A sharp increase in the number of flaws being discovered in Mac OS X suggests that the Apple operating system may soon be every bit as prone to malicious attacks as Windows systems, according to a report from the SANS Institute, a Bethesda, Md.-based security training and research firm.

Mac OS X still remains safer than Windows because its relatively small installed base is a less attractive target for malicious hackers than Windows systems. But the number of flaws being discovered in the operating system is leaving its reputation as a secure alternative to Windows “in tatters,” according to the semiannual update to the SANS Top 20 list of Internet vulnerabilities.

“Users often feel invincible when they have their shiny silver-colored Apple and they are surfing the Web with it,” said Ed Skodis, a director at SANS. That may be a mistake, he said, because “there’s a significant amount of research going on for security vulnerabilities in the Mac OS.”

About 52 vulnerabilities were discovered in Mac OS X in 2005; 17 have been uncovered so far this year, said Amol Sarwate, manager of the vulnerability management lab at Qualys Inc., a Redwood Shores, Calif.-based security service provider.

The number of vulnerabilities reported last year was more than twice the number from 2004, when 24 flaws were discovered, Sarwate said. Out the flaws uncovered last year and so far in 2006, at least a third were considered critical, Sarwate said. During the past few months, users of Apple’s Safari Web browser also faced their first zero-day attack, which is an attack targeted at unpatched vulnerabilities.

Apple’s increasing market share and the company’s recent decision to build its systems around Intel Corp. chips have drawn increased hacker attention to its system, Skodis said. Similarly, Apple’s recent introduction of Boot Camp, which allows Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP, has also raised its risk profile, Skodis said. Though Windows XP runs in a separate partition on the Mac hard drive, it’s only a matter of time before malicious code becomes available that is capable of jumping over the two partitions on the hard drive, Skodis said. “It wouldn’t be hard to do,” he said.

At the same time, there appears to be a significant decline in vulnerabilities being reported in Windows services such as Internet Information Server, mail services and NetBIOS, Sarwate said. But that decline has been offset by a sharp increase in client-side flaws, including the Windows Metafile flaw (WMF) and Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerabilities, Sarwate said.

In fact, the emergence of several zero-days flaws in IE — including one that is currently unpatched — poses a major security risk for Windows users, said Rohit Dhamankar, manager of security research at the TippingPoint division of 3Com Corp.

Increasingly, zero-day flaws on Microsoft Corp. client systems are being used to install adware, spyware and other kinds of malicious code on end-user systems, he said. As a result, he said it may be time to rename IE “to ‘Internet Exploiter,’ because the chances of you being exploited using IE are much higher” these days, said Dhamanker, who is also the editor of the SANS Top 20 report.

The SANS study also showed that while Firefox continues to be a somewhat safer Web browser than IE, it is no panacea. According to SANS, users of Firefox and Mozilla have had to patch 11 vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a malicious Web page to run code over the past six months, in addition to several other critical vulnerabilities.

The SANS report also found an increase in vulnerabilities allowing direct access to databases, data warehouses and backup data, especially software from Oracle Corp. And SANS found a continuing increase in file-based attacks, particularly those using media and image files, such as the WMF. “In addition, we have seen a major upsurge in attacks using flaws in programs that process media files, such as Apple QuickTime/iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealNetworks RealPlayer, Macromedia Flash Player and Nullsoft Winamp,” the report said.

By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld

#1: The Ribbon
If you have used other Office 2007 applications, you are no doubt familiar with the Ribbon — and you either love it or hate it. Outlook 2007 uses the Ribbon, too, but not to the extent of other Office applications.

The main Outlook window doesn’t use the Ribbon, but most of the forms do. For example, start a new e-mail message or appointment, and the resulting Outlook item form includes the Ribbon. As in other Office 2007 applications, the main appeal of the Ribbon is that it exposes commonly used features. What’s more, the Ribbon exposes useful features that many users don’t know about or don’t bother with because they don’t want to spend the time hunting for the feature.

I’ve been using Office 2007 since the earliest beta and didn’t discover until this week that you can minimize the Ribbon. Right-click on any group on the ribbon and choose Minimize The Ribbon. Take the same action to restore it.

#2: Navigation Pane and To-Do Bar
Outlook’s Navigation Pane provides a quick and easy way to navigate Outlook’s folders, views, calendars, date navigator, and other items. When Microsoft introduced the Navigation Pane in Outlook 2002, it was a big improvement over the Outlook Bar. There are a couple of nice additions to the Navigation Pane in 2007.

You can now minimize the Navigation Pane to gain more screen real estate for messages, the calendar, and other views. To minimize the Navigation Pane, click the double left chevron in the upper-right corner of the Navigation Pane. This control changes to a double right chevron. Click that to restore the Navigation Pane.

When the Navigation Pane is minimized, it acts like the Windows task bar in auto-hide mode. Just click on the Navigation Pane to open it. After you select an item from the Navigation Pane, it minimizes itself again. If you don’t want to use the Navigation Pane at all, choose View | Navigation Pane | Off to turn it off. Choose View | Navigation Pane | On to turn it back on.

The To-Do Bar works much the same way as the Navigation Pane. You can configure the To-Do Bar to be minimized from the View menu. Then, when you need to use it, click on the double chevrons to expand or collapse it. You can also click on an area of the minimized To-Do Bar to temporarily expand it.

#3: RSS feeds
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is essentially an XML-based means to format news stories and other dynamically changing Web content so that RSS-aware software applications can access and retrieve this content automatically. Outlook 2007 supports RSS feeds, enabling you to receive information automatically from news and other Web sites that offer RSS content. RSS content arrives in Outlook much like e-mail messages and is stored in the RSS Feeds folder by default.

