Microsoft has discontinued Plus!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/default.mspx

Microsoft has discontinued Plus! SuperPack for Windows XP and Plus! Digital Media Edition. Many of the features and tools that have been enjoyed for years now can be found in new Microsoft titles and services including Windows Vista™. For more information Click this Link
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/experiences/memories/default.mspx

The Microsoft Plus titles will be available in retail outlets while supplies last.

Customers will receive product support for up to three years from purchase date or through April 30, 2010, whichever date is reached first.

Block Third-Party Cookies in IE7

Concerning on PC security is not so easy. Installing Antivirus, firewall, spyware is not enough.If you are worried about privacy, you'll probably be worried about 3rd party cookies. Those are the cookies placed on your computer by doubleclick and all those nefarious places. Internet Explorer makes it easy to block them.
To get to this setting, go to Tools \ Options \ Privacy and then click on Advanced.

Just check the box for Override automatic cookie handling, and then select Block on the Third-party cookies radio button. All done!
Note: This should also work for IE6. But what on earth are you using iE6 for?

Download Windows Live Messenger 9.0.1407.1107 beta

The latest version of Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft has been releasedWindows live messenger 9.0 has already begun, if you still using the previous version 8.1 and try to connect to the microsoft connect page then you will be directed to the newest version so if you are a beta tester what are you waiting for? upgrade to 9.0 version now, click here to downloadAccoriding the to Microsoft website, it confirmed that windows live messenger is still offering as a free service.Please that Windown live messenger is still in beta stage, so ONLY the beta tester will be able to sign in!It’s the next-generation of MSN Messenger. Along with everything you already love about Messenger—your contact list, emoticons, instant access to your friends—there are brilliant new ways to connect and share your photos (and other stuff). As always, Windows Live Messenger is free to download Messenger and use most of its features.Developer: Microsoft License: FreewareSize / OS: 17.2 MB, Windows XP/VistaLast Updated: November 28th, 2007, 11:26 GMTDownload location: click here to download

Microsoft fake security alerts

Hot on the heels of my posting about the upcoming Patch Tuesday with its four critical patches is a report by SANS Internet Storm Center about a new scam. In this instance, the ill-doers send out fake security bulletins in an attempt to trick victims into installing malicious software on their computers.

According to Network World, the e-mail messages in question claim to be a “Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer.”

Of course, it comes with a nice little link helpfully titled “Download this update.” The rest, they say, is a case of a very unhappy IT support staff at your terminal

It might be worth noting that while Microsoft does send out notification e-mails when it comes to security bulletins, these notifications invariably link to the bulletins themselves, never to executable downloads.

Will such a scam succeed in your workplace? Or is a plethora of security systems already in place to stop it even before the user sees it? Join the discussion.

Pay attention at Microsoft Security Advisory (945713)

Microsoft is warning customers about a zero-day flaw in the process of how Windows looks up other computers on the Internet. This announcement can be read at Microsoft Technet with entitled "Microsoft Security Advisory (945713)" Vulnerability in Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) Could Allow Information Disclosure, Published: December 3, 2007

The vulnerability is a variation of one patched in 1999, and attackers could exploit it to access sensitive data and redirect users to Web sites rigged with malware. It is not considered as big a threat as more recent zero-day flaws, however.

Tim Rains of the Microsoft Security Response Center communications team said in an email late Monday that the software giant is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability in how Windows resolves hostnames that do not include a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN). He said the specific technology affected is Windows' Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) program.

The problem affects Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server; Windows 2000 Professional; Windows 2000 Server; Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition; Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition; Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition; Windows Server 2003 Web Edition; Windows Vista; Windows XP Home Edition; Windows XP Professional; Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7.

This is mainly a problem for corporate users outside the U.S, though Microsoft warned that attackers could exploit it to silently redirect users to malware-laden Web sites. Though the flaw was patched years ago, researcher Beau Butler recently discovered it in more recent versions of Windows.

Suggested action and workarounds:
Create a WPAD.DAT Proxy Auto Configuration File on a Host Named WPAD in Your Organization to Direct Web Browsers to Your Organization’s Proxy
1.Create a WPAD.DAT file that adheres to the Proxy auto-config specification. For more information on Proxy Auto-Configuration (PAC) files including a sample file, see the following MSDN article.
2.Place the WPAD.DAT file in the root directory of a web server in your organization and ensure the file can be requested anonymously.
3.Create a MIME type for the WPAD.DAT file on the web server of "application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig".
4.Create the appropriate entries in your organizations DHCP or DNS server to allow discovery of the WPAD server.

Disable Automatically Detect Settings in Internet Explorer
To disable the Automatically Detect setting in Internet Explorer, follow these steps:
1.Start Internet Explorer.
2.On the Tools menu, select Internet Options.
3.On the Connections tab, click LAN Settings.
4.Clear Automatically Detect Settings on the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings page.
Impact of Workaround: Internet Explorer will no longer automatically detect proxy settings.

Disable DNS Devolution
To disable automatic DNS devolution, save the following to a file with a .REG extension and then run regedit.exe /s from an elevated or administrative command prompt:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\DNSClient]
"UseDomainNameDevolution"=dword:00000000

For the changes to take effect, the DNS Client service must be stopped and re-started. This can be accomplished from an elevated or administrative command prompt using the following command:
net stop dnscache & net start dnscache:

Configure a Domain Suffix Search List
To create a domain suffix search list, save the following to a file with a .REG extension and then run regedit.exe /s from an elevated or administrative command prompt:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
"Search"=

Impact of Workaround: When a domain suffix search list is configured on client systems, only that suffix list is used in DNS queries. The primary DNS suffix and any connection-specific DNS suffixes are not used. The DNS resolver will not perform devolution, potentially breaking any applications or configurations that rely on this behavior.