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Filed under: Security, Windows

ZoneAlarm spying on its users?

ZoneAlarm
Security SuiteOh, the irony. Bob Cringely reported a couple weeks back that PC firewall software ZoneAlarm 6.0 has been caught in the act of sending encrypted data back to four Zone Labs servers, even when communication settings in the program are disabled. Oops. After denying the reports for nearly two months, Zone Labs is now claiming that it's a bug, even though the connection instructions are specifically indicated in the program's XML files.  A fix for ZoneAlarm is expected soon, but in the meantime you can block the traffic by adding a "127.0.0.1 zonelabs.com" entry to your Windows Hosts file.

Filed under: Internet, News, Windows, Macintosh, Linux

RSS feeds the next virus medium?

Virus alert!Makers of firewall and anti-virus software are warning that RSS feeds could be the next big thing for spreading viruses. In this article from The Register, Trend Micro's marketing manager says, "RSS feeds point to HTML pages and as such, they can be made to point to HTML-exploits or malicious JavaScript. It certainly can be a possible way of distributing malicious code over the internet to the subscribers of the RSS feed." Zone Labs, makers of ZoneAlarm, agree.

Personally, I don't buy it. It's not unlikely that such a vulnerability will be found in RSS readers in the near future, but as pointed out in the article, to be a useful medium for spreading a virus an RSS feed has to be very popular. But in order for a virus to get into a popular RSS feed, whomever is publishing the feed would have to insert the virus intentionally, or accidentally create a situation in which a third party could. Though not impossible, it seems like an unlikely confluence of circumstances.

Do you think Trend Micro and Zone Labs will be touting RSS scanning features in their upcoming anti-virus and firewall products?

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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