The easiest way to add a feed is to click on the RSS Feeds folder and then click on one of the featured feeds in the resulting RSS directory. You can also right-click on the RSS Feeds folder and choose Add A New RSS Feed to open the New RSS Feed dialog box, in which you enter the URL for the feed. To modify an existing RSS feed, choose Tools | Account Settings and then click the RSS Feeds tab. Here, you can set the synchronization schedule, change the folder to which new items are delivered, remove a feed, and make other configuration changes for the feed.

#4: Instant Search
Instant Search is one of those features you’ll come to love in a hurry. Instant Search in Outlook 2007 integrates Outlook with Windows Desktop Search to enable you to almost instantly locate items in Outlook. For example, you can type in a word or phrase and find every e-mail in the current folder that contains that word or phrase. You can also expand the search to incorporate all mail folders, including those stored in your archive folders.

Windows Desktop Search is included with Windows Vista. To use Windows Desktop Search on a Windows XP computer, you must download it from Microsoft. (For a look at how to use Desktop Search in Windows XP, see “Add Vista-like search capabilities to Windows XP.”)

Searching in Outlook 2007 is easy. Just click in the Search Inbox field located at the top of the current message window, type a word or phrase, and press ENTER. Outlook performs a search and displays a list of matching items in the window. Click Try Searching Again In All Mail Items to expand the search to all message folders. Click the X beside the search box to clear the search.

#5: Color categories
Categories in Outlook help you organize and locate information. They’ve been improved in Outlook 2007 with the introduction of color. Previous versions of Outlook offered colored flags you could use to identify items, but they were text-based categories. Now they’ve been replaced by color categories in Outlook 2007. The category color appears in the message header and in the Categories field in the header list. The main advantage of using color categories is that they make it possible to quickly identify items based on their category.

To assign a category, click the item and then click the Categorize button in the toolbar. You can select an existing color category from the resulting drop-down list, or click All Categories to create and assign a new category. The first time you use a color category, Outlook gives you the opportunity to rename it. Just type a new name in the resulting Rename Category dialog box and click Yes. If you don’t want to rename the category, click No.

You can easily organize a view by category. Simply click the Categories header to group by color category. You can also use a predefined Categorized Mail search folder to locate all message that have category assignments.

#6: Quick click category
Another handy color category feature in Outlook 2007 is the quick click category. This feature lets you assign a color category to a message with a single click.

To set the quick click category, click Categorize in the toolbar and then click Set Quick Click to open the Set Quick Click dialog box. Select the desired category and click OK. To apply the Quick Click Category to an item, just click in the Categories field for the item.

#7: Flag recipient for follow-up
You’re probably familiar with Outlook’s follow-up feature that lets you set a follow-up flag for items. For example, you might want to flag a message to follow up the next day with a phone call. A handy feature in Outlook 2007 is the capability to flag a message for a recipient to follow up.

For example, assume you want the recipient to take action by the end of the week on a message you send. When you are ready to send the message, click the Follow Up button in the Options group on the Ribbon, then choose Flag For Recipients. In the resulting Custom dialog box, choose the desired follow-up action from the Flag To drop-down list. Specify a reminder day and time and click OK. Then, send the message. When the reminder time arrives, the recipient will receive an Outlook reminder regarding the item.

#8: Calendar overlay
If you manage multiple calendars, you’ll really appreciate Outlook 2007’s new calendar overlay feature, which lets you combine multiple calendars into a single view. For example, you might track your personal appointments on a separate calendar from your business appointments. Or maybe you want to merge a sports calendar with your work or personal calendar, or look at two or three staff members’ calendars in one view. Calendar overlay provides a great means for identifying conflicts or getting a complete picture of your schedule.

Merging calendars is easy. Open the Calendar folder. Then, in the Navigation Pane, place a check beside the calendars you want to view. Outlook displays the calendars side by side. In the name tab at the top of one of the secondary calendars, click the View In Overlay Mode button to overlay the calendar with the primary one. Repeat for any additional calendars you want to overlay. To view the calendars separately, click the View In Side-by-Side Mode button in the calendar’s name tab.

#9: Scheduling Assistant
If you’re using Outlook 2007 with Exchange Server 2007, the Scheduling Assistant can help you choose a meeting time that works best for all of the specified participants. Unlike the AutoPick Next feature, which just automatically selects the next time slot that fits everyone’s schedules, the Scheduling Assistant analyses attendees’ schedules and suggests several times for the meeting. The Scheduling Assistant identifies for each suggested time how many of the attendees and resources (such as meeting rooms) are free. You can click on a suggested time slot and then choose a meeting room from the drop-down list of available rooms Outlook offers.

#10: Out-of-office scheduling
The Out Of Office Assistant, which enables you to generate out-of-office messages when using Outlook with Exchange Server, has also been improved in Outlook 2007. When used with Exchange Server 2003 or earlier, the out-of-office features are essentially the same in Outlook 2007 as in Outlook 2003. The only difference is the dialog box you use to specify the out-of-office message and rules. To set out-of-office options, regardless of which version of Exchange Server you are using, choose Tools | Out Of Office Assistant.

When used with Exchange Server 2007, you have additional out-of-office features. First, you can schedule your out-of-office period ahead of time. To do so, open the Out Of Office Assistant, choose Send Out Of Office Auto-Replies, select Only Send During This Time Range, and enter the beginning and end dates and times for the out-of-office period. When the start date and time arrives, Exchange begins sending out-of-office replies.

