Software on Omid Farhang

Google updates all Chrome editions

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:48:00 +0000

h-online: Google has updated the Stable, Beta and Developer Channels of the desktop version of its Chrome browser with a number of bug fixes and improvements. The Stable Channel update closes seven security vulnerabilities, three of them rated High, and includes bug fixes. New stable Chrome versions for iOS and Android have also been released and include minor improvements. The iOS version of the browser now supports Apple’s Passbook application.

Mozilla closes numerous critical holes in Firefox 16 [Update]

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:35:00 +0000

The h-online: Following the recent Firefox 16 release, Mozilla has now detailed all of the security fixes in the new version of its open source web browser as well as in the Thunderbird news and email client. Version 2.13 of the SeaMonkey “all-in-one internet application suite” has also received fixes. In addition to adding new features, version 16.0 of Firefox closes a total of 14 security holes, 11 of which are rated as “Critical” by the project.

Symantec releases Norton 2013 security suites

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:29:00 +0000

BetaNews: Symantec has released brand new versions of its Norton security packages for Windows, Norton Anti-Virus 2013, Norton Internet Security 2013 and Norton 360 2013. It’s the first time all three packages have been updated simultaneously, while the branding has also been amended to remove all references to a date, simply naming each Norton Anti-Virus, Norton Internet Security and Norton 360, respectively.

The 2013 versions come with what Symantec describes as “five layers of patented protection”, which include stronger social networking and anti-scam protection. There’s also full, certified support for Windows 8 and the promise of better performance on multi-core CPUs.

Oracle rushes out patch for critical 0-day Java exploit

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 14:17:00 +0000

TheRegister: In an uncommon break with its thrice-annual security update schedule, Oracle has released a patch for three Java 7 security flaws that have recently been targeted by web-based exploits.

“Due to the high severity of these vulnerabilities, Oracle recommends that customers apply this Security Alert as soon as possible,” Eric Maurice, the company’s director of software security assurance, said in a blog post published on Thursday.

Maurice said that the vulnerabilities patched only affect Java running in browsers, and not standalone desktop Java applications or Java running on servers. According to Oracle’s official advisory on the flaws:

Download Firefox 15 and Thunderbird 15!

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:55:00 +0000

Cross-copied from BetaNews:

Mozilla has quietly placed major new versions of its open-source, cross-platform web browser and email client onto its download servers ahead of an official release.

Firefox 15 FINAL benefits largely from behind-the-scenes performance tweaks, while Thunderbird 15 FINAL introduces a few new features, including a new curvy user interface.

Firefox 15 FINAL’s most notable changes are performance-based. There’s faster startup on Windows PCs, plus incremental garbage collection and better management of plugins to prevent memory leaks. Other performance improvements surround WebGL enhancements.

IE 9.0.9 Available via Windows Update

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:43:00 +0000

MSDN:

The August 2012 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer is now available via Windows Update. This security update resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited any of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 on Windows clients and Moderate for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 on Windows servers For more information, see the full bulletin.

Adobe Flash Player 11.3.300.270 for Windows released to address a crash

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 09:13:00 +0000

Adobe wrote:

Today, Flash Player 11.3.300.270 for Windows was released to address a crash that was occurring in the Adobe Flash Player Update Service (FlashPlayerUpdateService.exe). There are no other fixes or changes provided with this build. This release is available for Windows only, and affects the Active X and Plug-in installers, uninstaller, and msi’s (available on the distribution page.) No other platforms are affected.

Please be aware that this release is not available from the Product Download Center (http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer) which will continue to provide 11.3.300.268. We realize that this might cause confusion for some users. Due to the severity of this issue, we decided to make this build available immediately to help customers affected by this bug. Due to logistical issues and time constraints, we were unable to update the release on the Product Download Center. The next release of Flash Player will correct this disparity. Please note that unless you have been affected by the FlashPlayerUpdateService.exe crash, both 11.3.300.270 and 11.3.300.268 will be functionally identical.

Chrome 21 arrives with new API for video and audio communication

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 19:53:00 +0000

h-online: With the release of Chrome 21, web applications can now directly access the local system’s built-in camera and microphone. Instead of requiring a special plugin, the major stable update to the WebKit-based web browser includes a new HTML5 [getUserMedia](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro/) API – currently a W3C Editor’s Draft – to provide web apps with access to the camera and microphone. For security purposes, users will be prompted to grant apps permission to access the hardware.

Urgent security update for TeamViewer

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 04:53:00 +0000

h-online: The TeamViewer developers have released updates for a potential security vulnerability discovered in the remote access tool. The company recommends that users install the security updates immediately. Versions 5 to 7 of the Windows, Mac OS X and Linux editions of TeamViewer Full and TeamViewer QuickSupport are affected. The flaw does not appear to have been discovered in TeamViewer Host.

The company has not offered any details of the vulnerability, but updated editions of the software can be obtained from the TeamViewer Download page. The new version can simply be installed over the previous installation.

Chrome 20 update fixes high-risk security vulnerabilities

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 10:03:00 +0000

Google has published a new update to the stable 20.x branch of Chrome to close a number of security holes in the WebKit-based web browser. Version 20.0.1132.57 of Chrome addresses a total of three vulnerabilities, all of which are rated as “high severity” by the company.

These include two use-after-free errors in counter handling and in layout height tracking that were discovered by a security researcher by the name of “miaubiz”. As part of its Chromium Security Vulnerability Rewards program, Google paid the researcher, who is number three in the company’s Security Hall of Fame, $1,000 for discovering and reporting each of the holes. A third high-risk problem related to object access with JavaScript in PDFs has also been corrected. As usual, further details about the vulnerabilities are being withheld until “a majority of users are up-to-date with the fix”. Other changes include stability improvements, and updates to the V8 JavaScript engine and the built-in Flash player plug-in.

