Critical zero-day vulnerability endangers Windows users

Security researchers have discovered a critical zero-day gap in Windows and Office, respectively. Hackers use the hole to install RTF document on remote systems. Microsoft is already working on a solution.


Recently, the security experts from McAfee and FireEye announced a zero-day gap in Microsoft Office. This makes it possible for hackers, for example, to play with a simple Word document, malware on the PC of their victim.


The file is usually sent as an e-mail attachment. After the file is opened, an exploit code is executed. This connects to the hacker's server. These then unintentionally load an HTML application file (HTA) disguised as Microsoft RTF (Rich Text Format) onto the affected computer.


The HTA file is now automatically executed by the attackers and thus take full control over the compromised device. Subsequently, the criminals can download additional payloads from various known malware families.


Microsoft is working to fix the problem


Windows 10 is considered to be the most secure version of the operating system from Redmond, but this zero-day attack also works on this OS. Microsoft is aware of this vulnerability, according to the researchers. The company has therefore announced a security update for this Tuesday.

Security researchers advise not opening unexpected e-mail attachments, even if the sender is known. The "Office Protected View" function promises additional protection. In this view, the malicious file does not work.


Office Protected View


To check whether the security option is enabled in Office, first open the "File" tab. Then click on "Options" and the "Security Center" menu point. Select the "Security Center Settings" option. Now you just need to click on "Protected View". In the right-hand window, check that all boxes are ticked. If this is the case, Office Protected View is enabled.

BrandedLogoDesigns Report : QHD resolution and pure computing power

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Whether the intrinsic values ​​are true, will show: speculations show that the display with a QHD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. So the Galaxy S8 would be best suited for use with VR glasses. At the same time, the device is to be certified for Google's Android Daydream VR standard.

This, in turn, requires a lot of computing power: in the US, the new Snapdragen processor 835, according to media reports, will be available in the new Samsung smartphone. In Europe, on the other hand, a Samsung-owned Exynos processor is to be installed.

Further speculations are around the camera. Just like other manufacturers such as Apple or Huawei, Samsung will probably also put the Galaxy S8 on a dual camera, which is to offer a resolution of 12 megapixels. The frontcam is to resolve with 8 megapixels. Whether the 3.5 inch jack socket disappears, as the website 9to5google has speculated earlier, remains to be seen.A dust and splash water protected housing, an iris scanner, 4 GB memory as well as the possibility of cordless charging are included in the further equipment list.

Samsung under pressure

After the disaster around the Phablet Galaxy Note 7 the South Korean electronics group Samsung is under pressure. All eyes are aimed at the new smartphone flagship Galaxy S8, to which two Herkulesaufgaben belong.


On the one hand, it has to flush money into the cash registers after Samsung has suffered a damage of US $ 17 billion through the Note-7 debacle. On the other hand, consumer confidence in the Samsung brand has to be strengthened.


Whether this can be achieved will be shown on 29 March 2017. Then Samsung will introduce its new superphone officially to the public.

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BrandedLogoDesigns Report: Facebook: New opportunity for Aquila drone

Second chance for Aquila: The Internet-drone from the company of Facebook may rise again after their break-down landing during the first flight.
Facebook wants to get his Internet drone "Aquila" back into the air after the crash landing during the first flight last summer this year. "We will be flying a lot more this year," said Facebook Manager Jay Parikh at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Facebook's drone "Aquila", which was supposed to provide air links in remote areas, had been badly damaged during the failed landing after the maiden flight. The drone had stayed in the air for over an hour and a half in low air instead of the scheduled test duration of 30 minutes. At the landing approach, there was then strong turbulence, according to a report from American crash investigators - and a wrong decision of the autopilot software resulted in a several meter long section of the wing broke. Seconds later, the drone hit the ground at a speed of about 45 kilometers per hour. Facebook stressed at the time that you had valuable experience in the flight and will correct the error.