The other Exchange Server 2007-specific out-of-office feature is the capability to send out-of-office replies to people inside your organization that are different from the replies that go to people outside your organization. The Out Of Office Assistant dialog box offers two tabs, one for internal replies and one for external replies. Just click the appropriate tab and enter the out-of-office reply you want to use for that group.

All in all this forceful application has so much in it than 2003 or the Apple 2004 versions it is easy to choose this as a jump to version. Buy it and enjoy it.

Introduction

Every machine on the the Internet has a unique number assigned to it, called an IP address. Without a unique IP address on your machine, you will not be able to communicate with other devices, users, and computers on the Internet. You can look at your IP address as if it were a telephone number, each one being unique and used to identify a way to reach you and only you.

The Address Itself

An IP address always consists of 4 numbers seperated by periods, with the numbers having a possible range of 0 through 255. An example of how an ip address appears is: 192.168.1.10

This representation of an IP address is called decimal notation and is what is generally used by humans to refer to an IP address for readability purposes. With the ranges for each number being between 0 and 255 there are a total 4,294,967,296 possible IP addreses.

Out of these addresses there are 3 special ranged that are reserved for special purposes. The first is the 0.0.0.0 address and refers to the default network and the 255.255.255.255 address which is called the broadcast address. These addresses are used for routing, which will not be covered in this tutorial. The third address, 127.0.0.1, is the loopback address, and refers to your machine. Whenever you see, 127.0.0.1, you are actually referring to your own machine. That means if you clicked on this link, http://127.0.0.1, you are actually trying to connect to your own computer, and unless you have a webserver running, you will get a connection error.

There are some guidelines to to how IP address can appear, though. The four numbers must be between 0 and 255, and the IP address of 0.0.0.0 and 255.255.255.255 are reserved, and are not considered usable IP addresses. IP addresses must be unique for each computer connected to a network. That means that if you have two computers on your network, each must have a different IP address to be able to communicate with each other. If by accident the same IP address is assigned to two computers, then those computers would have what is called an “IP Conflict” and not be able to communicate with each other.

IP address classes

These IP addresses can further be broken down into classes. These classes are A, B, C, D, E and their possible ranges can be seen in Figure 2 below.

Class Start address Finish address
A 0.0.0.0 126.255.255.255
B 128.0.0.0 191.255.255.255
C 192.0.0.0 223.255.255.255
D 224.0.0.0 239.255.255.255
E 240.0.0.0 255.255.255.255

If you look at the table you may notice something strange. The range of IP address from Class A to Class B skips the 127.0.0.0-127.255.255.255 range. That is because this range is reserved for the special addresses called Loopback addresses that have already been discussed above.

The rest of classes are allocated to companies and organizations based upon the amount of IP addresses that they may need. Listed below are descriptions of the IP classes and the organizations that will typically receive that type of allocation.

Default Network: The special network 0.0.0.0 is generally used for routing.

Class A: From the table above you see that there are 126 class A networks. These networks consist of 16,777,214 possible IP addresses that can be assigned to devices and computers. This type of allocation is generally given to very large networks such as multi-national companies.

Loopback: This is the special 127.0.0.0 network that is reserved as a loopback to your own computer. These addresses are used for testing and debugging of your programs or hardware.

Class B: This class consists of 16,384 individual networks, each allocation consisting of 65,534 possible IP addresses. These blocks are generally allocated to Internet Service Providers and large networks, like a college or major hospital.

Class C: There is a total of 2,097,152 Class C networks available, with each network consisting of 255 individual IP addresses. This type of class is generally given to small to mid-sized companies.

Class D: The IP addresses in this class are reserved for a service called Multicast.

Class E: The IP addresses in this class are reserved for experimental use.

Broadcast: This is the special network of 255.255.255.255, and is used for broadcasting messages to the entire network that your computer resides on.

Private Addresses

There are also blocks of IP addresses that are set aside for internal private use for computers not directly connected to the Internet. These IP addresses are not supposed to be routed through the Internet, and most service providers will block the attempt to do so. These IP addresses are used for internal use by company or home networks that need to use TCP/IP but do not want to be directly visible on the Internet.

If you are on a home/office private network and want to use TCP/IP, you should assign your computers/devices IP addresses from one of these three ranges. That way your router/firewall would be the only device with a true IP address which makes your network more secure.

Common Problems and Resolutions

The most common problem people have is by accident assigning an IP address to a device on your network that is already assigned to another device. When this happens, the other computers will not know which device should get the information, and you can experience erratic behavior. On most operating systems and devices, if there are two devices on the local network that have the same IP address, it will generally give you a “IP Conflict” warning. If you see this warning, that means that the device giving the warning, detected another device on the network using the same address.

The best solution to avoid a problem like this is to use a service called DHCP that almost all home routers provide. DHCP, or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, is a service that assigns addresses to devices and computers. You tell the DHCP server what range of IP addresses you would like it to assign, and then the DHCP server takes the responsibility of assigning those IP addresses to the various devices and keeping track so those IP addresses are assigned only once.

Conclusion

IP addresses and their function on the Internet is an important concept to understand. Hopefully with this tutorial you will have a firmer grasp on this concept, which should help you troubleshoot problems and bring a better understanding of how the Internet works.

What’s the right size for an internal IT staff? When does it make sense to build a relationship with an outside contractor to supplement your internal staff? I frequently hear from small- and medium-size business customers about the challenge of finding this balance.
Ask yourself some questions:How important is technology in running my business? The more fundamental IT is to running your day-to-day operations, the more likely it is that you will need strong internal IT skills to manage it, or will at least need to take a strong, hands-on role in managing your external staff.

