Unilicense concept introduction

ESET introduced the concept of unilicensing when they launched the ESET family pack early this year (This family was not offered to Malaysian market). The concept of unilicensing will be applied to new product lines including the upcoming version 5 of ESET NOD32 Antivirus Home Edition and ESET Smart Security Home Edition.

What is unilicense? Unilicense concepts refers to a licensing scheme where the user is allowed to extend the protection of ESET NOD32 Antivirus or ESET Smart Security to parallel OS on his or her machine - running through a boot utility or in a virtual environment (at no extra costs). User may deploy home edition user licenses on the operating system of choice in a mix-and-match fashion.

What does this mean to consumers? Firstly, if you are a techie running multiple Operating Systems within a single machine, you will only need to purchase 1 license which will enable you to install ESET solution to several Operating Systems within the same machine. Mac users will be delighted that they will not need to pay for an extra license for the antivirus protection on their Windows virtual image via bootcamp. Finally, if you are upgrading your Windows based PC to a Mac or a Linux based PC or vice versa, you may reuse that license on your new PC so as long as the ESET software is removed from the old PC. 

What would be the limitations of unilicensing? If you purchased OEM versions, you cannot port the installation from 1 machine to another.  Unilicense works only with specific products. Check with your reseller to see if the product has unilicense feature.

Has our unilicense concept got you interested? Stay tune to the launch of ESET Smart Security 5 Home Edition and ESET NOD32 Antivirus 5 Home Edition.

ESET Smart Security & NOD32 Antivirus version 5 Release Candidate

ESET continuing its legacy has announced the release of the release candidate (RC) of ESET Smart Security and ESET NOD32 Antivirus version 5. This release will the final step in public testing before the release of the final product. 
One of the major function included in version 5 is the parental control which will allow parents/adults to define roles based on Windows login to the computer. These roles will define the content and websites accessible by the logon credential.
The introduction of the HIPS module will allow users to experience safer use of the computer without being overly reliant on virus definition. ESET's HIPS promisses to be easy to startup users and yet remain configurable for security enthusiast. 

All these new features are built on top of our promise that ESET Antivirus product will remain to be the most balanced solution in the marketplace incorporating practival feature and excellent detection ability.

Check out the new ESET version 5 here

Anonymous threatens www.malaysia.gov.my

The Star carried an interesting but serious news on a credible threat aimed at the Malaysian official government website www.malaysia.gov.my

Malaysian governments websites have been targeted in the past and were mostly defacement of the websites. The most recent last large scale defacement involved the controversy of the tourism video advertisement done by the Tourism Ministry of Malaysia which accidentally include scenes from a traditional Indonesian dance as part of the Malaysia heritage. This spark an outcry from Indonesia to protest of the 'hijacking' of heritage including mass defacement attacks on government and webpages affiliated to Malaysia.


The group Anonymous has been identified as the attack group and plans were posted online detailing date and time  and the specific target of the attack.

 
Anonymous was thrown into the limelight for the alleged involvement in attacks on Sony Playstation Network (PSN)
 
We will be monitoring this threat and update the blog accordingly.

Update: 15 June 2011
CyberSecurity Malaysia has confirmed that they have received complaints and are viewing the threat very seriously. A high level meeting between the security agency and other government agencies including the NSC (National Security Council) was held in relation to this threat.

The cause cited by Anonymous for the planned attacks is that that act of banning 10 file sharing websites in Malaysia by government is the root cause for the planned attack. Furthermore, RIM(Recording Industry of Malaysia) now wants to add more to the list of banned sites.

Update: 16 June 2011
Several state related websites were defaced as of this morning. These defacement activity does not look like the work of the group Anonymous but opportunist.

The website malaysia.gov.my is unavailable as as 0850am. 

Update 17 June 2011

Malaysia.gov.my is finally back up and running. The Star reports that 91 websites were compromised with 50 belonging to the government. Speculation is rife that the administrators of malaysia.gov.my had intentionally pull the plug on the website to preempt the supposed attack. 

I suppose the element of surprise is gone when you publicly announce that you are going to attack someone. Read Randy's blog about who Anonymous is and the irony behind the name.

Letting this case rest in peace.

New Mac Scareware bypass basic install security

The Register has reported that a new of the Mac scareware, MacGuard is able to bypass the need for authentication to install software by virtue that most users have assigned themselves administrator rights. The new variant installs onto the Application folder instead of the Download folder thus being able to bypass authentication.

ESET's David Harley was quoted as saying "that all advice along the lines of “treat as suspicious all unexpected requests for the administrator password in order to install something you weren’t expecting to install” require expansion."

This is very true as most Windows users are already accustomed to various devious methods for malware in attempts to infiltrate the machine. Unfortunately, Mac users have been accustomed to think that they have no need to worry about risk. The question of whether Macs needing protection is no longer a debatable issue. 

We urge Mac users to ponder and reconsider if they think that Macs are safe.


ESET blog on MacDefender and its siblings here.
ESET NOD32 Antivirus Mac is available for 30 day evaluation download. Link here 
 

Profesional malware generator

The guys at F-secure have found blogged about an interesting observation regarding availability of Zeus bot and it core components to operate the botnet for sale for $500. The original article here [link].

Picture from F-secure

It comes complete with the necessary programs to operate the botnet including a well written manual on how to use it. it even has a change log to denote updates and progress on the entire program. 

Computer security companies have been trying to get people to understand that the malware scene has completely evolved from a bunch of intelligent kids out to prove a point to professionals out to make profits from such activities. This is proof of the money chain in malware activities.

Interestingly at the other end of cybercriminals, The FBI in USA are also employing spyware which is claimed to be for legitimate law enforcement use. Codenamed CIPAV, is planted on suspected criminals to monitor their online activities. SC Magazine has an article [link] on this matter and it pretty much confirms that security industry players are not part of this. Do we detect this spyware? Your guess is as good as ours.
 
This blog is maintained by Basic Gateway as the distributor of ESET products in Malaysia since 2005.

Japan tsunami scam

I received an email several weeks ago after the japan earthquake and tsunami occurred. This email came to me as out of the ordinary as the email states that she is a survivor of the quake and is now in Malaysia and seeking donations of any amount through her Malaysian friend.
See the email I received below.

I noted several problems with her story. 

1. She claimed she was assisted by Malaysian rescuers and sent to Malaysia. This is highly an unlikely possibility as the Malaysia SMART team reportedly not on the earthquake zone due to logistic issues as reported here. 
2. Furthermore, she could not have been sent to Malaysia as survivors were sent to local shelters in the Fukushima
3. She even has option for Western Union transfer and the information given seems to be very incomplete.

ESET in its monthly global threats report wrote about similar schemes going round in light of the Japan disaster. I urge you to read on before deciding. The threat report can be found here