Day: January 3, 2008

The bad guys are currently winning the fight for your PC! PC World reports that the malware writers are using sophisticated methods to build and test new malware “products.”

Malware Evolving Too Fast for Antivirus Apps

“If you think that the latest security suites afford complete protection against malware attacks, think again. Today’s for-profit malware pushers use dedicated test labs and other increasingly professional techniques to improve their chances of infecting your computer. And the techniques they employ to outpace security software makers appear to be working. Make no mistake–a good security program can go a long way toward keeping you in control of your system. But PC World’s recent tests of security suites found that new malware easily evaded the applications. In our tests of how well security software blocks unknown malicious programs, the best performer detected only one in four new malware samples. In contrast, February 2007 results from similar heuristics testing showed that the best utilities caught about half of new samples. ‘In this industry, unlike others, we have an antagonist we have to deal with, someone we’re constantly battling back and forth with,’ says Hiep Dang, director of anti-malware research with McAfee’s Avert Labs. ‘The bad guys have the element of surprise.’ Even just a 12-hour head start can translate into thousands of infected PCs, and malware authors have long tested their programs against antivirus applications to make sure they get that critical jump on the opposition.”

In a strange move… Microsoft has removed support from it’s Office 2003 suite for old document formats in a new Service Pack!

Microsoft’s planned obsolescence smacks Office 2003

“It seems as though the planned obsolescence that Microsoft committed so blatantly in Vista is now impacting Office 2003, too, with the arrival of Service Pack 3. If you need to access old Microsoft file formats for early versions of Word, Excel, or Powerpoint — but you’ve suddenly and dramatically found yourself unable to do so — there’s an intentional reason from Microsoft behind that conundrum, according to a bulletin put out by Microsoft last month. The reason for the unexpected incompatibility is that, by default, the SP3 update, which became available in mid-September, blocks the file formats used by these older desktop productivity tools from Microsoft. Moreover, the same also holds true for the file formats used in older versions of products that just so happen to compete with some of Microsoft’s software offerings, such as the multi-platform Lotus Notes and Corel’s Quattro spreadsheet and Draw software.”