What technology skill sets are critical to my business? Small and medium-size businesses often need many of the same technology skill sets that larger ones do, but they don’t have either the luxury of or the need for a full-time expert in each tech discipline. As a result, SMBs may either depend on generalists to handle tasks they’re not qualified for, or they simply don’t deal with a particular tech challenge. If the task requires 8 hours or less per week, you should consider outsourcing it to American Tech Support.
What are the skill sets of my IT staff? I find that the smaller the firm, the more likely it is to have a IT staff of generalists with fairly interchangeable skills. Either create some differentiation within the team based on the skills you require (don’t forget that each area needs primary and backup coverage) or consider an arrangement with an external firm to provide specific expertise when the need arises.

Do I have a road map for major technology infrastructure upgrades over the next 12 to 24 months? In most cases, a small business won’t. The most common split between the use of internal and external IT resources is to have internal resources manage day-to-day production and to use external IT resources for project-specific work. If you do have a technology road map for the next 12 to 24 months, it’s likely that you can afford to have your own development staff. Either way, makes sure that you involve your production staff in development projects so that the functionality you are creating can be properly managed after the handoff.

What are the growth plans for my business over the next 6 to 18 months? The two elements that most frequently affect its size are technological advancements and user growth. You can learn about the first by keeping up with industry literature; the second requires that you keep your IT staff size in harmony with any growth in your user community.

Finally, remember that using external IT resources isn’t about outsourcing to some big, faceless organization overseas. There are lots of small and medium-size businesses in your community that specialize in technology support like American Tech Support. Look to them to help with any of your external IT needs, based on the criteria above.

Your home computer may be committing a crime at this very moment. It might be sending out spam. It might be buying stock as part of a pump-and-dump scheme. Or it might be helping attack the Internet itself, silently and invisibly, as you read this story. And the odds your computer is a criminal are quickly rising.

The Web, some say, has been turned into an operating system for criminals. Computer viruses that hijack PCs and turn them into electronic robots, or “bots,” have become the killer app. The operation of networks of hijacked computers is so lucrative that hackers are actually fighting electronic wars over them, a story we will explore next week in part two of this series.

New hacker techniques make these virus attacks so subtle that there is no way you would know your computer is a criminal. And there is a growing sense among security experts that hackers have gained the upper hand in what was once a neck-and-neck arms race.

Bots can squirm their way onto home computers in myriad ways: a virus-laden e-mail or a booby-trapped Web site are the most common. But some viruses can attack your computer in the background, silently worming their way through networks via unprotected ports and porous firewalls, using vulnerabilities that software companies don’t know about.

Earlier this year, Internet founding father Vint Cerf dramatically suggested that 150 million computers worldwide may have been hijacked by criminals. Most experts think that his estimate is high, but they still count infected computers in the millions, or tens of millions. And there is general consensus that the Internet is under assault from virus writers like never before.

Listen carefully to the words of those who are trying to help us keep our computers safe from Net criminals and you’ll get a creeping sense that the boat is leaking faster than they can bail out the water. There were two-and-a-half times as many viruses released in 2006 as in 2005, and the growth rate has continued through the first quarter of 2007, said Eugene Kaspersky, chief researcher for Kaspersky Labs.

Antivirus firms “may not be able to withstand the onslaught,” he said at a recent computer security conference. “This is a competition where the antivirus companies, I fear, are not in a good position.”

Another antivirus executive put it more bluntly in a private conversation. “I think we’ve failed,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Computer security firms often use hyperbole to help get attention for their products, but expressing helplessness is something new.

Serious crimes for serious money

The security firms’ helplessness means more home computers than ever are being hijacked by organized criminals. Those who control the computers, known as “bot herders,” have little interest in the kinds of pranks that hackers typically played with their viruses five or 10 years ago. They commit serious crimes for serious money.

How serious? Earlier this year, a bot army sent a torrent of Internet traffic at two of the Web’s 13 critical domain name servers, directing the equivalent of millions of e-mails at them within a few minutes. The mysterious onslaught would have rendered the Web useless if it had succeeded in taking the domain name servers down, but after a few hours it stopped as quickly as it started.

Why would an attacker perform such a show of strength? It might have been a marketing ploy.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, which helps run the domain name servers, speculated in a recent report that the attack was the work of a bot herder trying to close a sale by demonstrating the size and power of his army of hijacked computers.

These bot armies – often between 50,000 and 70,000 PCs strong — are leased out for around $5,000 a day to spammers, said Howard Schmidt, former White House cyberczar. An attacker who might want to threaten a bank with denial of service and demand an extortion payment would probably have to pay more.

“These things are insidious,” he said.

And sometimes they are overwhelming. Ben Mayrides, a security guru for America Online, says the firm regularly sees bot armies – or “botnets” — of 200,000 infected computers. In 2005, Dutch authorities announced they had arrested three youths who controlled a botnet of 1.5 million computers that they assembled using a single Trojan horse program.

Big money is stock scams

Individual bots operate in complete silence, but we all see their handiwork. At this point, almost every spam e-mail is sent from a hijacked computer, according to Uriel Maimon, a researcher at security firm RSA. That means every time you receive a spam, a hijacked computer is at the other end. For evidence of a bot epidemic, researchers point to the recent resurgence of spam, which has doubled in the past 12 months.

Forget Viagra sales: Spammers have largely graduated to manipulating stock markets. Most spam is image spam now, designed to pump up stock prices in thinly traded companies so someone can make a quick profit. In a recent e-mail apparently written by a stock spammer and examined by MSNBC.com, the author brags he can more than double a stock price within two to three weeks.

