Kaspersky Lab announced comprehensive protection against Internet threats for Windows 7 Beta users with Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7.Kaspersky Lab released its technical antivirus prototype providing greater efficiency and complex antivirus protection at the beginning of January 2009 together with launch of beta test version of Microsoft Windows 7 operating system

Based on the recent beta evaluations, Kaspersky Lab has received positive feedback regarding the speed, reliability and stability of Windows 7 protection. Kaspersky Lab’s suite of security offerings will be available to Windows 7 users immediately following the launch of the new operating system. Through its collaboration with Microsoft, Kaspersky Lab is committed to providing premium Internet threat protection to users of Windows 7, the new generation of the world’s most popular PC operating system.

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Kaspersky Lab announces that its antivirus solutions will support Microsoft Forefront codename “Stirling.” Currently in public beta, Forefront “Stirling” is an integrated security suite that delivers comprehensive protection across endpoint, application servers and edge solutions with a central management console for easy administration and enterprise-wide multi product visibility. Forefront “Stirling” enables software, hardware, and services vendors to share and use security event information across the “Stirling” environment and the broader partner ecosystem. As a result, partners can enhance the effectiveness of their security technologies and better protect customer IT environments.

Kaspersky Lab announces that future versions of Kaspersky Antivirus for Lotus Domino will detect anomalous behavior and provide security assessments based on settings established by a system administrator in Microsoft Forefront codename “Stirling” Beta 2. This usage scenario will enable the administrator to be proactively notified of potentially dangerous threats, and flag corrective actions that should be taken to eliminate the spread of potentially malicious code. Key areas of potential interaction between Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Lotus Notes/Domino and Forefront “Stirling” were also taken into consideration by Microsoft. The ability to tightly integrate previously disparate security systems will greatly enhance the security posture of organizations deploying the combined solution.

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Kaspersky Lab announces that Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 has received yet another prestigious VB100 award.

In a comparative test published in Virus Bulletin's April issue, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 demonstrated one of the best results for malware detection. 39 popular antivirus products participated in the test that was conducted on a Windows XP Service Pack 3 platform.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 finished among the top three products following RAP (Reactive and Proactive) testing, a new format introduced by Virus Bulletin to show how products perform against the latest malware that has emerged around the world. With a score of 92.2%, the Kaspersky Lab solution performed significantly better than the vast majority of software being tested. The company’s product also came out on top in terms of proactive detection of unknown threats. Throughout testing, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 did not produce a single false positive.

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McAfee, Inc. announced new research findings that reveal spam e-mail is not only a nuisance, but is damaging to the environment and substantially contributes to green house gas (GHG) emissions. In McAfee’s “Carbon Footprint of Spam” study released recently, climate-change researchers ICF and spam experts calculated globally the annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 33 terawatt hours (TWh). That’s equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes, with the same GHG emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline.

The “Carbon Footprint of Spam” study looked at global energy expended to create, store, view and filter spam across 11 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, India, Mexico, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom. It correlated the electricity spent on spam with its carbon footprint, since fossil fuels are by far the largest source of electricity in the world today. Since emissions cannot be isolated to one country, it averaged its findings to arrive at the global impact.

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Kaspersky Lab has detected a new modification of Kido. This latest variant differs from previous ones in that it extends the Trojan functionality used in earlier versions of the malicious program.
Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.ip, Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.iq, and other variants are all representative of this latest modification of Kido, which is capable of preventing antivirus products from functioning effectively on infected machines. The new variant of the malicious program also generates a dramatically increased number of unique domain names which it can contact to download daily updates: 50,000 in contrast to the 250 generated and contacted by previous versions.

Kido has Trojan Downloader functionality, which means that it delivers other malicious programs to infected computers. The first Kido infections were detected in November 2008. A record for new Kido variants was added to Kaspersky Lab antivirus databases on Saturday, March 7.  Kaspersky Lab recommends again that all users install the relevant operating system security update (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx). An antivirus solution with up-to-date signature databases and a properly configured firewall can also prevent infection.

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"Do we really want to build this smart grid…for it only to be used against us?" Melih Abdulhayoglu's concern for the security of the United States's electricity grid was prescient. "We've got to be sure those smart meters are protected." He spoke a day before Siobhan Gorman at the Wall Street Journal broke the news that cyberspies, most likely from China and Russa had penetrated the cybergrid that controls the US electrical supply, and had left behind potentially disruptive software.

"The CIA has already admitted that cities have been taken down by criminal activities, by attacks." American users of electricity are "lucrative targets," he said. He urged the US not to "build all our houses and homes into this thing and make it all vulnerable."

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Websense Security Labs ThreatSeeker Network has discovered a phishing campaign targeting customers of Standard Chartered Bank. Websense’s email honeypot systems have received several phishing emails targeting customers of Standard Chartered Bank. The phishing email tells recipients that there is a new message in their secure mailbox, and attempts to trick them to go to a spoofed Web site and enter their logon information. The aim is to steal account information.

Websense previously alerted on a phishing attack on Standard Chartered before in 2006—but that was focused more on their Hong Kong customer base. The phishing template has also been updated. We will continue to track this trend. Websense Messaging and Websense Web Security customers were protected against this attack. To view screenshots of the website and for additional details and information on this alert please visit: http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Alerts/3332.aspx

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Webroot announced a strategic partnership with Zix Corporation. Webroot will embed the ZixCorp email encryption service into its next release of Webroot Email Security SaaS to help organizations better protect employee and company data to meet compliance and data security requirements.

