Blog Page 258

Turkish security expert posts fully functional ransomware on Github

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

A Turkish security expert has posted the code of fully functional ransomware on open source hosting site Github. The currently undetectable ransomware is called 'Hidden Tear' and contains all the features a cybercriminal can expect from modern malware.

The malware supports encryption of files with strong AES SHA256 encryption. Once the system is infected the key is send to a server and the victim of the malware will see a text file on his desktop that contains information on how to get the files decrypted. The author of the malware also includes software that allows for decryption of files.

The actual code appears to be real although we haven't tested it. According to the expert the code has been posted for educational purposes. Nevertheless, there's a big chance the ransomware will popup in new attacks.

MPAA drops lawsuit against illegal movie streaming website Movietube (updated)

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will no longer take legal action against the illegal movie streaming website Movietube. Earlier this year studios including Paramount, Century Fox, Disney, Warner and Universal brought copyright and trademark claims against the operators of the website.

movietube

The lawsuit was controversial as the MPAA demanded that all references to the site were removed from the internet. Including references in search engines, social media and all other websites. The MPAA also wanted the site to be taken offline.

Earlier this month Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Tumblr sent a letter to the judge warning him against the demand of the movie studios. The movie studios would silently try to resurrect the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that didn't pass after heavy protest, according to the technology giants.

SOPA aimed to make it easier to block piracy on the internet, but also meant that parties that had nothing to do with piracy has to block sites.

The MPAA has now dropped the lawsuit as the Movietube operators took the website offline themselves.

Update: We received an email from a MPAA representative who writes, "I wanted to make sure you were aware, the MPAA member studios did NOT drop the lawsuit against the movietube sites.   Our letter, a copy of which is attached, simply said we were no longer seeking a preliminary injunction, as the sites are down and the preliminary injunction was not needed."

Hundreds of games not playable on Windows 10 due no support for Safedisc and SecuROM

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Games that feature copy protections like Safedisc and SecuROM won't play on Windows 10, according to a marketing manager from Microsoft. This means that hundreds of old games that are protected by these protections will no longer run on Microsoft's latest operating system.

a-ray_1

Rock Paper Shotgun reports this based on an interview which Microsoft's Windows marketing manager Boris Schneider-Johne had with Rocket Beans TV. In the interview he states, "everything that ran in Windows 7 should also run in Windows 10. There are just two silly exceptions: antivirus software and stuff that’s deeply embedded into the system needs updating – but the developers are on it already – and then there are old games on CD-Rom that have DRM."

According to Schneider Johne the copy protections like Safedisc and SecuROM integrate so deeply in the system that it would be a "possible loophole for computer viruses."

That loophole was a already reality in 2007, when a security issue in Safedisc was found that allowed local users to overwrite arbitrary memory locations and gain privileges. Even malware exploiting this vulnerability was found in 'the wild'.

Although Microsoft's decision to no longer support these protections might be good for security, there will still be a lot of disappointed users that were planning to play old games on Windows 10.

Toshiba TransMemory EXII 128GB USB3 Review

By
Antonis Sapanidis
-

Review: Toshiba
TransMemory EXII

Reviewed by: Antonis
Sapanidis

Provided by: Toshiba

Manufactured: in China

Toshiba is a name that we all know and our
readers are especially familiar with their enterprise products that we have
reviewed here at Myce. In this case however I won't be taking a look at enterprise
storage, but something more affordable which is much easier to purchase. As you
may have already expected I will be taking a look at the TransMemory EXII 128GB
USB3 flash drive. The EXII is the top of the line USB3 flash drive that Toshiba
currently has to offer, and we will take a closer look at how it performs very
soon, but first allow me to say a few words about Toshiba.

Toshiba is a manufacturer with a wide range
of products, from medical equipment to tables, laptops, TVs, and much more,
that would take more than a few pages to write them all down. Most of our
readers will know Toshiba as a leader in the storage market, and especially in
NAND technology, but to take a look at their official website and find out more
about Toshiba, their products, and their history, all you have to do is simply
click here.

So let’s start by taking a look at the
package and its contents, before moving our way to the detailed review.

Toshiba TransMemory EXII 128GB USB3 flash drive, packaging
and specifications

Let's take a closer look at the packaging
of the Toshiba TransMemory EXII USB3 flash drive.

The
front of the box has all the information that is needed.

 

At
the back of the box there are details regarding performance, compatibility, and
the warranty.

The
front side of the Toshiba TransMemory EXII is very simple and clean looking
with kind of an industrial design, which is something that I personally like.

Specifications

Let's take a look at the specifications of
the Toshiba TransMemory EXII as they appear on their website.