Google gives up

Meanwhile, it was announced in January that the Google Mother Alphabet had abandoned its competing project to deploy large drones to the Internet. The technical challenges are too great. Alphabet continues to pursue the goal of building an Internet supply from the air. The "Loon" ballons of the company are better suited for this than the drones, they said. Google had bought 2014 the drones developer Titan Aerospace, which also wanted to have Facebook.

Parikh, on the other hand, emphasized that Facebook is sticking to the "Aquila" crop project. The aircraft should remain autonomous for several months.

BrandedLogoDesigns Report: Samsung's Galaxy tablets are based on productivity

As expected, Samsung in Barcelona did not show the new smartphone flagship S8, instead, there was the Galaxy Tab S3 a new tablet top model to see.

With two new devices from the notebook and tablet class, Samsung wants to make the debacle around its brand-new smartphone Galaxy Note 7 at the Mobile World Congress. The new Tablet Galaxy Tab S3, which Samsung presented on Sunday, is to claim with high-quality design and sumptuous equipment especially in the upper class, which dominates Apple with its iPad. The tablet market had recently been under pressure, the sales declined.

In the premium market of high-quality tablets, Samsung still see a lot of air, said Samsung manager Brandon Jung on Sunday in Barcelona. The device with Android operating system is designed for both entertainment and productivity. The back is completely in glass. The Amoled screen is designed to reproduce images in brilliant colors (HDR, High Dynamic Range). Plugged into a keyboard, the device can also be used as a laptop replacement. "Despite the challenges that the tablet market as a whole brings, we see a clear dynamic in the premium segment," said Martin Börner, Managing Director of Samsung Germany.

With the Galaxy Book Samsung also presented a so-called convertible, which is equipped with Microsoft's operating system Windows 10 and Intel processor (Kaby Lake). The input on the 10.6 or 12 inch screen is made either via the keyboard or with the help of a stylus, which haptically gives the impression of actually writing on paper. Two separate surfaces can be set up - for example for private and professional use, which can be changed immediately with a finger wipe with the finger. If you switch the keyboard back, the display automatically changes to Tablet mode.MWC without Galaxy S8

With his Phablet Galaxy Note 7, Samsung had experienced an unprecedented debacle in September. After repeated fires the group took the device, which was considered a challenger for Apple's iPhone 7 plus, finally completely from the market, the damage is estimated at approximately 5 billion euro. According to the results of a comprehensive investigation by Samsung, the fires had occurred due to faulty lithium-ion batteries.

At the mobile phone congress in Barcelona, ​​for the first time in years, Samsung does not shine with a new smartphone model. The Galaxy S8 will introduce the company on March 29th. It remains to be seen how successful the competitors and above all the newcomers from China are taking advantage of this time gap.

BrandedLogoDesigns Report: HP Inc. benefits from strong PC business

The recovery of the stifling PC market is also benefiting from HP Inc. The Group was able to record significantly higher profits in the last quarter thanks to the strong PC business.
The IT group HP Inc. is profiting from the recovery of the PC market after years of downturn. In the past quarter, Hewlett-Packard, a computer-aided successor in the computer-related market, recorded a revenue increase of four percent to 12.7 billion dollars. The profit climbed from 592 to 611 million dollars in the end of January to the end of January, according to HP Inc. after Wednesday's stock market closing.
Revenue in the PC market is growing significantly
The decisive factor was the development on the PC market. The division's sales rose ten percent to $ 8.2 billion. Notebook sales increased by 12 percent, while sales of desktop computers remained stable. Most recently the exchange of computers in the company with the change to the operating system Windows 10 had given the market a boost. At the same time Christmas gaming PCs ran well in the consumer business.
On the second leg of HP Inc, the printers, it ran less smoothly. Sales of the division declined by three percent to 4.48 billion dollars. The reason was declining prices, as the sales of printers to companies increased by two percent and consumers by seven percent.