Third edition of vulnerability spotter Secunia PSI

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:00:00 +0000

Version 3 of Personal Software Inspector (PSI), Secunia‘s free program updater, has been released with a much simplified user interface, enabling less technically astute users to keep their Windows applications up to date as well.

According to Secunia, the automatic updater has also been enhanced. PSI is now able to keep programs from more than 3,000 companies up to date, though, as before, PSI only cares about updates which fix security vulnerabilities. Version 3 also includes additional translations, including German. The software checks the user’s computer for outdated program versions known to contain vulnerabilities and either installs updates or provides links to download them.

Adobe updates Flash Player 11.3 to fix Firefox crashing problem

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 20:30:00 +0000

Adobe has released an updated version of its proprietary Flash Player 11.3 plugin to address a bug that caused Firefox 13 on Windows to crash for some users. The problem is believed to have been related to the recently introduced Protected Mode for the Windows version of Flash Player and the open source web browser; the new mode is designed to isolate the plugin from the rest of the system by running it in its own sandbox.

Critical vulnerabilities closed by Winamp update

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 20:29:00 +0000

With the release of version 5.63 of Winamp, Nullsoft, a division of AOL Music, has eliminated four critical security vulnerabilities in the media player. Three of these were heap-based buffer overflows in Winamp’s bmp.w5s component that could have been exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a victim’s system.

For an attack to be successful, a user must first open a specially crafted AVI file. It has been confirmed that the vulnerability affects version 5.622; other builds may also be affected. The update also addresses unspecified errors in the in_mod.dll module that could have been used to corrupt memory and could possibly result in arbitrary code being executed. Upgrading to Winamp 5.63, specifically build 3234 (5.6.3.3234), fixes these problems.

Opera 12 has been released

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:36:00 +0000

Norwegian company Opera Software has released Opera 12.00 just a few minutes ago. Opera users who start the browser on their system should see update notifications displayed to them in the next couple of hours. Those who do not want to wait that long can run a manual check for updates with a click on Opera > Help > Check for Updates. The update should then be picked up by the browser and downloaded automatically to the local system.

Sandboxed Flash Player for Firefox: Adobe Flash update closes several critical holes

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 12:53:00 +0000

The H-Online: Adobe has announced the release of an update for Flash Player on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android 3.x and 4.x, and within its own AIR runtime. The update addresses several critical vulnerabilities which involve memory corruption, stack overflows, integer overflows, security being bypassed, null dereferencing and binary planting (DLL hijacking). All, except the security bypass, could lead to code execution.

The updates also include a number of security enhancements on various platforms. The Windows version of Flash Player now offers a production version of “Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox” which brings a sandbox to the running of Flash, making it harder for attackers to get at other processes.

Microsoft revokes certificates used to sign the Flame trojan

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:37:00 +0000

Avira TechBlog Wrote:

Microsoft released Security Advisory 2718704 which revokes some certificated which apparently were used to sign the trojan Flame__.

In a blog post, Microsoft explains how they discovered that some components of the malware have been signed by certificates that allow software to appear as if it was produced by Microsoft. The certificates issued by the Terminal Services licensing certification authority, which are intended to only be used for license server verification, were also used to sign code and make it look like as if it was originated from Microsoft.

Firefox 13 Final is available for download [Link]

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 08:49:00 +0000

Mozilla Firefox 13 is available for download on Mozilla FTP servers.

Visual changes in this version is flatten buttons in toolbar, smooth scroll enabled by default, New Home Screen and a new look for New Tab page.

Download: Firefox Setup 13.0.exe [Mirror]

MD5: 89bc2ab1a1fa1e2d989d1c551f2a6ddf
Size: 15.8MB

Google releases security update for Chrome 19

Fri, 25 May 2012 09:13:00 +0000

H-Online: Google has announced an update to the stable version of Chrome, which brings the browser version to 19.0.1084.52 on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The update is a pure security update that does not include any new features – it closes nine vulnerabilities with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) rating of “High” and fixes two problems labelled “Critical” as well as two “Medium” level issues.

Many of the vulnerabilities are due to bugs in Chrome’s memory handling, such as out-of-bounds reads and use-after-free conditions, and Google points out that several of them were detected with their AddressSanitizer tool. Other bugs were fixed in Chrome’s PDF handling code and its V8 JavaScript rendering engine.

Avira update fixes Service Pack bug

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:24:00 +0000

The H-Online: Avira says that it has resolved the problems caused by a Service Pack that was released for its Windows products earlier this week. Users are advised to trigger a manual update to download the fix. Once installed, the update should prevent the program from blocking legitimate Windows applications on systems running Avira.

On Monday, Avira released “Service Pack 0” for all of its Windows products. Once the update was installed, the “ProActiv” behavioral monitoring component in Avira Antivirus Premium 2012 and Avira Internet Security 2012 blocked the execution of essential programs and trusted system processes. For example, ProActiv blocked the Windows registry editor (regedit.exe) and the task scheduler (taskeng.exe).

QuickTime for Windows update plugs security holes

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:21:00 +0000

The H-Online: Version 7.7.2 of QuickTime for Windows has been released to address a total of 17 security vulnerabilities in the media player. According to Apple, these include integer, stack and buffer overflows, as well as memory corruption issues, all of which could be could exploited by an attacker to crash the application or execute arbitrary code on a victim’s system. For an attack to be successful, a user must first open a malicious web site or a specially crafted file.