As we can see there are three capacities
for the TransMemory EXII, starting with the 32GB that has a write speed of
130MB/Sec, and the other two drives the 64GB and the 128GB which reach write speeds
of 205MB/Sec. All three drives can reach a maximum read speed of 222MB/Sec.

As part of the Toshiba TransMemory EXII bundle
you will also find the EXII Pad Locker Software together with the documentation
that you need, so that you can take full advantage of the security features
that it offers. The drive has a five year warranty. I won't go into further
details about the software but if you'd like further information you can take a
closer look at the PDF file that is available here.

Let’s find out more about what’s inside the
Toshiba TransMemory EXII. I will be using a tool called Flash Drive Information
which you can get from here.

We can see that the Toshiba TransMemory
EXII is using the Innostor IS903 A5 controller and the memory, as expected, is
Toshiba MLC.

Now it's time to put the Toshiba
TransMemory EXII flash drive to the test and see what it can deliver. Let's
start our tests

 

Now let's start testing the drive with
the NTFS file-system...

Intel Skylake CPUs have 'inverse Hyper Threading' to boost single-thread performance

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

The German website Heise reports that Skylake CPUs might have a special feature to boost single-thread performance, the site calls it reverse Hyper Threading. The feature pretty much combines several physical cores into a single 'Super Core'. In other words, the feature combines features and performance of multiple physical cores into a single virtual core.

skylake_spec-e7be3ad25135c830

(Credits: Heise / C'T Labs.  Translation: Kerne = Cores / Puntke = Points)

Heise found unusual behavior of the Core i7 6700K Skylake CPU when performing tests with the SPEC CPU2006 Suite. The single-thread performance of the CPU was found to be 2.4x faster than the Haswell architecture based Core i7 4790K CPU. When multiple cores and threads were tested, the difference in performance between the Skylake and Haswell CPU was a lot less. The site reports a difference of about 20% when multiple threads are used instead of about 170% between single-thread performance.

Heise speculates that Intel might have added a feature to the CPU that allows a second core to assist the first core with e.g. functional units, caches or buffers. Heise speaks about a single virtual core that is made up of several physical cores. This isn't actually something new, a similar technology was announced by the company Soft Machines at the end of 2014. This company, founded by two former Intel employees has developed a technology they call VISC.

On its website Soft Machines writes, "The VISC architecture, based on the concept of “virtual cores” and “virtual hardware threads”, enables dynamic allocation and sharing of resources across cores."

The company also promises to increase performance 2 to 4 times, which is on par with the performance increase reported by Heise. So far it's only speculation of the website, actual details on the processor are expected at the Intel Developer Forum that's held the 18th of August this year.

Firefox introduces private browsing on steroids

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

A developer edition of Mozilla's Firefox introduces a revamped private browsing feature. The new feature should make sure websites can't gather data on the users of the browser. Mozilla states the feature will make sure that all content that tries to profile an user will be automatically blocked such as analytics, social and other services that might be collecting data without your knowledge.

tp-pbm-start-page-small-FINAL

"All major browsers offer some form of experience that is labeled 'private' but this is typically intended to solve the 'local' privacy case, namely preventing others on a shared computer from seeing traces of your online activity. This is a useful solution for many users, but we're experimenting with ways to offer you even more control when they open Private windows," the browser developer writes on its blog.

Mozilla has added the possibility to unblock some elements, because some websites might appear to be broken when scripts or components are blocked.  It also offers users full control over their security and privacy with a Control Center that allows to change settings from a single place.

The same browser version also comes with a new method to verify add-ons and also Electrolysis is enabled. Electrolysis runs content in a separate process from the main browser and should make sure the browser remains responsive even when the content process isn't. The new add-on verification method should prevent users from installing malicious and fake add-ons.

Two weeks after its release Windows 10 has more users than Windows 8

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Only two weeks after Windows 10 has been officially released the operating system has more users than Windows 8, according to numbers reported by StatCounter. According to the market research company Windows 10 is currently installed on 4.01% of all systems worldwide, while Windows 8 holds a share of 3.5% .

myce-os-statcounter-augustus

When the numbers of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 are combined, Windows 10 is still far behind. Windows 8.1 is on 14.96% of all computers connected to the internet according to StatCounter. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 together take up 18.46% of the operating system market, still 14.45% more than Windows 10.

Windows 7 remains the most popular operating system with a market share of 53.36%. Windows XP, considered an outdated operating system since Microsoft no longer releases security patches for it, still holds 9.91%.

myce-os-statcounter-july

When market shares between July and August are compared, we see Windows 7,  8 and 8.1 lost 1.28%, 1.88% and 0.18% respectively. The loss in market share is likely caused because users have upgraded to Windows 10. Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users are eligible for an upgrade to Microsoft's latest operating system that was officially released on the 29th of July this year.

