Is Windows 8 Really Secure? Analysis of Security Flaws and Vulnerabilities of the Latest Product From Microsoft

security icon

If you are using the Internet Explorer, Office Excel, True Type Fonts, IIS, or the now out-of-date Windows Briefcase, your computer may be subjected to security attacks.

No sooner has Microsoft released its Windows 8 and RT versions than the security flaws of this OS were revealed. At the beginning of this month, Microsoft’s Security TechCenter revealed the possible security flaws on Windows 8 and has released necessary patches. Here is what you need to do to immediately secure your Windows computer.

If you wish to get notifications on any of the latest Windows security issues, subscribe to this newsletter.

Most of these issues cause ‘remote code execution’ that helps an attacker, such as a hacker or a virus, work on your system like it belongs to him. On computers, the attack by a virus occurs when you start a program, and this program is an executable file (one with the file extension .exe or .dll in some other cases).

When a program is executing on your computer, it has a lot of privileges—disk access to read data stored on the computer, memory operations, processor access, etc. If the executable file is a virus, it could access the disk to steal information, operate on the memory to crash other programs, or act on the processor to crash Windows 8 itself.

When you try to recover from such a crash, you may find out that the virus has replicated all over your system causing havoc. Here, I have a list of applications that could cause security loopholes on your computer.

1. Internet Explorer Vulnerability

Three reports have surfaced since the release of Windows 8 on vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer. This affects Internet Explorer version 9 on various versions of Windows. The loophole gives a hacker permission to access your system and work on it with the same privileges as you have. If you are the administrator, the hacker can become the administrator on your computer if you get attacked.

Microsoft has released a security patch to cover this vulnerability here.

2. Briefcases in Windows

 

Microsoft Briefcase

If you are still using this functionality of Microsoft Windows, be careful. The current vulnerability found in Briefcases could open security loopholes.

So what is Briefcase in Microsoft terminology? Simply right-click in a folder and select the ‘New’ option and you will see ‘Briefcase’ as one of the things that you can create. It is a file synchronization tool (just like the Dropbox app you install in your computer for remote synchronization with your cloud storage provider). The Briefcase is equipped to provide 2-way synching with another folder that you choose (mostly belonging to the mobile PC).

In order to secure your briefcase, do not open it or work with it before applying this Microsoft Briefcase patch. The vulnerability is not applicable to Windows RT though.

3. .NET Framework

.NET Framework is a technology that forms the basis of Windows application development. That means, in order to run a lot of Windows applications, you have to have .NET Framework installed. They include high productivity apps, certain games, etc.

You may not know if you have it installed, but there is a way to find out. Simply go to Control Panel->Programs and Features. You will get a list of applications installed on the computer, and among them you can find .NET Framework if installed.

In order to secure this application, download the patch here.

4. Issues With Documents and Fonts

Do you know that you can embed executable code on a document such as a Word document or and Excel Spreadsheet? Such code snippets could create interactivity on your document as well as prove drastic if the code is malicious. This could simply make way for remote code execution.

If you are unsure of the documents you are downloading from the web, do not download them. Also, certain websites may embed unusual fonts in your system without your knowledge. This could also pave way to remote code execution, thwarting the security of your Windows computer.

In order to make your documents and fonts secure, install this Microsoft patch.

5. Microsoft Excel

A part of the Office Suite of Microsoft, Excel is a highly acclaimed spreadsheet program. Do you know that even a spreadsheet file you download from an unknown location could inject malicious code that may make your computer insecure?

Four reports have surfaced regarding the security issues of Microsoft Office, specifically Excel. Microsoft has released this patch to secure the application.

6. Internet Information Services

Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) is a web server, and on most of the client systems, it may not even be turned on. This is an application that websites running Microsoft Windows operating system at the server side use. It is hence most probably dormant on your computer. Still, if you are unsure, you can find out from Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs->Windows components (Win XP) or Programs & Features->Turn on Windows Features (Win 7).

If IIS is turned on in your computer, you should install this patch to fix issues with it.

In order to download the patch go here.

Conclusion

As Microsoft has become mostly secure, people don’t worry much about the operating system. Also, if you have a third party antivirus application, your system should be secure. One other thing you should make sure is browsing secure websites and not downloading unknown data. Most of your computers have Windows Update service turned on and the system will automatically update all necessary Windows 8 security updates. If in case it is not enabled on your computer, you should download these patches.

[Image credit: bios-mods.com, SoftIcons]

What Is an Android Phone?

android robot

So, here it is: Android is an operating system (the software) that runs on a phone, and phone is just your regular smartphone. Now in detail…

You know, even if something becomes insanely popular there will always be people asking what it is… Last week someone told me that they heard about a new company called ‘Google’ and the big thing about it was that it makes mobile phones. ‘Maybe made-in-china type dimwit phones,’ that someone told me.

A lot of the phone users out there (smartphone users and regular mobile phone users) are readers of this blog. In that case, most people assume that people know what Android is, what iOS is, and so on. However, there are people who are new to this industry and are always wondering what these mobile technologies really are? Here is an introductory post into Google’s Android operating system telling you exactly what an Android phone is.

In order for a phone to work, it needs hardware as well as software. Without software, a smartphone is essentially brick. With software, it is a communication, business, & entertainment tool, essential today. There is a number of software running on smartphones today—Apple’s iOS, Microsoft’s Windows Phone, RIM’s BlackBerry, etc. Such software that powers the entire device is known as operating system. Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world.

