Vista hole opens door to 'shout hacking'
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InfoWorld - The honeymoon ended early for Microsoft's Vista operating system, after word spread Wednesday about a flaw that could allow remote attackers to take advantage of the new operating system's speech recognition feature.
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(InfoWorld) - A security vendor is offering an add-on product for Windows Vista's User Account Control feature, which has been flagged as a threat to business users because it can be easily bypassed by hackers. BeyondTrust's Privilege Manager 3.0, which will be available on March 19 and costs $30 per user, protects enterprise desktops running Vista with User Account Control in two major ways, said John Moyer, CEO of BeyondTrust. First, it grants elevated privileges to certain applications and functions transparently to end users, instead of involving them in the process with dialogue boxes, he said. Hackers can use these dialogue boxes to trick users into unknowingly allowing malicious code to run on the machine. Security vendor Symantec recently released research thatÂ outlined some of Vista's security holes and listed User Account Control as one of them for the reason Moyer outlined. Microsoft has said it is evaluating Symantec's research about Vista and will take steps to fix any vulnerabilities in the OS. Microsoft included User Account Control in Vista to add security by limiting the access individual users have to applications or functions. While this is an enhancement for home users, it presents a security problem for business users because in order to access certain applications that are beyond the scope of their limited privileges, they must set up and use administrator passwords to set higher access rights, Moyer said. These dialogue boxes that ask them for passwords provide a way for hackers to get in, he said. The second feature of Privilege Manager that helps prevent intrusion through User Access Control gives IT administrators centralized administration of setting the elevation of privileges for users, even though Privilege Manager itself runs locally, Moyer said. BeyondTrust's application connects to the group policy features of Vista to allow for this type of administration, he said. BeyondTrust spun off from Desktop Standards, a company which Microsoft announced it had purchased on Oct. 2. Twenty employees of DesktopStandard took the Policy Maker Application Security product and became BeyondTrust. That product later was rebranded Privilege Manager, Moyer said.
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Surprises Inside Microsoft Vista's EULA &gt;&gt; Advertisement &lt;&lt;  ALERT: "How A Hacker Launches A Blind SQL Injection Attack Step-by-Step"!" - White Paper  Blind SQL Injection can deliver total control of your server to a hacker giving them the ability to read, write and manipulate all data stored in your backend systems! Download this *FREE* white paper from SPI Dynamics for a complete guide to protection! https://download.spidynamics.com/1/ad/bsq.asp?Campaign_ID=701600000004c29
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Researchers warn that a number of critical holes have been found in Microsoft Windows XP which could be exploited. Symantec acted after security researchers published the details of the heap overflow vulnerabilities
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Want to hack Windows? Better get familiar with the Registry first.
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Microsoft issues patches for holes that could allow remote attackers to gain control of your PC.
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Windows Vista is causing problems for those trying to hook up a PC to a broadband net connection.
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Inspired by an online discussion where the question was raised, could Microsoft's Windows Vista's new vocal command feature inadvertently respond to a word spoken by an audio file played remotely, perhaps through a Web site, ZDNet blogger George Ou discovered through his own tests that a well-recorded voice command could be played back through the speakers of a Vista-endowed computer, and that the computer would respond as if commanded by its own user.
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If the Vista kernel can't be spoofed, it appears some of its key Internet Protocol kernel drivers can be. An IBM security division discovered the problem, and this morning, Microsoft issued what it hopes will be a fix.
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A highly critical and unpatched security hole in Microsoft&#39;s ubiquitous Word software could be used to launch a denial of service attack and give system access.
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IT security experts have uncovered a critical vulnerability in the popular Winamp media player, which could be exploited by hackers to compromise a user&#39;s system.
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Security researchers are warning of a serious - and unfixed - security hole with the popular Winamp media player.
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Microsoft is investigating a new vulnerability in Windows Media Player that could be used to run malicious code on a user's PC.
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Insecurity plug-in Skype users, Beware a new Trojan that uses subtle social engineering tricks to try to steal your login credentialsâ¦
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Microsoft guru predicts Vista half as buggy &gt;&gt; Advertisement &lt;&lt;  ALERT: "How A Hacker Launches A Blind SQL Injection Attack Step-by-Step"!" - White Paper  Blind SQL Injection can deliver total control of your server to a hacker giving them the ability to read, write and manipulate all data stored in your backend systems! Download this *FREE* white paper from SPI Dynamics for a complete guide to protection! https://download.spidynamics.com/1/ad/bsq.asp?Campaign_ID=701600000004c29
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A researcher has posted exploit code that attackers can use to hijack Windows machines via Yahoo Inc.'s Messenger instant messaging software.
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You can't cheat an honest person, they say. Like generations of scammers before them, some malware writers are taking that "advice" to heart, releasing their Trojan software and keyloggers as "cracked" versions of Vista oon peer-to-peer service. Who's going to turn them in, after all -- a would-be pirate?