It's expected Windows 10 market share will rapidly grow the coming time. Microsoft is only slowly rolling out the OS and also new computers don't come with Windows 10 yet.

Interesting is also that Windows XP's market share remains pretty stable, the OS only lost 0.09%.

Reuters: Kaspersky Lab sabotaged AVG, Avast, Microsoft and others (updated)

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Reuters reports antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab sabotaged competitors by deliberately marking clean files as infected in a worldwide database. The news agency has interviewed two Kaspersky ex-employees who state that Kaspersky targeted Microsoft, AVG and Avast and other rivals.

Kaspersky fooled some their antivirus products into deleting or disabling important files because they falsely marked them as malware. The Russian antivirus developer achieved this by reporting false information to the worldwide used virus database VirusTotal.

The ex-employees even state in the interview that Kaspersky Labs co-founder Eugene Kaspersky recommended the method. He argued that some rivals copied Kaspersky technology instead of developing new technology themselves.

AVG, Avast and Microsoft confirm that unknown parties have tried to sabotage them but didn't comment on who was behind it. Kaspersky Labs also denies the allegations, "our company has never conducted any secret campaign to trick competitors into generating false positives to damage their market standing," Kaspersky said in a statement to Reuters. "Such actions are unethical, dishonest and their legality is at least questionable."

Co-founder Eugene Kaspersky also responded on Twitter, calling the story ""complete BS" and stating the Reuters journalist, "is an alien missioned to conquer the Earth - Ex-colleagues :)"

Update: Kaspersky Lab has sent us a statement:

Contrary to allegations made in a Reuters news story, Kaspersky Lab has never conducted any secret campaign to trick competitors into generating false positives to damage their market standing. Such actions are unethical, dishonest and illegal. Accusations by anonymous, disgruntled ex-employees that Kaspersky Lab, or its CEO, was involved in these incidents are meritless and simply false.

As a member of the security community, we share our threat intelligence data and IOCs on advanced threat actors with other vendors, and we also receive and analyze threat data provided by others. Although the security market is very competitive, trusted threat data exchange is a critical part of the overall security of the entire IT ecosystem, and we fight hard to help ensure that this exchange is not compromised or corrupted.

In 2010, we conducted a one-time experiment uploading only 20 samples of non-malicious files to the VirusTotal multi-scanner, which would not cause false positives as these files were absolutely clean, useless and harmless. After the experiment, we made it public and provided all the samples used to the media so they could test it for themselves. We conducted the experiment to draw the security community’s attention to the problem of insufficiency of multi-scanner based detection when files are blocked only because other vendors detected them as being malicious, without actual examination of the file activity (behavior). https://securelist.com/blog/opinions/30611/on-the-way-to-better-testing/

After that experiment, we had a discussion with the antivirus industry regarding this issue and understood we were in agreement on all major points. Read more here: https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/30613/cascading-false-positives/

In 2012, Kaspersky Lab was among the affected companies impacted by an unknown source uploading bad files to VirusTotal, which led to a number of incidents with false-positive detections. To resolve this issue, in October 2013, during the VB Conference in Berlin there was a private meeting between leading antivirus vendors to exchange the information about the incidents, work out the motives behind this attack and develop an action plan. It is still unclear who was behind this campaign.

Apple Boot Camp update doesn't allow Macs older than 3 years to run Windows 10

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

A new version of Apple's dual boot software Boot Camp doesn't allow Macs older than 3 years to install Windows 10. Soon after the release of Windows 10 a new version of Boot Camp has been released by Apple making it possible run the latest version of Windows next to OS X.  Boot Camp allows the user to select which OS to run on Apple hardware.

Front view of the MacBook Air MC504LL/A

Apple has decided that Boot Camp won't support Windows 10 on Mac's older than 3 years. On the Apple website the company writes that Microsoft's latest operating system can only be installed on MacBook Pro, Macbook Air, iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro computers that date from 2012 or later.

Computers from before that date won't be able to do a clean install of Windows 10 and also can't update from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. The decision is strange at least, Windows 10 is known to run well on relative slow hardware. Much of Apple's hardware from before 2012 would easily run the operating system and  these computers also still receive updates for OS X.

The Cupertino technology company has also decided that Mac Pro computers, equipped with high-end Intel Xeon CPUs and known to be the most powerful computers Apple offers, can only upgrade to Windows 10 if they are from late 2013 or later.

