Kerio Personal Firewall (KPF) helps users control how their computers exchange data with other computers on the Internet or local network.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal is powered by a unique integrated technology for unknown virus searching, based on the principals of second-generation heuristic analysis. Because of this, the program is able to protect you from even unknown viruses. By using the integrated Control Center in Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal, it enables you to create a flexible schedule for the program components to be started and to automatically download and apply updates to your anti-virus databases via the Internet.

Kerio Personal Firewall (KPF) helps users control how their computers exchange data with other computers on the Internet or local network.

ZoneAlarm includes five interlocking security services that deliver easy-to-use, comprehensive protection. Unlike any other security utility, it incorporates a firewall, Application Control, an Internet Lock, dynamically assigned Security Levels and Zones. Combined, these elements yield the strongest security possible.

Jetico Personal Firewall software provides you with security against hackers who try to access your PC when you are connected to the Internet. Having inherited the Open architecture principles from BestCrypt, the Jetico Personal Firewall allows you to construct a strong yet accurate security policy and provides clear control over your network connections.

Security Update 2005-006 delivers a number of security enhancements and is recommended for all Macintosh users. This update includes the following components:

Mac OS X 10.4.1 - Mac OS X 10.3.9

"Ransom-ware" is relatively new term that Panda Antivirus researchers have dubbed for a new form of malicious code that infects PCs, and then demands money in return for cleaning up the machine.

Neowin.net

About:Buster removes the Home Search Assistant.

Symptoms:

Internet security experts report that a new Sober worm variant is spreading epidemically in Western Europe. After only 24 hours the new Sober worm already accounts for 77 percent of all virus traffic on the internet - truly an unusual high number.

DV Hardware

A tool that allows IE users to quickly change their browser?s security and content display settings has been made available to users of new Outpost Firewall Pro.

This article talks about the soon to come Google Autolinks feature which has been very controversial on the webmaster world and will explain why it is a serious issue, and perhaps even illegal. read more @ Iceteks

It is possible to create specially crafted ARJ archives that cause a buffer overflow. This allows an attacker to execute code of his choice on the target system. Note that a severity class has been assigned to each product family separately as the risk for successful exploitation of this vulnerability varies

Vnunet reports computer users have been warned to be on their guard when viewing images after the discovery of a vulnerability affecting the processing of PNG (Portable Network Graphic) files by popular applications including MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player. The issue affects applications including Windows Media Player 9.0 (when running on Windows 2000, XP Service Pack 1 and Server 2003), Windows Messenger version 5.0 (standalone version that can be installed on all supported operating systems), and MSN Messenger 6.1 and 6.2.

Background

International Domain Name [IDN] support in modern browsers allows attackers to
spoof domain name URLs + SSL certs.

Late last week, a Russian security company called Positive Technologies claimed that it had discovered two minor "mistakes" in Microsoft's implementation of a security feature in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) that could allow hackers to sidestep the feature. The announcement was widely reported at the time as a major security flaw in XP SP2. However, Microsoft this week says that there is no vulnerability because the method described by Positive Technologies cannot be used to let a hacker run malicious code on a user's system. Read on at WindowsItPro

Watch Out Advisory by TrendMicro:As of February 2, 2005, 6:55 PM (Pacific Standard Time/GMT -8:00), TrendLabs has declared a Medium-Risk alert to control the spread of this new WORM_BROPIA variant that is spreading in Korea, China, Taiwan, and the United States. This memory-resident worm propagates itself via MSN Messenger by sending a copy of itself using different file names to all available or online contacts. Thus, users of the said messaging program should not accept or open these files to avoid infection.

Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS®) Software release trains 12.1YD, 12.2T, 12.3 and 12.3T, when configured for the Cisco IOS Telephony Service (ITS), Cisco CallManager Express (CME) or Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) may contain a vulnerability in processing certain malformed control protocol messages.

Munich-based Company Ciphire Labs today released a new version of their "Ciphire Mail". This is an email-encryption tool, which uses standard, well-known cryptographic algorithms.

This optional update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail. This update was released in January 2005. More informations not available at the moment, KB article seems to be down. Get the update here

Be sure to warn your non-techie family members and friends.

Even SP2 versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer are vulnerable to a spoofing exploit published on December 17th.