Bitdefender Warns Users against Online Frauds Related To Pets

Bitdefender, one of the leading security solution vendors, is warning users against a new wave of online frauds which relates to alleged sale or relocation of pets. According to the company, this new fraud campaign is a variation of ‘advance fee’ frauds, where a fake website demands for money from the gullible users for transporting or purchasing pets. In one particular case of such, Bitdefender has spotted a company called Pets Relocation, which is supposedly “the leader in the horse relocation industry”, in an attempt of trying to trick users and steal their money.

Besides this Bitdefender warns users against other fraudulent campaigns which included criminals using phone numbers in the UK or attackers impersonating as law enforcement officer or lawyer etc. It is clear that there is a rise in number and severity of attacks. So it becomes necessary for users to install strong antivirus and internet protection software in their systems. Bitdefender antivirus and Bitdefender internet security are good products to choose in this front. However, if you are getting any problems with these solutions then it is best to avail Bitdefenderonline help or call the experts.

One good company to reach at this front is SupportBuddy. It is best known for its easy and effective support like, Bitdefender help, Sony all in one computer support, and support for other popular antivirus software etc.  

To conclude all, it is necessary for the users to stay attentive while they browse internet or exchange data. The attacks are on the rise, even the long lost attack variants rebounds again. The reported fraud campaign is one example of such.    

Importing Mac OS X Address Book Contacts Into Outlook for Mac

Your contacts are one important part of any email software or web app/service, which you use to send and receive emails. Having an address book makes sending and receiving message easier. You don’t have to enter the recipient email addresses every time, when you send an email. Nowadays many of the email clients come with an inbuilt contact list/address book. This address book, in turn comes with a handy set of features which makes managing contacts an easy task.

Outlook is one of the popular email client software, originally for Windows, and now also has a web version, as well as Mac OS X version. If you are using a Mac OS X computer and have Outlook for Mac installed in your system, then here is a small tip for you on importing Mac OS X Address Book contacts into your Outlook. It is an easy task and can be finished in two-three steps.

All that you have to do is open your Address Book, and then drag-drop ‘All Contacts’ option of ‘Group list’, which has all the saved contacts, into your Desktop. This will create a .vcf file on the desktop. Now all you have to do is, open your ‘Outlook for Mac’ and then drag drop the .vcf file into ‘Address Book’ category present in your Outlook. That’s it.

Meanwhile if you get any errors or have problems with any features of Outlook, then it is advised to avail Microsoft Outlook technical support. You can contact good companies like SupportMart and others on this front.

It is also important that you keep your data backed-up. Doing this will give you assurance that even if your system data is lost, still you can retrieve them back. Simply get in touch with good companies, which are into providing online data backupservices and get your data secured.

Researchers Discovered a Hybrid Trojan That Combines Zeus and Carberp

Recent enough the Trusteer team at IBM discovered a new Trojan variant called ‘Zberp’, which is formed by the combination of two other more notorious Trojans: Zeus and Carberp. This newly discovered Trojan draws features from both and then utilizes them for its own use.

Installing good antivirus and internet protection solutions like McAfee is a good thing to do for detecting and removing Zberp, before it infects your data. Its products are easy to use, quick, effective, and usually work smoothly. However, as with every software, you may also get problems with McAfee security software. Calling McAfeetechnical support phone number at time of need and availing their technical support is an easy way to get help. 

Focusing on Zberp, once the Trojan infects the victim’s PC, it then writes a registry key, and then removes the key at every startup and writes it again on every shutdown. This helps it to maintain its persistence on the system and makes it undetected during antivirus scan, performed at system startup. The Trojan can steal information about the computer, take screenshots and send them to criminals, and steal online accounts’ login credentials and data of online forms etc.

VIPRE antivirus 2014 and VIPRE internet security 2014 are the other two good solutions that can protect your data from Zberp. These solutions are updated with latest virus definitions. They will detect the presence of Zberp Trojan before it enters into your system. These solutions give optimal performance and a good thing is that, support for VIPRE products can be availed easily and instantly. SupportMart is one good company that provides reliable VIPRE Antivirussupport. Contact its experts and easily avail help.     

To conclude all, it is not surprising that malware writers are using and combining the codes of two different viruses or malwares. Some of them have been effective. As the source codes of both Zeus and Carberp leaked and are open to all, so this time the attackers have successfully bundled the two together and formed a new hybrid variant. Installing reliable antivirus is necessary for users, as the frequency of Trojan variants attacks is further going to increase in coming future.