A Mac Pro from 2012 has a Quad-Core Intel Xeon CPU, at least 6GB of RAM, an ATI Radeon HD5770 with 1GB GDDR5 memory and either a 1GB SATA HDD or a 512GB SSD. These specs are more than enough to Windows 10, but nevertheless Apple doesn't support the OS on these systems.

It's unclear why Apple has decided that older models can't upgrade to Windows 10. A possible reason could be the Intel HD 3000 chip that is fitted in several Macs and Macbook Pro laptops and is no longer officially supported in Windows 10, although some users have found ways to unofficially make this happen. It's also possible that Apple is currently working on supporting more systems and will add more computers to the list the coming time.

Running Windows on Apple hardware is popular. Using Boot Camp the Apple can be used as any other PC but also still have the benefits of Mac OS X.

Pirate users of Android game Shooting Stars get 'special treatment'

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Game developer Noodlecake Studios has released a special edition of its game Shooting Stars that aims to annoy users that pirate the game. The company is distributing a version of the game through illegal app download sites that is impossible to complete, The Guardian reports.

unnamedMWV8D39U

About 11% of the users that are playing the game have a paid version of the Android app that sells at $2.99. However the majority of the users haven't paid for it but instead illegally downloaded the paid version of the game, according to Noodlecake Studios.

To counter that large piracy rate the company has released a version of Shooting Stars where the boss characters are impossible to kill. Once the player dies the game shows a notification encouraging to buy a legal version of the game.

The company knows that it will never win from the pirates, "we don't think this is an answer to piracy, or that it will be a big motivator to suddenly stop cracking games but instead, we are embracing it as a fun marketing tactic. And hey, if one or two players decide to throw us a couple bucks in the process, then we call that a win."

Lenovo laptops have rootkits installed - find out if your PC is infected

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Computer manufacturer Lenovo is using a rootkit to make sure their software remains installed, even on clean Windows installs. The rootkit is able to have the BIOS overwrite Windows system files on bootup.

LenovoLogo

An user discovered the rootkit when a file on his Lenovo laptop was automatically overwritten every time he rebooted his computer. Lenovo also states on its website that the software called Lenovo Service Engine is installed on its PCs which automatically downloads OneKey Optimizer. According to the computer manufacturer OneKey Optimizer is "powerful, next-generation system optimization software designed specifically for Lenovo computers."

Lenovo also specifically reports the software phones home but promises this is non-personally identifiable system data. The software optimizes the PC by, "updating firmware, drivers, and pre-installed apps."

The method is possible because Microsoft allows PC manufacturers to add the option to load a .EXE file to the BIOS when the system boots. This feature is called the Windows Platform Binary Table (WPBT) and is the technology that takes care of running the file just before the user logs in. WPBT is a Windows feature that can't be turned off.

Lenovo is using this technique on Windows 8. On Windows 7 the company simply overwrites the file autochk.exe which in its turn starts services and downloads updates from the internet, when available.

To make it worse, the Lenovo Service Engine contained a vulnerability that allowed attackers to install malware on the computer by using a malicious server. Lenovo patched this vulnerability with an update, however users have to installed it manually which means most users probably are still vulnerable.

Check whether your computer is using these techniques with these methods (credits to chuckup):

Windows 8(.1) & Windows 10

  • Check the Event Log for "Microsoft-Windows-Subsys-SMSS" and if there's an entry "A platform binary was successfully executed."
  • Or, check for a file with the name wpbbin.exe in the c:\windows\system32 directory, if it's there, Lenovo has a rootkit on your PC.

Windows 7

  • Go into your command line as Administrator
  • And run sfc /VERIFYFILE=c:\windows\system32\autochk.exe or /sfc /VERIFYONLY and check whether it outputs an error and/or the date matches that of your installation date. The VERIFYONLY file will tell you in which log to look.

Cisco develops free and open source H.264 and H.265 alternative

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Because royalties for the H.264 and H.265 video codec are too high Cisco is developing a new open source patent-free alternative codec called Thor. The H.264 codec is currently widely used on the internet and H.265 is gaining more and more popularity. H.265 promises to double image quality while consuming half the bandwidth and will become the codec for Ultra HD Blu-ray.

myce-cisco-logo

Where H.264 is licensed by the MPEG-LA, H.265 requires royalties to be paid to several parties. Even worse, H.265 is sixteen times more expensive than H.264 according to Cisco. And while there is an upper bound for H.264 royalties there is no such cap for H.265.

Therefore Cisco has decided to submit a video codec to the Internet Engineering TaskForce (IETF). With Thor, as the codec is called, Cisco aims to provide the web with a royalty free open source video codec.