“We can increase the cost of your share and we can increase average day trading,” the e-mail says. “We can increase price up to 200-260 percent in 2-3 weeks and also increase range by 10 times each trading day. … Our payment for that is 10 percent.”

With increasing sophistication and deliberation, computer hackers are getting the most out of hacked computers, too. The computer crime du jour is a simple but effective stock pump-and-dump scheme that goes like this: Hackers buy a stock, then use hijacked computers and stolen brokerage accounts to buy the stock at inflated prices using other people’s money. When the hackers sell their original shares, they make a killing.

In March, three Indian nationals were sued by the SEC for allegedly pocketing $121,000 after manipulating stocks and options on 14 firms, including Google and Sun Microsystems. They group managed to spend nearly $2 million in other people’s money, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said. One victim had $180,000 in his brokerage account, left for a vacation, and returned to find his account had a negative $200,000 balance.

The SEC is aggressively pursuing stock spam criminals, said John Reed Stark, head of Internet enforcement for the agency. But, the dangerous combination of hijacked computers and global securities trading offers riches far beyond the legitimate dreams of computer experts in developing economies. As a result, cybercrime has become wonderfully profitable, and fantastically popular.

How do you count the bots?

No one knows how many infected bots there are, but there is little argument that millions of computers have been herded. If your computer isn’t infected, security experts say, certainly someone on your block is part of a bot army.

No government agency counts bots; even law enforcement officials rely on private industry for estimates. Here’s a few:

MessageLabs, a company that counts spam, recently stopped counting bot-infected computers because it literally could not keep up. It says it quit when the figure passed about 10 million a year ago. Symantec Corp. recently said it counted 6.7 million active bots during an Internet scan. Since all bots are not active at any given time, the number of infected computers is likely much higher. And Dave Dagon, who recently left Georgia Tech University to start a bot-fighting company named Damballa, pegs the number at closer to 30 million. The firm uses a “capture, mark, and release,” strategy borrowed from environmental science to study the movement of bot armies and estimate their size.

“It’s like asking how many people are on the planet, you are wrong the second you give the answer. … But the number is in the tens of millions,” Dagon said. “Had you told me five years ago that organized crime would control 1 out of every 10 home machines on the Internet, I would have not have believed that. And yet we are in an era where this is something that is happening.”

That means the Internet is becoming a very rough neighborhood. So rough that many of those who fight computer crime think, in some ways, they are fighting to save cyberspace.

“This is not just a battle between manufacturers of security software and some Internet criminals. It is a war between good and evil,” F-Secure researcher Mikko Hypponen said at a recent European security conference:

Why now? 1. More sophisticated viruses

It used to be that infected computers would eventually stall from the hard work of crime, stumbling over an e-mail blast involving thousands of messages and tipping off the rightful owners. Now, the organized criminals who do this work have remote-control crime down to a science. Instead of using your computer to send 5,000 spam messages in an evening, it might only be instructed to send out five. The bot herders reach the volume they need by repeating that technique with the tens of thousands of computers at their disposal.

AOL’s Mayrides says he’s seen bots instructed to send out only one e-mail per day.

This puts security firms at a distinct disadvantage. A few years ago, Internet service providers would notice tens of thousands of e-mails being sent from a home computer, and could easily remove it from their network. But how can an Internet provider spot five rogue e-mails sent from your machine while you sleep?

“We have a very difficult needle-haystack problem here,” Dagon said.

The Storm worm, which infected more than 1 million computers in January by promising information about the deadly winter weather hitting Europe, used a variation of this tactic. A Storm-infected PC observed by Symantec researchers sent out 1,800 e-mails in a five minute span, then simply went to sleep.

Consumers are unlikely to know their computer has been hijacked because there usually are no symptoms.

“People are not going to find out about the bot because it slows down their systems,” said Hypponen. “(Hackers) take great care in making sure it doesn’t do anything that the users might notice. Especially with new machines with 2 gigs of RAM, people will not notice they are sending out spam while playing World of Warcraft. The computers are just powerful enough to handle that.”

Why now? 2. China

But improved software is only one reason criminals appear to have gained the upper hand. Another is the sheer the size of their armies. Part of the deluge of new viruses can be attributed to a new generation of hackers from Asia, where broadband has proliferated, and particularly China, where hackers are learning fast, Hypponen said.

Asia is also a grand playground for hackers worldwide, because many home users run pirated copies of Windows and can’t load security patches, according to a January report by Florida-based security firm Prolexic. Since China now boasts more Internet users than any other country, it also has more infected computers.
Why now? 3. Volume

The sheer volume of new viruses has become overwhelming. Hypponen says there is so much new malware — malicious software – submitted every day to his firm that it has abandoned its long-standing practice of having each one analyzed by its researchers. The viruses are processed by computers now and ranked by severity.

“It’s getting harder and harder for us just to keep up with the amount of new malware coming in,” he said. “Right now on a typical day we receive more than two (possible new viruses) a minute. There are thousands every day. The increase in three years has been tenfold. So our lab all the other labs are rebuilding the way we handle them. You can’t do it with human power.”

Why now? 4. Perpetual ‘zero day’

The onslaught isn’t just about volume, however. Hacker techniques have improved markedly, says Dagon. It used to be that exploiting vulnerable software usually took weeks, as hackers probed software for security flaws. When they published their results, software makers would race to fix the flaws. Simultaneously, criminals would take those flaws and turn them into attacks, often by attaching them to specially crafted e-mails.

On rare occasions, criminals had both the security hole, or exploit, and the delivery tool before the software maker had any notion a flaw existed. Called a “zero-day” attack, these circumstances gave criminals a small window to mercilessly hack defenseless computers.