Majority of businesses suppose Macs are more reliable than Windows PCs

A recent survey which was conducted on more than 200 IT decision markets, based on the attitude these professionals have towards the use of Macs in Enterprises, showed that 95% of businesses that don't currently present Macs will be likely to offer the same to employees under one condition. The condition is having access to a single central management unit that can manage both Windows PCs and Macs efficiently. The survey showed that 45% of businesses are currently presenting their employees Macs.

The survey even concluded that businesses these days are gearing up to the OS X platform by Apple and many in this line are all set to adopt newer and broader corporate adoptions.

So, for all those IT professionals who are not just ready to look and consider beyond Windows, here are some interesting facts and figures, which cannot be just overlooked

• 77% of IT professionals agreed that Macs are more reliable machine when compared to the Windows machines overall.
• 65% of respondents said Macs when compared to Windows are easier to support.
• Given the competition for talent, 65% of pros commented that presenting Macs will help in attracting more employees.

Meanwhile, the survey also threw light on what are the setbacks keeping pros from adopting Mac to its full potential.        

• 70% of respondents agreed that they do not use Macs at their offices because the expertise to manage these machines seems lacking somehow
• 68% agreed that Macs are not permitted due to its inability to run Windows apps.
• 53% even cited that absence of proper management tools is a hurdle in adoption of Macs.

The survey has only reinforced what we already were aware about. Macs are making way to enterprises but what stops these are the reluctant support offerings. Parallels, on the other hand, has worked on removing two of the biggest hurdles for Macs’ adoption in enterprises, which are freedom to run Windows applications on Mac and offering a central management unit to the IT for Macs and PCs together. Also, to erase any doubts, Mac management plug-ins by Parallels comes with a seal of Microsoft’s approval.

Microsoft is working to enable IT enterprises to manage heterogeneous environment, covering those that use both Macs and PCs.

The author is an experienced Microsoft support specialist who works at SupportMart. The company is a leading name in this scenario known to offer reliable Microsoft Tech Support that can be availed anytime and any day with just one call at the Microsoft technical Support number 1 800 793 7521 toll free.

Serious zero-day exploits emerge in all versions of IE and XP will not get a fix

After end of support for XP, hackers have now found the very first security bug that can put security of XP users at stake. It’s been just three weeks that Microsoft pulled support for its OS.

Microsoft recently announced that all versions of Internet Explorer, from IE6 to IE11, are at risk of drive-by-attacks from suspicious sites. Windows XP can run IE 6, 7 and 8 versions.

This newly found vulnerability of remote code execution, named as CVE-2014-1776, has the capability to give hackers similar user rights as the current user. It signifies that any attacker who is successful in running a PC as admin will have wide number of attacks open to them like; installing new malware on the system, adding new user accounts and altering or removing data stored on target PC. Majority of Windows users run PCs on admin accounts.

And if you till now wondered these attacks are theoretical, then think again, as a security firm has found out that the attacks are actively used in the wild. For the attack to work, a user will need to visit a malicious site trying to install the code. Microsoft meanwhile said that attacks can also trigger from sites that accept or host user-sent ads or content, where a cyber spy can insert a malicious code easily.

Microsoft still needs to decide that whether an emergency patch will be issued in the days to come or we will need to wait till May 13^th, the so-called patch Tuesday for getting repair for the versions supported of IE.

XP in the bitter

Whenever a patch is issued by Microsoft, a large number of Windows PC users do not receive the security update. Microsoft’s end of support for XP on April 8^th meant end of security updates for this aging OS. So, you can take this to be the first of post-support vulnerability, where XP users are left with no option but to find a way out, after this many such security glitches are sure to surface.

When last counted, Windows XP accounted for about 28% of PCs on a global scale, which is better than Windows 8, 8.1, Vista, OS X 10.9 and Linux users together.

Luckily this time, users of Windows XP can nullify this vulnerability by making use of a web browser except Internet Explorer. Since long, users of IE on XP are migrating to Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome as a better and safer alternative, where both browsers are doing well.

Google, meanwhile, has promised that it will continue support for XP version of Google Chrome till April 2015 and Mozilla too has not yet made any announcement about end of support for Firefox on XP. It means if a vulnerability hits any of these two browsers on XP, then a security patch is available, unlike IE.

For users who must anyhow use IE, Microsoft has advised to download and install the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) 4.1. This utility will help in protecting against any malware and is available for Windows XP PCs that have the service pack 3 installed.