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Arcot Systems and Adobe Systems announced that they are collaborating on a new solution for more secure correspondence management. By extending Adobe LiveCycle ES and the Correspondence Management Solution Accelerator with Arcot’s new Secure Electronic Notification Delivery (SEND) service, financial institutions can provide additional security for customer email.

"Our SEND service will help institutions migrate from paper to digital delivery as it offers higher fidelity, and is easier to use and more secure than other email delivery solutions," said R. ‘Doc' Vaidhyanathan, vice president of product management at Arcot. "Now, organizations can securely distribute electronic documents to customers, and customers can securely interact with the dynamic PDF document, verifying information, paying bills, and even signing contracts without ever having to log in or print."

The Arcot SEND service provides a security and delivery clearinghouse for documents sent to a recipient’s email. With Arcot’s patented cryptographic camouflage technology built into the Adobe Acrobat family and Adobe Reader, the SEND service protects confidential and personally identifiable information by encrypting PDF files. The recipient only needs the ubiquitous Adobe Reader, his password and an easy-to-use ArcotID credential to decrypt the document and view it. In this solution, the Arcot SEND service extends existing document control, digital signatures, and document certification technology within LiveCycle ES and the Correspondence Management Solution Accelerator.

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Aladdin Knowledge Systems with SafeNet, Inc. announced plans to release Aladdin eToken Virtual and Aladdin MobilePASS, the latest innovations in software-based authentication, enabling secure access and identity verification without the need for a hardware–based authenticator.

Aladdin's software authentication solutions, part of the industry's most versatile line of authenticators, will be available in both encrypted virtual smartcard platforms for PCs and portable flash drives, and one-time-password (OTP) platforms for PCs, flash and mobile devices. Like Aladdin's broad portfolio of hardware-based OTP and smartcard authentication solutions, Aladdin's software authentication solutions are easily managed using Aladdin's Token Management System (TMS), allowing organizations to complement hardware authentication deployments and tailor solutions to various use cases and risk levels.

By eliminating the need for hardware, organizations can implement a strong authentication solution that is simple to deploy and manage, reduces management costs, increases ease-of-use and convenience for end-users, and improves productivity. Aladdin's software authentication solutions are ideal for business partners, customers, visitors and temporary workers.

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McAfee announced availability of McAfee Web Protection Service—the industry’s first software-as-a-service (SaaS) Web security solution providing protection from malware and other Web-borne threats without any on-premise requirements. The new cloud-based service offers customers Web security protection through a reliable, hassle-free SaaS deployment option.

With McAfee Web Protection Service, companies no longer have to deploy on-premise applications or gateway appliances to achieve a truly comprehensive level of security. Organizations need this protection, however many don’t have the internal staff, budget, or equipment space to maintain and support on-premise components, making McAfee Web Protection Service a much welcomed alternative. According to Gartner 1, “Web security protection delivered as SaaS will represent 25 percent of the market revenue by 2012, up from 2 percent in 2007.”

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IT security and control firm Sophos announced that Sophos Endpoint Security and Control has been awarded the accolade of VB100 in the April 2009 edition of Virus Bulletin magazine. The test was on the Windows XP SP3 platform and Sophos successfully detected all the in-the-wild viruses without false alarming - the 46th VB100 that Sophos has received. Virus Bulletin ran their new RAP ("Reactive and Proactive") test, to enable readers to form a better impression of the heuristic and generic proactive detection capabilities of security software - specifically how well products perform against the malware that has appeared after vendors submitted their products for the test.

All Sophos products use the same technology to protect against viruses, worms, spyware, Trojan horses and other malware, ensuring consistently high detection rates across all operating systems.

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Trend Micro is augmenting its Endpoint Security Platform offerings with a Power Management Module that enables enterprises to shut down computers to conserve energy or turn on computers to apply patches and updates. It helps organizations achieve more effective protection through timely patches and updates as well as true energy cost savings - all without sacrificing an end user's need to access their computers either remotely or after hours.

The Trend Micro Power Management Module is one out of a series of modules offered through Trend Micro's relationship with BigFix. In mid-April, Trend Micro introduced Trend Micro Endpoint Security Platform—a combination of Trend Micro endpoint security and BigFix endpoint management—with four modules that allow organizations to customize the solution to their security and systems management needs.

The newest module to be offered by Trend Micro extends the value of the Endpoint Security Platform, providing a power management solution in which IT teams can enforce conservation policies infrastructure-wide, while also enabling crucial security patches and updates to be installed on schedule. This module resolves the conflict between the need to power down machines to save on energy costs and the need to keep them on so IT can apply patches and updates.

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VeriSign launched the VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) Mobile Developer Test Drive Program. The program enables mobile application developers to explore how easily and quickly they can provide users with an extra layer security that goes beyond standard secure log-ins. Aimed at developers of J2ME and iPhone applications, the VIP Mobile Developer Program builds on the success of a similar program launched at last year's RSA Conference. By leveraging the VIP Mobile SDK, developers can create a pilot or demonstration version to transform mobile devices into two-factor authentication credentials capable of generating a one-time password (OTP) with every sign-on. The pilot allows developers to "kick the tires" and test the functionality of their mobile applications to see how easy it is to implement and use.

Credentials developed with the SDK will allow users to authenticate themselves at any VIP Network member site, including eBay, PayPal and more than 45 others that are part of the VIP Network.

Developers can download the VIP Mobile SDK, as well as sample code and documents, after completing a simple click-through evaluation agreement. The tools cover such vital areas as application design, provisioning and validation. Pilot participants can work with the SDK to test how the VIP Authentication Service integrates and operates with their mobile applications easily and can even test interoperability with other pilot program participants. Developers can download VIP Mobile Developer Test Drive Package at https://vipdeveloper.verisign.com

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