is working on a smaller solution that will remediate the issue without the need to include the full DAT package," the company said. "There is no current ETA for this release."

In the meantime, McAfee recommended that the hotfix be deployed in stages on networks with offsite branches, where it might cause bandwidth issues. "For example, schedule the update task to run for one group at a time," the company said.

Another problem encountered by administrators was determining which of the systems under their care were affected. The ones with the buggy DAT files should report a DAT and antivirus engine version of 0.0000 to the central ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) server.

However, after the hotfix is deployed, some computers can continue to report this bogus information because of caching until they are forced to provide full property data to the ePO server, McAfee said.

Even though the hotfix does not force a reboot, the company recommended that administrators reboot all client systems at their earliest convenience in order to validate that the fix was successfully installed.

Some users whose affected systems include servers were not happy with this. "This has predominantly affected our servers and rebooting them isn't an option," a customer said on the McAfee forum yesterday.

"I work in a very tightly controlled environment and rolling out a 100mb hotfix that MAY require a reboot ASAP is not going to happen," another user said.

This is not the first time that McAfee has issued a bad DAT file. In April, a DAT update for McAfee email gateway security products resulted in system crashes and message scan failures.

However, McAfee is not the only antivirus company that was forced over the years to deal with buggy updates that affected their customers' computers in a serious manner.

"Since these events are becoming a worrying trend, should we implement test procedures inside our organiSations as we do with other updates like the ones deployed by Microsoft with Windows Update?" asked Manuel Humberto Santander Pelaez, a security incident handler at the SANS Internet Storm Center.

Some users who responded to Pelaez believe that testing every antivirus update would cost too much time and resources compared to the possible benefits. Others said that delaying the update deployment by 24 hours or deploying the updates in stages starting with the least critical systems would limit the impact of a bad update.

Delaying antivirus updates increases a computer's window of exposure to the latest threats. However, this is a calculated risk that some administrators are apparently willing to take.

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