But this entire cycle of finding and exploiting flaws has been reduced to a few hours, Dagon said. Hackers find flaws, use them to attack, and erase all evidence so fast that software firms never even know there’s a flaw. Dagon has a chilling name for this: “A perpetual zero day window.”

Hackers also have learned to write viruses that mutate on their own. Because antivirus software usually catches only known viruses, mutating versions pose a major challenge for security firms. The Storm worm, for example, had 5,000 different variants within a few days of being launched.

Why now? 5. Better command and control

Hackers have more sophisticated tactics to command and control their massive bot armies – another sign that true professionals are in charge. Not long ago, remote-controlled bots used the old-fashioned Internet Relay Channel to communicate. Internet filters could pick out that traffic and disrupt their networks, at times even identifying the controlling computer and cutting off the “head” bot by removing it from the network.

Now, bot networks are increasingly peer-to-peer systems, designed to look like file and music swapping systems like eDonkey. This prevents Internet service providers from picking out bot communications from regular Web traffic. And it also means there is no head bot to cut off, so networks can only be dismantled one infected computer at a time.

Why now? 6. Competition for labor with crime rings

Adding to the challenge antivirus companies face in trying to keep up with cybercriminals is the intense competition for skilled labor. There is so much money being made in the underworld that legitimate firms have trouble recruiting.

“We are dealing more and more with a worldwide industry that employs thousands of people,” Kaspersky, the researcher, told the Bangkok Post earlier this month. Said another executive with the firm, “These people are paying programmers the kind of salary that I could never afford.”

What now?

For years, security experts have been repeating the same formula to consumers – update antivirus software frequently and use a firewall. But experts say that consumers can no longer trust a single antivirus product to protect them. Dagon points to a Web site named VirusTotal.com that scans potential viruses using 30 top antivirus products. The results are sobering.

On March 22, 9,408 virus-laden files were submitted. Only 28 were detected by all 30 antivirus products. Every other virus was capable of slipping past at least one of the antivirus products undetected, which means that even consumers who keep their security software up to date are at risk.

America Online deals with the problem by swarming its files and e-mail with antivirus products. Everything that’s sent through AOL is scanned by 13 or 14 different products, said Mayrides, the AOL security expert.

And still, viruses get through.

“It’s rough out there,” he said. “One (antivirus product) is not good enough. … There are too many attack vectors these days.”

So should consumers stop trusting the Internet? Yes, to a point, said F-Secure’s Hypponen.

“I don’t think end users should lose their trust, but they are trusting too much,” he said. For example, consumers still fall for phishing e-mails and hand over passwords to brokerage accounts despite years of warning. “We should make people lose their trust, break that trust.”

Experts advise computer users to scan their system with multiple antivirus products. It’s not necessary to pay for all the products. A number of online services are available to consumers. No single scan is perfect, but doing one is a worthwhile check-up.

Users also can take the energy-saving step of shutting down their computers when they aren’t in use. That way, even if your machine is infected, the computer’s resources won’t be available to criminals all night and all day while you’re at work.

Finding and recruiting top tech talent is a top priority for all companies and organizations from Fortune 100 to the smallest start-ups. We are all aware of the shift to outsourcing overseas, but many companies can’t afford to do so or they need their talent here in an corporate office to add to strategy and implement tactics. With the development of the Internet, newspapers are now basically an obsolete form of advertising quality job positions. However, even the great online behemoths like Monster and Careerbuilder have quickly become rather ineffective and very expensive. The normal online job boards are not targeted or proactively helping organizations find the much needed talent to take their business to next level.

This trend can actually be a good trend, especially for small and mid-size enterprises. The playing field is becoming even in finding talent. Today Fortune 1000 companies as well as small businesses have the ability to recruit talent with equal ease because of the second generation of web applications, known as Web 2.0. According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004 refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. The Web 2.0 world allows businesses to share information and communicate directly to potential employees.

Web 2.0 allows much easier communications. The real exchange of information allows talent to learn and establish expertise as well as gain creditability publicly…. Everyone also loves to talk about their favorite subject: themselves…. Tech experts visit tech blogs to keep up with their field and interact with other experts in blogs. Eventually, many of these experts may set up their very own blog.

Unlike job boards, Web 2.0 is fun! The best talents already have a job so they are not actively looking for a job. But most know that job security is rare and they may be downsized without much notice. They need to be aware of the job market and they may not be working in their ideal job or for the ideal company. They enjoy participating in the web 2.0 world. Blogs, forums, newsgroups, RSS feeds, and other new methods communications give professionals something to look forward to when they come online.

Finally, there are key methods to leverage recruiting efforts and web 2.0 applications. One company specializing in helping hiring managers and recruiters find top talent in technology is Staff It Now. Staff It Now gathers resumes and job descriptions from around the net and active markets job opportunities to specific targeted groups. For example, if you need to hire someone that knows Oracle like the back of their hand, Staff It Now will market and advertise the job opportunity in several blogs dealing with Oracle programming. The site also give you a unique technology service to accurately match and prioritize resumes to job descriptions. Staff It Now brings together everything you need to find great tech professionals.

In conclusion, the static job boards and job posting sites are not getting the quantity nor the quality they use to just five or six years ago. The rapid growth of Web 2.0 and the changing global economy will force HR recruiters, headhunters, hiring managers, and small business owners to change the way they recruit talented employees. In fact, it may force them to recruit faster, more effective, and more efficiently. At American Tech Support, we strive to hire experienced tech with excellent customer skills.

