avast! CEO says antivirus is not dead !

Well it sounds odd enough to see antivirus products die soon. But Symantec's new business strategy which appeared in Wall Street Journal, said that antivirus products are becoming useless and there is a huge need to create new technologies to avoid hackers and other threats. The CEO of avast!,Vince Steckler said that antivirus products are not dead and they won't die any soon as it evolves with time to keep up with all threats. Here is what he said in full :

Symantec’s statement seems to relate to the enterprise, and not the consumer and small business. Enterprises have traditionally relied on many layers of defense and antivirus is one of those layers. Antivirus though is a broad-spectrum defense and as such is often complemented by other products, such as those protecting against targeted attacks that enterprises worry about.
In the consumer and SMB space, the situation is quite different: customers typically do not have multiple layers of protection. They have one, their AV product.
These products though are not the simple AV products of past years. The true statement in the story is that consumer security is so much broader than AV. AV is used as a generic name as it is what customers know. They instead incorporate firewalls, intrusion detection, heuristics, virtualization, sandboxes, and many other layers of protection and not just antivirus. Therefore, we believe AV is not dead in the consumer space. It is far from dead there.

That it is true, today's antivirus products bring more than what the basic antivirus gives, current generation antivirus products include multiple layers to protect users such as Firewall,Anti-Spam, intrusion detection, heuristics, virtualization, sandboxes, and many other technologies. For an normal consumer, that's more than enough because he is not going to targeted by the top class hackers out there. May be the enterprise sector needs some new techniques to keep away hackers at the bay and protect the data. I think that is more than enough to justify antivirus are not dead. 

Keep your antivirus software updated and make sure that your license is active if not renew it immediately or consider switching to free antivirus solution such as avast! free antivirus, AVG Free antivius , Avira free antivirus.... I personally recommend avast! free antivirus as it offers multiple layers of protection for free and it's pretty light too.  

Microsoft in Health : Good bye XP

All of you know that Windows XP is set to retire on April 8, 2014. Microsoft is trying to move as much as users possible to Windows 7 or Windows 8 as the modern OS's offer better performance and security than the twelve year old OS. But the migration process is very slow as the market share of Windows XP shows it. 

So Microsoft is talking about the risks of staying with XP after it's retirement for both consumers and business customers. Microsoft in a lengthy post in their Microsoft in Health blog explains about the need of migrating to Windows 7 or Windows 8.

"It’s time to move on, not just because support for Windows XP is ending and analyst firms such as IDC recommend it, but also because the new Windows—whether Windows 7 or Windows 8—offers the opportunity to help you better meet the needs of today’s mobile health professionals."

Microsoft security essentials to support Windows XP till July 2015 !

Microsoft previously announced that MSE would not get any update in Windows XP but after looking at the market share of Windows XP, Microsoft has decided to provide updates to MSE in Windows XP. But after April 8,2014, Microsoft will stop distributing MSE to XP users as it plans to take down the XP links. No more new installations after the retirement of Windows XP.  

Microsoft changed it's decision because it wants all the business customers to migrate from Windows XP. Supporting MSE on XP will be big challenge for the tech-giant as Windows XP will become more vulnerable as hackers try to exploit the OS right after it's retirement. MSE will work on Windows XP till July 14, 2014. This is the grace time provided for users running the old OS to migrate to a newer OS like Windows 7 or Windows 8.x.

In a blog post Microsoft says "Microsoft has announced the Windows XP end of support date of April 8, 2014. After this date, Windows XP will no longer be a supported operating system. To help organizations complete their migrations, Microsoft will continue to provide updates to our antimalware signatures and engine for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015.This does not affect the end-of-support date of Windows XP, or the supportability of Windows XP for other Microsoft products, which deliver and apply those signatures. Our goal is to provide great antimalware solutions for our consumer and business customers. We will continue to work with our customers and partners in doing so, and help our customers complete their migrations as Windows XP end of life approaches."

Windows XP is still used by 28 percent of the users worldwide. It's hard to migrate such a huge number of users to a newer OS within 3 months.

Windows 8.1 preview expires today

Microsoft launched the preview version of Windows 8.1 in 26 June 2013 for free at the Build 2013. Windows 8.1 preview was installed by lot of users who wanted to know what's new in Windows 8.1. Later Windows 8.1 reached the RTM stage and it was released to all the people on October 2013. Windows 8.1 preview's license was set to expire on January 15,2014 (just like how Windows 8 consumer preview expired last year on the same day), that's today.

So users of Windows 8.1 preview are recommended to move to any other OS of their choice. From today on wards,Microsoft will stop providing any updates to the preview version. If you like the preview version then you can better upgrade to Windows 8.1 so that you can still enjoy your favorite apps. You can upgrade you existing installation but to prevent errors, I recommend a clean install which will give you error free and stable experience .

