Devoted to hardware, software, IT issues, and information technology management

AT&T's tagline is Your world ,delivered.

Yes, they do deliver and computer hackers received a big catch during the weekend, where they stole credit card information belonging to 19,000 customers of AT&T Inc. The crackers managed to hacked into a site that sells DSL equipment used by high-speed Internet customers. Luckily, AT&T brought the site down immediately and took steps to inform the customers and protect them from identity theft.

"Everyone will get a letter," Sharp said. "The majority already have gotten an e-mail, and those for whom we did not have an e-mail address, there are phone calls being made."

The company will pay for credit monitoring and is suggesting customers contact their credit card companies as well, Sharp said. "We have already taken the step of notifying the credit card companies involved," he said. "We are suggesting they get in touch with their credit card companies and put a fraud alert on their records and keep a close eye on their credit records."

This white paper is a good read on how to manage and prevent your IT systems from becoming an IM attack statistic. But you'll need to register on the site first.

This paper provides a concise look into how an IM attack works to compromise Instant Messaging systems and spread havoc throughout public networks in a matter of minutes. With IM Worms and other threats increasing by nearly 1,700 percent in 2005 over the previous year, according to the IMlogic Threat Center, it is imperative that message administrators and security professionals gain a better understanding of the scope and nature of these threats—and how to prevent them from infecting your message infrastructure with an integrated, managed service solution.

With analyst research firms such as Radicati Group, META Group, Gartner and Osterman Research showing IM usage in the workplace exceeding 70 percent or more—and growing at an accelerated pace—IT operations and security managers need to educate themselves as to the risks involved in IM for their particular organization. Read ahead to see how you can protect against IM worms and other attacks with an integrated, managed service solution.

The Workings of IM Attacks source

I've just stumble upon a great site for file enterprise disaster recovery. OfficeRecovery.com is the source of data recovery software for corrupted files and media where you'll will find utilities to fix damaged Office documents, restore lost emails and mailboxes, repair corrupted databases and retrieve files from crashed hard disks and bad diskettes and even a data recovery program for Microsoft Project files !

OfficeRecovery suites combine data recovery programs into convenient setup packages. OfficeRecovery Basic, Standard, Professional, Premium and Enterprise versions are available, providing recovery solutions for various needs and budgets.

OfficeRecovery 2005 suites feature new components and extended support package. 1-Year UpgradeSupport package now comes standard with all suites, providing the customer with free updates during the service period.


My personal favourite is the OfficeRecovery Enterprise suite that goes for a whopping USD $2,499.00. It includes the Recovery for Word, Recovery for Excel, Recovery for OneNote, Recovery for PowerPoint, Recovery for Access, Recovery for Publisher, Recovery for Outlook, Recovery for OutlookExpress, 1-Year UpgradeSupport Professional and Free updates during the service period. Looks like a good deal and its pretty useful to have this handy software on standby before disaster strikes.

Before you buy the full version, you might want to try out the free demo. The Free demo version of OfficeRecovery recovers a limited amount of corrupted data. The remaining recoverable data will be labeled as "demo" in the demo-recovered file. Full version of OfficeRecovery will recover the demo-limited data as well.

Such a pity. I cant believe that spammers are turning into Cyber Terrorists and bringing down corporations just like that. What is happening to the world ?

"According to The Washington Post, Blue Security has closed its doors, which can be confirmed by the Blue Security application failing to work today and their domain no longer resolving. Blue Security's CEO is quoted in the article: "It's clear to us that [quitting] would be the only thing to prevent a full-scale cyber-war that we just don't have the authority to start," Reshef said. "Our users never signed up for this kind of thing." You have to wonder where it goes from here. It seems an effective method has been found but more than a small private company could handle. Will someone else adapt this concept, or does the internet world give up?"

The anti-spam venture embroiled in a denial-of-service attack that brought down millions of blogs two weeks ago has thrown in the towel. Wednesday morning, Israeli-based Blue Security posted a message on its site -- now offline -- that it is shutting down operations. Blue Security, which debuted its spam-fighting service last summerand built up a user base of more than 500,000, decided to wave the white flag after its servers were knocked offline by an aggressive denial-of-service (DoS) attack it claimed was launched by a deep-pocket Russian spammer tagged as "PharmaMaster."

The anti-spam vendor Blue Security Shuts Down Operations source

This VB Script at Dougknox.com will allow you to hide users on the Windows XP Welcome Screen when you don't want people to know there are other usernames on it.

If you hide an account, you can access it from the Welcome screen by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL twice.  You'll get the older style logon dialog.  Type in the username and password.

To revert back or o unhide a user, and make them show up on the Welcome Screen, there's also a script to download.

Hide user accounts on Windows XP Welcome Screen site

Here's a good list of Personal Firewall software at this site. Its arranged in some handy categories like Top Picks Personal Firewalls; Gone or Fading Away ; Not Recommended.

2 of the firewall software I've used before is ZoneAlarm Pro from Zone Labs and Sygate Personal Firewall.

ZoneAlarm is their well known and widely used personal firewall that is free for personal use. Note: Zone Labs was purchased by Checkpoint in December 2003. Sygate Personal Firewall (former vendor's site). Symantec Shelves Sygate Personal Firewall, Paul Roberts, eWeek, November 28, 2005. Sygate was purchased by Symantec (Norton) in August 2005.

Personal Firewall Reviews source

PandaLabs has warned users of two vulnerabilities that have been corrected by Microsoft. The first, as reported in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-011, corrects an error that could allow an attacker to gain control of the affected system. An attacker could therefore, install programs with serious consequences or carry out any task without the user realizing.

The systems affected are Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (also the version for Itanium systems).

The second update, reported in the bulletin MS06-012, corrects a similar error to the aforementioned error, as it could also allow an attacker to gain control of the system, if users log on as the system administrator.

They say a man's house is his castle and nothing is more truer than that. No one likes it when you go into his or her PC without permission and with Windows, security is something you need to be careful of since crackers love to break that Operating System. It gets worst now that Microsoft will only release the Windows XP Service Pack 3 in the latter half of 2007.

Here's 2 detailed checklists to determine if your Windows system is been broken into.

1. Windows Intruder Detection Checklist being published jointly by the CERT Coordination Center and AusCERT (Australian Computer Emergency Response Team)

This document outlines suggested steps for determining whether your Windows system has been compromised. System administrators can use this information to look for several types of break-ins. We also encourage you to review all sections of this document and modify your systems to address potential weaknesses.