BrandedLogoDesigns Report: IBM is launching Watson for Cyber Security

AI Watchdog for More IT Security: Since the end of last year, IBM has been feeding its IT Cognitive Intelligence system, Watson, with IT Security documents to help it isolate relevant security messages from irrelevant "false positives" . Now Big Blue Watson for Cyber ​​Security has officially started. The solution is intended to support employees of the Security Operations Center (SOC).

And they also need the support. According to IBM, IT security teams have to process an average of more than 200,000 incidents, which are delivered daily by cyber security systems such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems. This leads to 20,000 hours per year, which the highly qualified specialists with falsify, chasing false alarms, as IBM pre-calculates. As the number of incidents will double over the next five years, intelligent, cognitive systems such as Watson will soon be an important part of any SOC.

Cognitive SOC platform

Watson for Cyber ​​Security will also be an integral part of IBM's Cognitive SOC platform. The solution is IBM's QRadar Advisor with Watson, a tool that leverages Watson's knowledge base on cybersecurity.
In addition, IBM is releasing a chatbot, which enables customers of the Managed Security Services to be connected to the experts of the global IT security research team X-Force Command Center. Under the project name Havyn, a language-driven assistant is to be developed, who is to provide IT-security relevant information, almost a kind of Siri for cybersecurity questions.

"Today's cybersecurity threats are very sophisticated, and they are running across various fronts for disguise tactics," says Sean Valcamp, CISO, of our security analysts, who are becoming more and more difficult to identify attacks in a sea of ​​security data Avnet, one of 40 customers who already use the Security Watson. "Watson makes the obfuscation efforts more difficult by analyzing multiple data streams, comparing them with current known attack patterns, and quickly generating security reports that allow my people to respond quickly to attacks," explains Valcamp.

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BrandedLogoDesigns Report:Microsoft: 15% discount on Surface Pro and Surface Book

A little unusual is the combination of Valentine's Day, traditionally actually the feast of all lovers and the flower trade, with technology offers already. Still, it is worth looking at today's Valentine's Day action from Microsoft: Whether single or in a relationship, who is fondling with the purchase of a surface model, the two offer models should look more closely.
On February 14, 2017, Microsoft granted a 15 percent discount on the Surface Pro 4 with a Core i5 processor and the SurfaceBook with Core i5.
For example, the Surface Pro 4 in the equipment variant with 128 GB of memory and 4 GB of RAM costs currently 934.15 Euro instead of the regular 1.099 Euro. The SurfaceBook with 128 GB and 8 GB of RAM is offered for 1.401,65 Euro instead of 1.649 Euro. Also on the models with 256 GB storage space is the discount. Condition is only the i5 processor.
The Microsoft Store does not provide an exact indication of how long the rebate action will run. On the homepage, it is only in the headline "Today for Valentine's Day".

BrandedLogoDesigns Report:Iranian malware attacks Windows and Mac PCs

With a simple trick, the MacDownloader accesses passwords. The malware is intended to have employees of US armaments companies and human rights activists.

Disguised as an Adobe Flash installer and BitDefender adware removal tool, the MacDownloader malware attempts to pass passwords to its creators. This is what the two security researchers Claudio Guarnieri and Collin Anderson write in a report.

After the installation, the MacDownloader tries to get the victim's passwords using a fake system dialog, and then forwards the Apple keybund to the attackers. These are said to come from Iran, according to security researchers.

The two researchers describe the malware as the "first attempt of an amateur developer". Because the MacDownloader was sloppily programmed and the system dialogs full of writing errors. The harmful software is nevertheless dangerous: according to computerworld.com, the virus database VirusTotal did not recognize the MacDownloader.

Armaments companies and human rights activists

Guarnieri and Anderson explain that the malware appeared on a fake website of the American aviation company United Technologies. The site was used in a spear-phishing attack via email to spread Windows malware. Meanwhile, the pest also attacks Mac computers.