Microsoft's official blog and Twitter account hacked !

Syrian Electronic Army has attacked Microsoft again, the official blog of the tech-giant and the twitter account was hacked, earlier today. Microsoft has recovered the the social properties very soon after the security breach. SEA has already hacked the Skype blog and Skype's twitter account on 1st January which shows that the hackers are aiming at Microsoft's social properties.

SEA posted anti-Microsoft posts in the blog and twitter. They posted things like "Don't use Microsoft emails(Outlook,hotmail),They are monitoring your accounts and selling data to governments". But Microsoft's reaction was very fast,within minutes, the posts and tweets were removed and the blog was restored immediately without any delay as in the case  of Skype's blog. Microsoft has reportedly changed the passwords of social accounts and blog's to prevent further attacks. Microsoft said that no user information was compromised during the attack

Still it's hard to believe that a top tech company like Microsoft gets attacks like this, SEA has made a counter attack upon Microsoft.

Microsoft Security Essential won't be available for Windows XP after April !

Microsoft is killing XP completely. They want to see it go and Windows 8.x to come up. Whenever there is a chance, the tech giant talks about the consequences of using XP after April 8. Windows XP came out on 2001 was a successful product for Microsoft at that time but it is surprising to see the OS still powering a lot PC's around the globe. Thanks to the delayed release of Windows Vista which caused Windows XP to last a bit longer. Developers brought millions of application which ran/run exclusively in Windows XP.

Now Microsoft has confirmed that they would stop providing security updates to MSE in Windows XP which means that a majority of XP users will be left unprotected right from the day 1 after the expiration. What's more disturbing is MSE is one of the most used antivirus in the world with a market share of about 20%. Most users running Windows XP seem to use MSE as their antivirus. So it might cause headache if they continue to use XP.Other antivirus vendors like avast!,avg,kaspersky,bitdefender.. will be providing support for XP for some more time.Good bye XP ! Say hi to Windows 7/8.x

Skype blog restored after one week

Skype was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army on January 1. Skype's twitter,facebook and the official blog were attacked. Twitter and Facebook pages was restored within a day after the attack but the Skype blog was rendered useless. Going to their blog till now redirected to the Skype homepage but Microsoft has managed to bring the blog online after a week of work. The Skype service was working fine and was not affected.In a short post on the blog, Skype wrote

On Jan. 1, 2014, we became aware of a targeted cyber-attack that led to access to Skype’s social media properties on Facebook, Twitter and this blog. We quickly reset the credentials used to manage these properties.  No user information was compromised, and Skype’s service was not affected.

avast! 2014 stable gets updated

avast! has rolled out a new stable update for all the versions of avast! antivirus. This update improves the stability of the program and also adds GrimeFighter, a PC optimization tool. The developer focused on improving the code in order to deliver a more reliable product, but it also integrated new tools and features such as SafePrice, a component of the browser plugin that should be able to find better prices on alternative shopping sites when you search for a particular item.

The Firewall component, available for Internet Security and Premier customers, went through some changes and the result should be increased compatibility with other applications (generally Java and VPN services).Avast self-defense driver is now safeguarding the installer from the get-go, an action that should foil malware attempts to terminate it on infected machines. In such as case, the developer advises a random renaming of the package before deploying it.The Browser Cleanup tool has also been improved in order to be able to deal with browser extensions and toolbars that oppose greater resistance towards removal.GrimeFighter, the PC optimization tool resulting from acquiring Jumpshot, can now be reached from the product.

Microsoft launches December patches to Windows,IE and Office

It's patch Tuesday once again so make sure you have the latest patches installed in your PC. There are a total of 24 updates with 11 Security bulletins. These updates are for Windows,Office and IE. Microsoft released a image which shows the severity of the vulnerabilities present in different software.

Make sure that you install these patches as soon as possible. And if you are using Windows XP, you can be better off by upgrading to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.The star of the month is MS13-096, the bulletin that's supposed to address a vulnerability found in Windows and which would allow an attacker to gain control of an unpatched computer due to the way TIFF files are managed by the operating system.

“This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Lync. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views content that contains specially crafted TIFF files. “As we highlighted through ANS, this update fully resolves the issue first described in Security Advisory 2896666. For those who installed the Fix it released through the advisory, you do not need to uninstall the Fix it prior to installing the update, but we do recommend disabling the Fix it after installation to ensure TIFF images are displayed correctly.”

avast! 2014 R2 Beta brings GrimeFighter !

avast! bought Jumpshot, a system optimization software company and avast! 2014 did not implement any of the features from Jumpshot. So here is avast! 2014 R2 beta 1 which inlcudes GrimeFighter, a tool which looks for all the junk in your PC and helps you to remove them with a single click.