Here are a couple of tips to speed up your Windows XP computer and help keep you protected and secure online. First you need to control which programs load on startup: Many of the programs you install on your computer automatically configure themselves to launch at startup, usually invisibly. The truly essential ones, such as anti-virus and firewall products, generally run as services and run fine in the background. Other less important software like media players don’t need to be running continually.

These extra programs slow the boot process and then severely suck up resources like memory and CPU cycles. It is pretty easy to control which applications launch on startup.

1) To get there: Click the ‘Start’ button then choose the ‘Run’ command.

…- Across the top of the dialog box select the ‘Startup’ tab.

3) The Startup Tab lists all the programs that launch at start-up…. Only non-essential programs are listed here it should be safe to un-check pretty much anything. If it turns out you needed it just go back and re-check it.

…5) When the Desktop returns you will be presented with a window that says you have chosen Selective Startup. Just Check “Do not show this window again” and click OK.

To keep your computer secure, turn on automatic updates. Seems like every virus writer has nothing better to do then attack Windows operating systems. Keeping the system patches and security fixes is critical. During the setup of XP Service Pack 2 with a new computer or an up-grade you are asked whether or not to turn on automatic updates, if you made the mistake of checking no you can find this option in the Windows Security Center (Start / Control Panel) and change it back. Even with all its faults, XP is a powerful operating system that has many good security features.

Here are some more tips to help you get the most out of your operating system. Remove Windows components not found in ADD / REMOVE. Many Windows components, things like Network Services or Solitaire are easy to remove through the Add or Remove programs configuration window (Start / ControlPanel / Add and Remove Programs / Windows Components). Simply un-check them, but … some things are deliberately hidden.

…1) In Windows Explorer (right click Start / Explore), navigate to C:WindowsInf and make a copy of Sysoc.inf.

2) Double click on Sysoc.inf and it will open in Notepad.

3) Press Ctrl H (opens Find and Replace) and replace the string ,hide, with ,, then save and replace the file. Now all the hidden components will appear.

4) Then follow the steps above for removing programs from the startup menu.

To restore a corrupted system file: If a necessary system file should become missing or corrupted by a virus you can replace it from your Windows CD.

1) Go to Start / Search and type in the file name replacing the last letter with an underscore (ex. Filename.ex_).

2) If the file is found, open a command prompt (Start / Run, type CMD in the textbox).

3) At the prompt type expand followed by the full pathname of the file and destination (expand D:Windowsfilename.ex_ C:Windowsfilename.exe) where D: is the letter of your disc drive. If either pathname contains spaces surround the entire pathname with double quotes. If the file isn’t found search again using the un-modified file name, it is probably in a CAB file, Windows treats these as folders, simply drag the new folder to the destination while holding down the right mouse button then select Copy Here.

Windows XP has lost of colors, themes and similar special effects to make your PC look great. These effects slow down your PC and that is the main problem.

If your computer is running slow, and you are sure you do not have a virus, spyware or adware you may try using some of these Win XP tweaks. The more special effects you remove the better.

1. Pictures on the desktop background. Blank wallpaper is the best. Animations or even sounds in the background slow PC even more. Remove Shortcuts on the Desktop. This will be described further below as well.

Right click on My Computer icon and select properties. Go to Advanced Tab, and select Settings next to Performance. Finally select Adjust for best performance. Click OK twice. That is one of the best Win XP tweaks.

…Is your browser by default plain, or did you install many extensions, themes and cursor symbols? Those slow down speed, so removing them is the best solution if you have a slow PC.

Switch to Windows Classic Theme by right clicking on Desktop and go to Properties.

…Sounds also cause speed problems, so removing them is another good tweak. These include also startup and shutdown sounds. Remove sounds from your control panel. Double click on the Sounds icon.

…A lot of MsWord, Notepad, Image and similar files scattered around on your desktop or located in shortcuts can be removed or arranged.

Create new folders, and organise your files. A folder for MsWord documents, images, sounds and Notepad files so you do not waste space.

Shortcuts on your desktop, in start menu and anywhere else can be removed to tweak XP. These are unwanted and are safe to be removed.

“Are you sure you want to delete this shortcut?”

…Use the search tool to find unwanted files. Win XP search tool allows you to search for certain file types. For example you can search for only images .gif or .jpg. You can find all the images on your PC, and remove all the unwanted image files.

Same with sound files, documents and you will be amazed about this stuff that has piled up during the years. A brand new computer does not need to search for these files.

Be careful though when using this tweak. Do not remove files you are not sure what their use is. Some files may be system files useful for your PC to work well.

Doing so can damage your PC.

…Bookmarks or favorites inside your web browser have their negative side too. Same with cookies, cache and browser history.

Remove unwanted sites from your favorites. In Internet Explorer remove cache, cookies and history by selecting Tools, Internet Options and clicking the desired action.

In other browsers these options can also be tweaked from the menu which is usually under Tools. Remove these unwanted files often, or weekly. A weekly or more often job is clearing your recycle bin, which helps cleaning wasted space.

Those 6 tweaks will organize your PC for a faster performance. It is the basic for XP users who suffer from slow speed.

Refurbished network hardware is the latest thing for hip IT managers who consider themselves “in the know”. Various resellers and integrators, reset and error free often renovate the used equipment. They are then sold in the secondary market at up to 90% off of list price. Products are available even in the most sophisticated and obscure models, and often come with a warranty that supersedes even that of the original manufacturer.

How is the hardware refurbished?

Networking products usually pass a grueling inspection, upgrade and update checklist. This includes testing under a variety of conditions to ensure that electronics, connectivity ports, memory configuration, firmware/software and electrical components perform to standards.

