Archive for July, 2009
Rogueware on the Rise
Posted by: | CommentsWith so much attention on email spam and trojans it is interesting to note that one of the fastest growing forms of malware is in fact rogueware. And not only is it becoming extremely popular, but it has also proved to be very effective.
Rogueware is basically any form of software that is represented as the genuine article, but is in fact a keylogger, virus, etc. The most common software that is used for rogueware is anti-virus software. The distribution can include less than upstanding means such as browser popups (a machine infected with other forms of malware might in fact bring up popups that direct the user to buy a certain anti-virus software) and spam, but can also be through normal marketing channels such as a web site that is selling anti-virus software. Some have even purchased Google Adwords and banner space.
How it works is simple. The victim purchases the software or downloads a trial copy and installs it on their computer. The software install then carries its payload on to the computer in the form of some type malware such as a keylogger, virus, or Trojan.
There are new variants of this that include a free scan of the computer not unlike real anti-virus companies like Kaspersky and McAfee. The free scan variant will proceed to “scan” your system all the while installing malware on your system.
In both methods, the user signs off on the software allowing it to bypass most forms of security. It might even give you a message like Norton where it says this antivirus software is not effective while other antivirus software is running please disable your antivirus software before scanning.
Now the numbers. In 2008, 92,000 different types of rogueware were spotted. In the second quarter of this year there have been 374,000 new forms of rogueware. This is double Q1 of this years number which was nearly double all of last year. The jump from 2008 Q4 to 2009 Q2 is a 748% increase and now security experts are estimating that Q3 of this year will have around 637,000 new forms of rogueware.
Superb Partners with R1Soft
Posted by: | CommentsSuperb Internet announces it will introduce a new Managed Server offering featuring R1Soft’s Continuous Data Protection (CDP) technology to bring customers around-the-clock backups.
“Our customers depend on us to deliver mission-critical managed hosting services and R1Soft CDP plays an important role in this. By having frequent CDP backups and the ability to perform bare-metal restores we can give our clients peace of mind knowing their businesses are safe from data loss,” said Patrick Ahler, Director of Business Development and Operations Manager at Superb Internet.
R1Softs disk-based data protection software works by taking point-in-time snapshots at the sector level and only recording changes made since the last backup allowing for backups to run up to every 15 minutes. With the Bare-Metal Restore feature, Superb Internet gains the ability to restore a clients data to any point-in-time snapshot for fast, efficient disaster recovery.
In addition to leveraging R1Softs CDP solution, as a member of R1Softs Hosting Partner Program (R1HPP), Superb Internet gains access to marketing resources and sales tools from R1Soft. It also receives priority technical support and volume licensing discounts.
“The Hosting Partner Program will provide Superb Internet with all of the necessary marketing tools to successfully promote their new Managed Dedicated Server solution. As a partner, we will work with Superb Internet to bring their customers the best in data protection and technical support to enhance the overall customer experience,” said David Wartell, vice president of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies.
Provider of domain registration, shared web hosting, dedicated servers, and managed hosting, Superb Internet currently hosts over 250,000 domains. Earlier this month, Superb announced the opening of their third data center strategically located in Springfield, Virginia. All three world-class data centers provide support and are staffed 24×7x365 by certified network engineers to provide the highest level of customer satisfaction.
Off Topic: On Writing
Posted by: | CommentsBy trade I am a journalist and writer. In mind, I am a voracious reader and marketer. One thing I like doing, is reading articles where people wonder how something can possibly make money. I like solving puzzles and marketing and human behavior in general, holds the puzzles I find the most interesting.
So with that lengthy and fairly unnecessary introduction, I want to talk about writing. I love writing, especially writing with pad and pen, the sounds of the scratching of the ball point as it catches on the paper, the sound of a finished page and turning a new one.Its not that I hate typing on a keyboard, but I do get tired of it. Which has lead to a series of misadventures.
Last year at HostingCon, the media room was opened to the exhibit hall, which was nice, but the main problem was noise. The noise level was so loud that all of my voice recorder files were unintelligible to the transcribers.It didn’t help that the man sitting next time me on the plane spilled his drink on my notes either. I had a notebook full of soggy pages and about 16 hours of interviews that no one could decipher. So if you add all of that to me looking into opportunities for easing my writing burden you can come to one conclusion: Papa needs a new recorder.
I decided to splurge so I got an ICD-MX20 with transcribing software in hopes that I can take the fast tract to literary poignancy…. Yeah I hadn’t thought about two problems.
The one that most people guess when it comes to transcribing software can be summed up in the following: “Google milks the goat of if not real time date in obesity in half hour hour a day he tops.” I REALLY wish I knew what I said to make the software type this out cause you really can’t make stuff like that up. So the software has a few bugs, no big deal really I am sure if I work with it longer it will eventually work out the second problem is something quite extraordinary.
I talk to myself quite often. Its how I formulate my articles and how I go about general inquiry into Web Hosting. This article in fact was discussed with myself over making some coffee and a bowl of raisin bran. So you would think simple turning a record on and copying what I say would be second nature, but its not. As soon as I turn this puppy on my mind goes blank. I noticed I say “um” and “uh” a ton. Listening to the recordings sounds like a babbling idiot. What was structured thought ends up coming out in a series of random pauses, stutterings, and a mad dash to remember dates, specific numbers, and etc. I almost want to say, “Behold the wreck that is my train of thought.”
Honestly, the files on this sucker right now is like a 7 hour long blooper reel. I may just send it off to Mitch and see if he can take out the best parts and use them for sound bites for his podcast.
Yahoo and Microsoft Again
Posted by: Dave | Comments (0)I have been trying to avoid this issue for quite sometime. Although the impact of the two collaborating on search will affect the Web development and Web hosting world , it seems to me that there are quite a few pundits and journalists out the who have already covered this at length.
However, I think some of them are looking only at the service of the deal and not at the some of the additional benefits to Microsoft or Yahoo (especially Yahoo since their stocks plummeted).
Wall street was very disappointed with the deal since Yahoo doesn’t get any cash up front, but I think it should be known that Yahoo didn’t loose anything therefore didn’t really sell anything therefore not getting a paycheck at the beginning is inconsequential. What they received was a partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft will outsource their search engine and advertising technology to Yahoo. Microsoft gains additional traffic, Yahoo can free up resources for use elsewhere.
A bigger audience doesn’t just mean that Microsoft and Yahoo will gain money through advertising, what it also means is that Microsoft can garner valuable research and can even use Yahoo (or perhaps Bing since Bing will have the smaller audience) as a test bed for developing new search features. Realistically, Microsoft and Yahoo know that this deal won’t unseat Google as the number 1 search engine juggernaut, but what it does do is give both companies the ability to become more competitive down the road.
Yahoo, for instance, can take the money they were using before for search engine R&D and move it into developing tools, APIs, platforms for their user base, etc. Or, they could use that money to research a better search engine without being under the gun to release new updates to the public. 10 years down the road when the partnership ends Yahoo would then have a search engine platform with 10 years of R&D in it. They could also simply pocket the money, save on the expense to increase their profits.
This is not some scheme to try to get number 1 in search engines quick. This is a long term strategy for mutual improvement of two companies in hopes of the eventually unseating of Google as the king of search engines.