The company has hired two video codec experts and patent lawyers to make sure that Thor will indeed be free of patents, e.g. by creating an alternative to patented technology. Although the codec is far from finished, Cisco has decided to already announce Thor and make its  source code available on the Thor Project website hoping others will join them in their effort.

DVDFab gives away Passkey for free, offers loyalty discount

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

DVDFab is rolling out a time-limited giveaway promotion to offer users the free DVDFab Passkey experience to access any DVD/Blu-ray content. The giveaway only lasts 20 days. Besides the giveaway the Chinese software developer also offers a storewide 25% discount. box

If you're in the market for DVDFab All-In-One Lifetime then this is also a good moment. We can't tell you how much discount you get as that depends on how many lifetime single products you've purchased. The more, the bigger the discount will be.

Also, anyone who purchases one of the action items can also get a 1-year free license for DVDFab Media Player.

In case you don't know, with DVDFab Passkey you can remove all kinds of protections from DVD and Blu-ray movies.

More information can be found on the DVDFab Promotion Page.

Registry hack allows installing Windows 10 on Atom based Windows 8 tablets

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

A registry hack allows Intel Atom based Windows 8 tablet owners to upgrade their device to Windows 10. Many users with the Intel SoC based tablets were unable to upgrade to Windows 10 as the upgrade tool doesn't allow them due to a compatibility issue. Affected tablets are the Windows 8 versions of devices like the Asus Vivotab (Smart), Samsung ATIV, HP Envy x2 and Elitepad,  Dell Latitude 10, Acer Iconia

According to the Windows 10 Update Tool the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator prevents Windows 10 to run on the system because the "display manufacturer hasn't made the display compatible with Windows 10".c34e0149-ed3a-4c36-96bb-feeb254fcaf9

Fortunately for Windows 8, Atom powered tablet owners there is a registry fix posted by user OlafAbram that allows an upgrade nevertheless. By changing a registry key it becomes possible to upgrade Windows 10 using the regular Windows update.

If you own a Atom tablet running Windows 8 and want to upgrade, then follow these steps:

  1. Use regedit and go to the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
  2. If the key doesn't exist then create it  by create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value with Name = AllowOSUpgrade
  3. If it already exists or if you just created, then set the Value to 1 ( or hexadecimal value 0x00000001).

Once you're done go to the control panel and check for updates in Windows Update.

Samsung reveals 16TB SSD

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Samsung has showcased its PM1633a SSD with a capacity of 16 TB and the PM1725 SSD, a NVMe drive that is able to reach up to 1M IOPS. The drives were revealed during the Flash Memory Summit currently held in Santa Clara and spotted by the German website Golem.de.

The PM1633A is a SSD that has a capacity of 15.36 TB and is possible thanks to Samsung's latest 256 Gigabit (32GB) V-NAND chip.

Samsung-PM1633a-05

(Image: Marc Sauter/Golem.de)

The Korean electronics manufacturer appears to be able to put a large number of these chips in a 2.5" form-factore. In order to get to the 15,360 GB (15.36TB) capacity there need to be 480 chips of 32GB in the PM1633a drive.

To make storage fans drool, Samsung also demonstrated a server with 48 of these SSDs with a combined storage capacity of 768 TB. The system would be able to achieve up to 2,000,000 IOPS.

P1090099

(Image: Marc Sauter/Golem.de)

Samsung also showcased the PM1725 SSD, a SSD which it claims is the fastest SSD in the world. The drive has a capacity of 3.2TB in a 2.5" or 6.4TB in HHHL  form-factor and is able to reach up to 1,000,000 IOPS. The drive connects to the system through the NVMe interface and Samsung claims it has half the latency of a drive connected through the SAS interface.

Gigabyte releases Brix firmware update to solve Windows 10 SAFE_OS error

By
Jan Willem Aldershoff
-

Gigabyte has released a firmware update for its Brix mini PC barebone that should fix issues when installing Windows 10 on the device. Many users of the device complain that they are unable to upgrade their device to Windows 10.

209ab92a-6255-47b7-9d17-f8204b1033a3

The installation of Microsoft's latest operating system fails with a cryptic error message stating, "0xC1900101 - 0x20017 The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during BOOT operation". It's unclear what's causing the issue, however a Gigabyte firmware update (.ZIP file) reportedly solves the issue.

Despite the many, many reports from Gigabyte Brix users, they are not the only one suffering from the SAFE_OS issue. Also PCs from Acer, Lenovo and Samsung are affected, however Gigabyte Brix appear to be the only consistent group of users that complains. It could be that the there is a single component that is in every Gigabyte Brix PC and in some PCs from other manufacturers.

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