It's more of a system optimization tool baked into the world's most popular antivirus which may be available for free. Get avast! beta here .

Comodo dragon : A browser for privacy seekers

Comodo Dragon is a great browser for those who want the speed of Chrome with a bit more privacy.

Time to Patch your Microsoft products : Patch Tuesday

Today marks the second Tuesday of the month and it's the same day when Microsoft will release patches for all their products like Windows,IE, Office and more. There will be eight security bulletins delivered to Windows and Office users . These updates will be delivered to all the users in the background if they have Windows update on.

Zero day flaw in Internet explorer exposes Windows 7 and Windows XP

There it goes again, a new day , a new exploit attacking Internet explorer users in Windows XP and Windows 7. It's notable that they are the most popular OS in the world with a share of nearly 75% combined.

Microsoft Security Essentials 4.4 released

Microsoft has released a newer version of MSE for all the pre-Windows 8 users running MSE. MSE is one of the most popular antivirus in the world,thanks to the Microsoft branding. But unfortunately MSE proves to be a very basic antivirus. This update won't do a miracle to increase the detection rate of the antivirus but it does improve the overall stability and fixes the bugs. So if you are trusting MSE to protect you then you must update to the latest version as soon as possible.

Microsoft to release Eight Windows,Office patches This month

Microsoft have always wanted to keep their products and users in the safer side and they have been releasing a bunch of updates which will improve and keep their products updated and safe. So this month Microsoft will release Eight updates aimed at Windows,Office users.

avast! antivirus gets updated

avast! gets updated with some bug fixes and security improvements which in-directly affects the security of your computer. avast! free antivirus,pro,internet security and premier versions got this update.

The firewall is said to be improved and also avast! is now more compatible with Windows 8.1 which means that each and every Windows version is now protected by avast!. And as always the stability of this app has been improved which means faster scans and responsive antivirus. Overall this is a important update to your existing avast! antivirus. Make sure you grab it as soon as possible . Here are the release notes

• Fixed connection issues from Java applets
• Fixed issues with Security Center registration
• Fixed problems with non english languages in RescueDisk
• GUI fixes
• Fixed issues with WinDVD and SQL connectors

Microsoft may end antivirus support for Windows XP !

Windows XP is fast expiring and Microsoft has said that they would not care much to release virus definitions for MSE under Windows XP. Microsoft security essentials is one of  the most popular antivirus which has a large database of XP users.

Firefox,Chrome,Opera to support XP after it's expiration

Windows XP has a large market share and it is going to go out of support on April 8 2014 but there is no change in the market share of this particular OS. Microsoft is always trying hard to move users to Windows 8 or Windows 7. Microsoft has already stopped releasing newer versions of their products to XP such as Office 2013, Internet explorer. They are just providing security patches to the OS.

But when it comes third party software developers like Google,mozilla,Opera,antivirus vendors and more. They are still supporting this OS and creating new software for all the OS.

Still using XP ! Move off immediately

Microsoft has just released the Security Intelligence Report 15 which includes details on the recent malware activity affecting the company’s products, as well as statistics and figures regarding the infection rate of its operating system.

Windows XP has a huge market share with almost 30% users in the world using it. What's surprising is that the 12 year old OS is still the second popular OS in the world. Windows XP has the highest infection rate with a whopping 9.1% followed by Windows Vista with 8.8%. Windows XP is set to expire on April 8 2014. Microsoft is trying hard to move users to the newer and safer platforms such as Windows 7 or Windows 8. Windows 7 SP 1 has slightly lower infection rate than the RTM version. The latest Windows 8 has surprisingly very low infection rate, thanks to the multiple security features that the OS has implemented. There is no word on Windows 8.1 but again expect it to be more immune to viruses than Windows 8 because it has some new features to tackle the infections. As far as Windows XP, if you are still using then it is time to move to a better operating system such as Windows 8 or even Ubuntu ! Just move off from the soon expiring OS.

avast! the most popular antivirus !

OPSWAT launched their antivirus market share report which shows the popularity of antivirus software ! avast! is the world's most used antivirus which is closely followed by MSE and Windows Defender which are practically same antiviruses. avast! which has huge share of 19.6% is mainly due to their free offering and it's loyal fans who  have been using avast! for a long time.

MSE and Windows defender are just basic antivirus and they have everything in common. Windows 8/8.1 users can not install MSE so they stick with Windows defender. It's worry some to see these antivirus on top because it offers very basic protection compared to other suites. Avira free antivirus,AVG Anti-Virus free edition are also among the top four.