Symbian Microkernel released as Open Source

Symbian Microkernel released as Open Source

It was well over a year ago now that news of the Symbian operating system--found on approximately half of global smartphones--going open source broke. The news was interpreted as particularly important to Nokia's forward-looking Symbian strategy, but after all this time, an open source version of Symbian's platform is still only in beta testing.

Today, though, as EETimes notes, Symbian has released its platform microkernel, and software development kit (SDK), as open source under the Eclipse Public License. The Symbian Foundation claims that it is moving quickly toward an open source model, which is questionable, but the release of the EKA2 kernel is a signal that Symbian still means business about adopting an open source model.

Accenture, ARM, Nokia and Texas Instruments contributed software to the microkernel, Symbian officials said. They also note that the microkernel is responsible for most key functions in the operating system. What puzzles me, though, are the many posts and news stories that I'm seeing that seem to agree with the Symbian Foundation's claim that it is nine months ahead of schedule with its shift to open source.

Ahead of schedule after more than a year? Has anyone alerted the Symbian Foundation and Nokia that there is an absolute, competitive maelstrom going on in the smartphone arena? Android will soon come out in a full version 2.0 and has major momentum. Meanwhile, Nokia is bleeding money and taking an old-fashioned butt-kicking from the iPhone in the smartphone market. Nokia's North American sales are down more than 31 percent over last year.

It's about time that the Symbian platform showed some actual signs of going open source in earnest. If it does, it will only be good for market share, but I'm really not sure that this latest release qualifies as "ahead of schedule" in this mobile technology market.

New Online Bank Trojan. New Techniques

New, sophisticated malware is making it harder to detect some fraudulent online bank transactions. The URLZone Trojan horse program communicates with a command server to find out precisely how much money to take from the accounts it is plundering to evade detection and where to send the money; the Trojan also alters users' online bank statements so the fraudulent transactions do not show up. The Trojan exploits a vulnerability in Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer 6, IE 7, and IE 8.

• http://www.darkreading.com/database_security/security/client/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220300592&subSection=End+user/client+security


• http://www.scmagazineus.com/URLZone-touted-as-most-sophisticated-banking-trojan-yet/article/151096/


• http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10363836-245.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1009_3-0-20


• http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/rogue-bank-statements/

Microsoft Essential Antivirus. Only on Licensed copies

Microsoft Security Essentials Not Available to Pirates.

Users running unlicensed or improperly licensed copies of Microsoft Windows will not be able to install the company's newly-released Security Essentials antivirus software. To install the software, users will be required to validate their copies of Windows operating systems.
Microsoft does allow users running pirated copies of Windows to download Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8), touted as the company's most secure browser yet. Microsoft also allows patches to be downloaded to pirated copies of Windows through Windows Update. There are other free anti-virus alternatives available, but the patches are available only from Microsoft.

Insecurity in FaceBook Captcha

Malware purveyors have managed to break the Facebook CAPTCHA (completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart), allowing them to automate the creation of Facebook pages. The malicious pages are being used to send links to malicious websites that promote scareware. The pages all have the same photograph, but have different user names. Facebook is taking steps to identify the rogue pages and disable them.

Microsoft Suspend Attach-Photo Feature

Microsoft Suspends Hotmail Attach-Photo Feature

Microsoft has temporarily suspended the Attach-Photo feature in Hotmail because of security issues. The problem lies in the way the feature interacts with Internet Explorer (IE). Hotmail users can still attach photos to their messages through other methods. Attach-Photo was disabled in late July; Microsoft plans to restore the feature by the end of September. Users complained because they were not notified that the feature would be removed.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/21/hotmail_attach_photo_pulled/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136958/Microsoft_Hotmail_users_angry_over_pulled_photo_feature?source=rss_news

Criminals Targeting Smaller US Firms

Cyber Criminals Targeting Smaller US Firms; Get Millions

Organized cyber-gangs in Eastern Europe are increasingly preying on small and mid-size companies in the United States, setting off a multimillion-dollar online crime wave that has begun to worry the nation's largest financial institutions.

The attacks are amazingly simple and the amount of money taken is large. The firms do not know how to protect themselves. In some cases where credit card theft has occurred, they have had to shut down because they lost the ability to process credit cards. Small businesses are being affected greatly by poor security practices. It isn't a risk issue. It is a survival one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/24/AR2009082402272.html?hpid=topnews

Employers Blocking Social Networking Sites More Often

According to research from ScanSafe, companies are increasingly blocking social networking sites. Seventy-six percent of the company's customers block sites like Facebook, a 20 percent increase over the last six months. Fifty-eight percent block access to webmail, 52 percent block access to shopping sites, and 51 percent block access to sports sites.
Social networking sites can expose companies to malware and can also drain employees' productivity.

Spam Claims to be Recruiting Users to Participate in DDoS

Spammers have started to exploit the heated opinions surrounding healthcare reform in the US. A new batch of spam messages point recipients to a site where they are encouraged to download a software tool that can purportedly be used to help launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against the White House web site. The users are urged to visit the site often for updates. While it is unclear whether the download is actually a DDoS tool, it is evidently some sort of malware.

More info at:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/19/obama_ddos_tool_ruse/
http://www.scmagazineus.com/Spammers-seeking-volunteers-to-DDoS-White-House/article/146807/

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