You can also set IE to run in a more secured mode by opening Internet Options>Security, where you can set the slider to High option.

Saturday alert by Microsoft might be the trailer of a serious exploit already happening in the wild and which may put XP users at a permanent risk. It will not be the last one, as security experts commented. Last month, security company Avast said that Windows XP was six times more vulnerable than Windows 7 for attacks, and it was said even before the end of support for XP took place.

The author is a Browser support expert deals in providing Mozilla Firefox Support, Safari Support,

Google Chrome Support, Opera Support and Internet Explorer Support . Support can be availed at 1-888-753-5164 toll free.

Users Can Import Yahoo Emails Into Outlook

Started from April 16 2014, users of Outlook can simply import all Yahoo Mail emails and contacts into Outlook and manage them all through one single platform. This is the latest update made in Outlook. Few months back, Outlook allowed its users to import Gmail contacts and emails into Outlook. This step was quite a hit among users. So Outlook took one step further and added the same functionality with Yahoo emails and contacts.

Outlook understands that users now use multiple email accounts to send and receive emails and attachments. Separately opening each single email account one after another and then checking each mail is very tiresome and cumbersome. This process consumes lot of time. So building an email application that incorporates all different email services at one single place seems to be a viable idea and Outlook has done that.

Now Outlook users can import and manage emails from Yahoo Mail or any other IMAP enabled email providers. Gmail import tool of import wizard in Outlook now, also accommodates Yahoo Mail and other IMAP-based services. Though it was possible to import IMAP based email earlier as well, but the task was too laborious. This new tool now does all the heavy lifting, hence letting you do minimal work.

This is a feature that does make Outlook more functional and will attract more customers. Outlook is one of the best medium to send and receive emails, and in very rare cases it creates errors or issues. Simply calling at Microsoft Outlook Technical Support Number when you are having problems in Outlook account is the best way to get your issues sorted. SupportBuddy is a good company to approach. It is the best in providing effective Outlook tech support.

Summarizing all, giving users the ability to easily import Yahoo emails and contacts in Outlook is adding more to Outlook’s arsenal of features. This feature seems handy and can play important role in Outlook’s growth.     

CSA price slashed by Microsoft for Windows XP security patches

The end of support for XP by Microsoft has already happened, but the company is continuing to provide Windows XP security patches to not all, but large enterprise users, who have agreed to pay handsomely for this service.

What’s not known is that Microsoft has made considerable reduction in such custom XP patches, but the exact figure still remains untold. The company meanwhile said that the end of support for Windows XP, which was to happen on April 8^th 2014, was announced in September 2007 only. So large enterprises which have not already migrated, Microsoft decided to present temporary support patches in order to help them seamlessly switch to a more updated and secured operating system.

Its estimated that about 20 to 25 percent of enterprises are still using Windows XP and that one-third of such organizations have more than 10% of their systems still running on XP. The presence of custom applications and peripherals has made migrating to a new platform difficult and challenging for such enterprises.

In 2012, it was estimated that Microsoft was charging for extended support coverage for XP around $5million, which by the year 2013 was chopped down to about $2 million only. Even someone reported, that one of the customers at Microsoft while negotiating managed to cut down Microsoft’s quote of $85 million for a CSA agreement to just $3 million which included all devices in his organization, which were still using XP.

While as per Computerworld, the new ceiling for CSA by Microsoft has been set at around $250 per device or an entire coverage of $250,000.

Microsoft meanwhile is in a dilemmatic situation currently with respect to Windows XP and the company does not wish people to anticipate that they will be continuing to present support even after the deadline for an operating system has passed, which is 13 years old. On the other hand, there are many high-profile shops and organizations still using XP and if users here suffer security issues which gets resolved by the security patches offered by Microsoft, then Microsoft would surely look like a bad guy here.

Even with the prices slashed, the CSA aka Customer Support Agreements are still valid only for users of large enterprises. The CSA is not meant for individual users or small businesses who intend to continue running their beloved Windows XP.

Also, one thing that cannot be overlooked is that there exists a time limit for how long these security patches for XP will be offered for users paying for the CSA coverage. Microsoft is still not ready to utter a word on this part though. Also, if someone wishes to get qualified for the CSA coverage, they must have the migration plans alongside quarterly deployment milestones and an exact date about project completion.

The writer is an Microsoft support specialist at SupportMart - a Global Company offering

technical support for Microsoft . Call 1 800 793 7521, connect with a live technician remotely, and get your issue resolved instantly while speaking on the Windows XP technical support number .