Posts tagged twitter
Facebook Apps: You’ve been infected!
Oct 20th
Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook can already be dangerous places. Things like short links and bogus messages from friends with compromised accounts put unsuspecting and under-prepared users at risk.
Now, AVG’s security researchers have discovered a new threat on Facebook. For the first time, they’ve found hacked Facebook apps. According to AVG, the apps are being used to launch drive-by attacks which target vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash. AVG reports finding seven hacked apps, but they admit there could well be more.
First things first: if you’re not running up to date versions of either of those, download them right now. Here’s the link to Flash and here’s one for Reader. Using anything but the most current version could leave you open to attack.
The attack works like this. Visit the Facebook page for any of the hacked apps and click to install. Instead of the normal process, the page will try to push a poisoned PDF document to your machine. Once open, the infected PDF infects your system with a bogus antivirus application – which are often notoriously difficult to remove.
To keep from getting infected in the first place, make sure you:
- Have a good antivirus program installed and that it is fully updated
- Update browser plugins like Java, Flash, and Adobe Reader as soon as you are prompted to do so
install any critical Windows updates that are available
- Check comments on new apps before you install ; Others may have already been infected and left a post on the wall!
Source: Downloadsquad
Jason is now on Twitter!
Aug 27th
Do leave your twitter user or you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/coolrock
APCN2 cable cut cripples connections
Aug 15th
A cut in the Asia-Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) undersea submarine cable crippled connection speeds for users in the Asia-Pacific region on Wednesday, particularly in Singapore and the Philippines.
Users were sending updates to local forums and Twitter, complaining of slow connection speeds to sites hosted outside of the region.
According to a notice sent by Malaysian telco, TM Net, the cable fault was traced to segment 7 of the APCN2, which stretches between Shantou, China and Tanshui, Taiwan. TM Net traced the outage to Typhoon Morakot, which hit the region over the weekend.
Additionally, segment 1 of the APCN2 is also currently under repair. Repairs on segment 7 are expected to commence after work on segment 1 is completed.
TM Net said the repairs are expected to be completed by late evening Aug. 13.
Singapore operator, SingTel, confirmed the cable fault in an e-mail to ZDNet Asia, saying the APCN2’s consortium members have started restoration works and are diverting Internet traffic to other cable systems. It said the situation is expected to return to “acceptable levels” within the next 24 hours.
A status update posted on InternetTrafficReport.com showed SingTel’s Singapore gateway registered a score of only 34 points, compared to the global average “health” of network connections, which was 86 points as at 3pm Singapore time on Wednesday.
The site first started registering slower response times and packet loss in Singapore at 8pm Tuesday evening.
Cable & Wireless sent ZDNet Asia a status update at 6pm, Singapore time, noting multiple cable breaks have been also detected along the EAC (East Asia Crossing) and SMW 3 (South-East-Asia, Middle-East, Western-Europe) subsea cable networks, in addition to the APCN2.
These breaks have been concentrated specifically near Taiwan, with network traffic “adversely affected in and out of the region as a result,” said the operator.
Back in 2006, the APCN2 was taken out by a powerful earthquake in Taiwan. Internet access was reportedly badly disrupted and halted in some parts of Asia after the quake.
Source: ZDNet Asia
nudge! Instant Messenger 10
Jul 23rd
Before Tweets, FB and iPhone, there was IM. And even after that, IM will be around for the billions around the world who want to chat while at their desktops, laptops and mobile.
Believe it or not, 10 years ago in July, made its appearance and things haven’t quite been the same.
“We are really happy that users around the world have embraced Messenger” said Craig Law-Smith, Marketing Director, Online Services Group, Southeast Asia.
“It continues to be one of the favorite ways for people to stay in touch with the people who matter to them, simply because it’s just fun and easy to use.”
Back in 1999 the service first appeared as MSN Messenger and snowballed worldwide in just six months to 4.5 million users.
Today, there are more than 330 million active users and part of the reason could be the pervasiveness of Messenger which is available not just in 59 countries and 36 languages, but also on mobile phones with voice and video message options.
The strategy not to beat ‘em but join ‘em has also paid off for the Windows team with users able to link up with friends, family and everyone in between through popular networking social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
“The Windows Live Messenger offering is significantly more robust than ever before, with the introduction of features such as the What’s New feed, which allows our users to be constantly connected and updated through our partnerships with more than 20 social networking sites” said Law-Smith.
A decade since the arrival of Windows Messenger has seen more messaging services being offered by other providers, a move that can only be seen as the best form of flattery.
Looking to the next decade, the Windows team seems certain that Messenger could overtake Singapore’s current favourite form of communication – texting or SMS.
“Given that increasing numbers of consumers can now also use Windows Live Messenger on their mobile phones, we expect to see the number of instant messages sent daily to increase even further and eventually reach and overtake the daily number of SMSes sent by Singaporeans which currently stands at 60 million” says Craig Law-Smith.
Currently the chatter in Singapore through Messenger is about 51 million messages per day.
So the magic number for Windows Messenger is yet again, the perfect 10.
Source: CNA
