January 30th, 2009

Posted by Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft officials on January 30 reiterated that there will be no public Beta 2 of Windows 7 and the next milestone will be the Release Candidate (RC) test build of the operating system.

On the “Engineering Windows 7″ blog, Windows development chief Steven Sinofsky reiterated what officials stated less plainly at the Professional Developers Conference last year: There will be just one beta of Windows 7.

Sinofsky emphasized in his new post that cialis without prescription color=”#004d99″>Microsoft is not sharing any new ship date targets for Windows 7. As has been known for a while now, Microsoft’s delivery plan for Windows 7 is to deliver a public beta, an RC (it’s not clear at this point if that will be public or private) and then release to manufacturing (RTM). The RC will be”Windows 7 as we intend to ship it,” Sinofsky blogged. More about the RC from his post:

“We will continue to listen to feedback and telemetry with the focus on addressing only the most critical issues that arise. We will be very clear in communicating any changes that have a visible impact on the product. This release allows the whole ecosystem to reach a known state together and make sure that we are all ready together for the Release to Manufacturing. Once we get to RC, the whole ecosystem is in “dress rehearsal” mode for the next steps.”

Microsoft’s “official” response when asked for a ship-date target for Windows 7 remains three years after Vista’s general availability date (which was January 29, 2007). Many customers and partners believe Microsoft is continuing to target Q3 of this year as its RTM date.

For those hoping Microsoft might rush Windows 7 and release it now? Don’t hold your breath.

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January 27th, 2009

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady

In case you missed it, your Mac may be under attack. Especially if you have a taste for downloading Mac software that isn’t exactly, ahem, legal.

Last week I reported that a trojan horse called “iWorkServices” has was found in a pirated version of iWork ‘09 floating around on BitTorrent. Yesterday it came to light that another trojan has been found in a pirated version of Photoshop CS4.

Whether you play fast and loose with your software licenses is on your conscience (I certainly don’t recommend it) but one way to keep tabs on software that likes to call home is with cialis wholesale Objective Development’s Little Snitch 2.0 ($29.95). I hadn’t used it since version 1 and the recent rash of Mac trojans gave me a prefect excuse to try v.2.

Little Snitch informs you whenever a program attempts to establish an outgoing Internet connection. You can then choose to allow or deny this connection, or define a rule how to handle similar, future connection attempts. This reliably prevents private data from being sent out without your knowledge. Little Snitch runs inconspicuously in the background and it can also detect network related activity of viruses, trojans and other malware.

Once installed you’ll be amazed at all the things on your Mac that connect to the Internet in the background. Most of them probably have your approval, like all the apps that you allowed to “check for updates at startup?” and things like Software Update, dotmacsyncclient and Bonjour’s mDNSresponder. Those ones are safe to “allow” but if Little Snitch asks for approval for something unknown, deny the request then Google the name to see if it’s kosher.

Be warned though, the first time you install Little Snitch, you’ll be inundated with allow/deny requests and it can be exhaustive. (Hint: you can confirm an alert with Command-Return, Control-Return and Return-Escape). Clicking the Forever button helps you ignore approved outbound connections and it’s a small price to pay to be able to keep tabs on potentially malicious code.

A new Network Monitor feature (pictured) has been added in version 2 which alone is worth the price of admission. The beautifully designed window displays detailed information about all of the incoming and outgoing network traffic on your Mac. It only pops up when connections are active unless you check the small “stay visible” box at the top of the window. I find myself leaving the Network Monitor window visible and watching in awe as the packets flow by. If you decide to close it a subtle menu bar item will also keep you apprised.

Nice, tight bit of code. Highly recommended.

January 27th, 2009

Posted by David Morgenstern

With the arrival of yet another trojan targeting the Mac, antispyware vendor MacScan on Tuesday updated and renamed its trojan removal tool.

The previous version was called the iWorkServices Trojan Removal Tool, and SecureMac changed the program’s name to the iServices Trojan Removal Tool.  The company said the updated tool is also a free download and detects and removes the new variant trojan found on pirated versions of Adobe Photoshop CS 4 for Mac OS X.

This trojan is working its way around various P2P networks and with various packages as the vector for infections. The first version was discovered in copies of iWork 09, which was introduced at Macworld Expo earlier this month.

According to MacScan:

Like its predecessor, variant B obtains root privileges, and notifies the remote host of the infected computer’s location on the Internet. It is recommended users avoid downloading pirated copies of these programs. What’s more, it is anticipated that new variants will be discovered in the coming months in other software cialis weekend pill packages distributed by third parties over the Internet.

January 26th, 2009

Posted by Adam O'Donnell

Two Mac trojan outbreaks were spotted in the past week leaving several people, including myself, to wonder if the tipping point for the Mac malware epidemic has arrived. Frankly, I don’t know, but I tend not to think so. I do think, however, that Mac malware will now become endemic amongst the high-risk groups such as file-swappers.

This past week a trojan claiming to be the latest iWork release was spotted on file sharing networks. Shortly thereafter, a similar trojan was sighted that masquerading as a crack for Photoshop CS4. Both events are making some people question whether or not the Mac’s long tenure as being a malware-free system is coming to a close and to face facts and install AV software.

The short answer is if you are a relatively well-behaved computer user, probably not. Mac malware is not endemic amongst the general population due to these events. The trojans of the past week is not self-propagating beyond the high-risk population, namely file swappers, and is relatively easy to find, analyze, and remediate. This is in stark contrast to PC users who have been hit with the Downadup/Conficker worm, which propagates via three orthogonal vectors and includes one remote exploit, and actively prevents you from visiting websites that contain remediation tools.

I do think cialis vs generic cialis the relative halcyon days of malware-free Macs are coming to an end. Anyone who is currently infected by the new malware will remain infected without direct human interaction due to the lack of any automatic mechanism for the identification and removal of malware. That means there is a non-zero population of Mac users who are now compromised and will remain compromised unless they either clean their machine or they buy a new system. Sounds familiar, right?

The question I want answered is whether or not the monetization rate of compromised Macs is sufficient for the malware authors to continue to pursue the platform. If not, these events will be a blip on the radar; otherwise, Mac owners better keep their Time Machine backups up to date.