The main target was the first of US armaments companies such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who were lured into the trap on the fake website with free courses and programs. Later, the malware, according to the security researchers, had also targeted human rights activists. These, especially in Iran, are becoming more and more reliant on Apple products for security and stability reasons, and may therefore be better protected against malware.

Brandedlogodesigns Report:Virus scanners compromise HTTPS connections

Many antivirus programs monitor encrypted HTTPS connections, causing security problems. This includes products from Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Avast.

Just recently, the former Firefox developer Robert O'Callahan warned in a blog post before antivirus software, which deeply in the systems nestles and rather damages than protection offers. A researcher has now found that antivirus programs and company proxies often interrupt TLS encryption, thereby reducing their security when scanning content from web pages for malicious software.

As the colleagues of heise.de write in a report, the researchers showed that 13 out of 29 investigated anti-virus programs in the encrypted TLS connections. Almost all of them worsened the security of the connection, often even massive security problems could be detected. Avast software, BitDefender, BullGuard, Dr.Web, Eset, G Data and Kaspersky even allowed direct attacks on the secure connections. 

Security applications for the inspection of TLS connections were similar in the study - 11 out of 12 products weakened the connection security, partly because some of them still use the obsolete cryptostandard RC4. In addition, the number of monitored connections was much higher than the researchers expected. 

Around eight billion TLS connections with the Firefox update service, with several popular e-commerce sites and with cloudflare investigated the researchers. 

Antivirus manufacturers must improve 

In their publication the researchers write that the problem is well known in the security industry, but is largely ignored and underestimated. They also call on the manufacturers of anti-virus software to adapt their security precautions.

BrandedLogoDesigns Report:Tech companies oppose Trumps entry ban

Nearly 100 US companies, including Facebook, eBay, Google and Apple, have spoken out against the entry ban of Donald Trump. They submitted an opinion to the Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

After the delicate defeat of US President Donald Trump in court, the legal dispute about his migration policy continues. The government had Monday to midnight (CET) to submit a detailed reasoning for their views at the San Francisco Court of Appeals. Previously, the plaintiffs had already submitted detailed arguments against the entry bar, the states of Washington and Minnesota.

Meanwhile, former US top diplomats, including former foreign ministers John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, have also put themselves on the side of the opponents of the entry ticket. The security situation in the US is not being improved, but argued, because of the visas for people from Muslim countries.

Tech industry sees itself massively impaired

In addition, representatives from 97 technology companies, led by industry heavyweights such as Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, interfered in the discussion and explained that their staff was severely affected by the spell. The lawyers of the federal states had previously argued that families were torn apart, young people were prevented from studying and companies were harmed.

Among the companies are also Ebay, Intel, Netflix, Twitter and the snapchat operator Snap. The participation of the jeans company Levi Strauss and the yogurt manufacturer Chobani point to the possibility of a wider coalition far beyond the borders of Silicon Valley. At the same time, some prominent names from the tech industry such as Amazon, IBM, Oracle, Yahoo or Tesla are missing.

A federal judge in Seattle initially suspended the Trump decree on temporary entry restrictions for citizens from Muslim countries on Friday evening (local time) at the request of the Justice Ministers of both US states. An appeals court in San Francisco also rejected the request of the Ministry of Justice for immediate reinstatement. It instructed the parties to submit more detailed arguments. Trump now announced via Twitter that he would now impose stricter border controls.

Also from the sports world came resistance against Trumps policy. Thus, the freshly baked Super Bowl winner and Patriots player Martellus Bennett announced not to accompany his team to honor the White House. Traditionally, the winner of the American Football League final will be received there by the President.

Trump himself fought his reputation on Monday morning. He felt compelled to make clear that he was still holding the threads of the White House. "I make my own decisions, mostly on the basis of data," he wrote. Several media, including the "Time" magazine, had suggested that Trump had become the marionette of his advisors - especially the right-wing media manager Stephen Bannon and the right-wing conservative politician Stephen Miller.