What about the warranty of a refurbished hardware appliance?

Most resellers offer a minimum warranty of three months…. Extended warranty up to two years can be availed from some retailers.

What to look out for when buying refurbished?

There is a growing concern in the industry surrounding fake equipment. Anyone who has taken a stroll down Manhattan’s Canal Street lately has no doubt become aware of the thriving market for fake Rolexes, Luis Vuitton hand bags and the like. This phenomenon has recently infiltrated the network hardware market. These fakes, often referred to in the industry as, “Chisco” (fake Cisco products originating in China), are popping up more and more. Cisco Systems is the largest provider of Internet telephony equipment in the world, and account for some 80% of all used equipment sales worldwide. This enormous popularity has made them the obvious target for such fake product reproduction.

It helps to have a few tools to protect yourself from fraud. Rule 1 when shopping for used equipment is to be wary of suppliers from China. Historically, most of these fakes have originated somewhere in China…. Try to deal with a reputable supplier and develop a relationship. It helps to look for quality business certifications such as “ISO 9001″ and others when choosing a reseller.

When using online auctions, feedback is king! Make sure you deal exclusively with resellers who have significant positive feedback from multiple people. Take a quick peek at the actual responses and confirm that they in-fact come from unique sources and not all the same person. People have been known online, to buy large inexpensive quantities from one another to essentially stuff the ballot box and artificially flood the others feedback score.

Who are some of the leading companies in the refurbished hardware market?

…The outlet seller and the full service provider.

These organizations offer a full suite of services for the IT customer. In this model, relationships are formed between the salesperson and customer. The sales cycle can last anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 year. The customer will usually disclose all relevant information regarding their project or current network configuration. Educated sales people here will assist the customer to make decision about what product or products might best solve their particular business needs. These providers will often offer integration services as well, helping the customer to install the new equipment into their existing set-up. With a rigorous reconditioning and testing process coupled with a warranty program that rivals anyone else’s in the industry, they allow you to feel safe and secure that you are getting quality second hand hardware at a great price.

Online outlet sales have recently emerged as a new trend in the used hardware industry. Direct selling online has become the latest luxury for IT professionals who know what they want or need…. They borrowed Michael Dell’s direct approach to selling online and moved away from the traditional consultative sales approach. Basically, assuming that many of these products have become commoditized and listed products and pricing directly on their site. For the first time, an end user could go online quickly and source product at a reasonable price, place the order and be finished in record time. Never once having to deal with a salesperson along the way.

What is the difference between refurbished hardware and used hardware?

Refurbished hardware are renovated, reset and fully tested. The term “used hardware” is often used synonymously with refurbished hardwarein this industry. However; on occasion, particularly in online auctions, the term “used”, may also mean that it has not been tested or reconditioned in any way. Under such circumstances it is preferential to inquire about the specifics before purchasing under the title “used”.

Are there any other price advantages associated with refurbished hardware?

…You can expect to save anywhere form 30 - 90% off list price when buying used. Traditionally people would shy away from used equipment because of the inherent risk that it presented. However, with current competition in the secondary market resellers have raised their quality standards. They now provide guarantee’s that outlast the original warranty given when the unit was new.

What does all this mean to you?

This means that most of the risk formerly associated with buying hardware used has been eliminated. With a little bit of knowledge and a touch of common sense you can now enjoy massive discounts on IT equipment, stress free! Making “reconditioned”, the new way to go for hip IT professionals everywhere.

RSS is technology - a simple software program - that allows you to access web and blog content automatically…. Once your browser or computer has an RSS reader on board, you can subscribe to any number of RSS “feeds.” A feed is simply a way in which a reader may subscribe to website content - most commonly blogs or news sites. A news site, for example, may list their latest headlines or entire articles in their feed every time a new article is published.

…Feeds are published by millions of publishers, from small individuals to large organizations like Newsweek. The value of a feed is that it brings the most current site content to you in a format that is easily scanned; further, you are spared the task of visiting each source site each day. This is typically done through the use of what is called an ‘aggregator’ or ‘feed reader’.

Feed readers or RSS readers are software programs that run on your computer (or PDA or phone); let you easily subscribe to feeds, and allow you to read through them efficiently…. The fancier ones often work with (or in) your browser to make viewing the material look much like the source page. Once you have a reader on your computer, subscribing to a feed with is an easy click or drag from your browser.

…There are several RSS feed formats as well as one with an entirely different methodology called Atom. Atom has become popular with some bloggers and blogging tools…. The other acronyms you will see in “feedspeak” are XML, which stands for ‘extensible markup language’ and is the code standard for these simple text feeds…. If you dive into this web habit in a big way, your aggregator or reader may keep your subscription list in an OPML file.

An RSS feed is a great method for staying abreast of issues and topics that interest you. There are a number of feed “libraries,” so to speak, from which you can learn what’s out there in your areas of interest. Google has a built-in reader that makes the subscription process easy, as does Yahoo. Firefox has a downloadable extension for the purpose of aggregating RSS feeds, as well as a default ability to save RSS feeds as “live bookmarks” that update via the RSS feed. You can download a number of stand-alone readers and aggregators; you can find them through a simple web search.

…The trick is to avoid overloading your email inbox with daily reports that you end up ignoring most of the time. For that purpose, there are sites like Feedster that will search millions of RSS feeds for articles that are relevant to your interests…. They are still working off keywords and sometimes what they find is relevant, sometimes not. But if you want daily news broken into categories, it’s great technology once you learn how to make it work for you. We recommend www.americas-web.com.