The Mobile Operating System Known as Android

 

Google owns and controls Android, the most popular mobile operating system in the world. It powers 47 per cent of the smartphones in the US market (by Dec 2011). Here is the statistic given by Comscore, and it literally shows the progress Android has made in recent years.

north american os statistics

old phone new phone

The other interesting things you see are the decline of Symbian (Nokia) and Palm and the steady growth of Apple iOS along with Android. RIM BlackBerry is still ticking, but for how long…

Look at the phone you have: you can call your friends with it, you can receive calls, you can probably listen to music, and you play games as well, depending on the features available on it. Whether you are using the obsolete Nokia 1100 that can do nothing other than calling, or the latest iPhone 5 that can run any of the 700,000 apps in the Apple store, the phone is distinguished by two factors—the hardware and the software.

Now, in terms of hardware, phones like Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S3 have no competition, but have you ever wondered why people go for the iPhone, a Windows phone, a BlackBerry, or an Android phone?  It is the difference in the software that runs in the phone that determines what people want. The software program that powers a phone is known as a mobile operating system. Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone are all operating systems.

There is only one difference between these OSes (and this concerns businesses rather than end users)—Apple makes iOS available only to its products, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, etc., Microsoft makes Windows Phone available to manufacturers at a specific fee, and Google makes Android available to any manufacturer at no cost.

Now other apparent differences in interface and applications available are there which are beyond the scope of this article.

A Brief History of Android

 

There was a company named Android Inc. in 2003 that started developing a mobile operating system for smartphone manufacturers. It was started by four people—Andy Rubin (a former employee of Apple and Philips), Richard Miner (who used to be a VP at Orange and is now an investment partner for Google Ventures), Nick Sears (who used to work at T-Mobile), and Chris White (who pioneered WebTV technology).

In the beginning itself, Google smelled the startup and went in to finance the development. Google was acquiring unusual number of patents related to mobile technologies these days indicating its immediate entry into the mobile business. Android Inc., started building a mobile operating system based on Linux in secrecy to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Symbian from Nokia. Google acquired Android and the operating system was released in 2007, along with the formation of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA).

OHA is a collaboration of 84 multibillion dollar companies worldwide, including Google, Samsung, Intel, T-Mobile, NVidia, HTC, LG, Sony, Acer, Lenovo, etc. Google heads the development in Android currently.

The first Android phone, HTC Dream was released in 2008, and proved to be a disappointment. iPhone had become a phenomenon by then, literally!

Then came Motorola, looking for an opportunity to come back into mobile business (which it was about to close up due to intense competition), and that gave birth to Motorola Droid, a runaway success that established Android as the next big thing in mobile operating systems.

The success of Android made other manufacturers jump into this new OS. Google started its own series of smartphones by 2010 named Nexus. Google gives the contract for manufacturing Nexus phones to various manufacturers—Samsung, HTC, LG, etc.

Google markets Android with Apache license, which gives permission to anybody to freely modify and distribute Android for profit. This is the reason behind Android’s immediate business success. Imagine an operating system like iOS; Apple has iron fist around it. Apple controls the hardware and the software and the third party apps that run on iPhone. But with Android, anybody can create anything to run on it, and any manufacturer can release any modification to the operating system. It is that flexible. And it enjoys continuous development unlike iOS.

Version History

 

Android releases are named after a dessert. I don’t know who came up with that convention. May be it’s inspired by Apple’s convention of naming its operating system after animals. Here are the major versions of Android…

Android Beta: released 5 Nov 2007

Version 1.0: released in Sept 2008. The first Android device was HTC Dream.

Version 1.5 (Cupcake): 30 Apr, 2009. This is the first version to be named after a dessert.

Version 1.6 (Donut): 15 Sept, 2009

Version 2.0 (Éclair): 26 Oct, 2009. Version 2.1 Éclair was used for the first ever Google phone, Nexus One, manufactured by HTC.

Version 2.2.x (Froyo): 20 May, 2010

Version 2.3.x (Gingerbread): 6 Dec 2010; along with this the Nexus S (manufactured by Samsung) was released (second phone in Google Nexus series).

Version 3.x (Honeycomb): 22 Feb, 2011; this is not a smartphone OS, but a tablet OS. Several tablets including HTC JetStream, Lenovo ThinkPad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, etc., use Honeycomb.

Version 4.0.x (Ice Cream Sandwich): 19 Oct, 2011. This is a smartphone OS with capability of 1080p HD video recording. The Galaxy Nexus (Samsung) was released with this update.

Version 4.1, 4.2 (Jelly Bean): 27 Jun, 2012; Jelly Bean update makes Android more user-friendly and fast. LG-manufactured Google Nexus 4 released very recently includes 4.2 Jelly Bean update.

usage stats of various android versions
Android version usage statistics

 

Phones & Tablets to Choose From

 

Android as we saw earlier is the most popular mobile operating system in the world. All major manufacturers, Samsung, HTC, Acer, Dell, LG, etc., have Android-powered devices. Tablets and smartphones!

The latest Nexus was released by LG. It is an amazing phone with great features. Probably the first ever phone with 2GB RAM, it packs power. Processor is quad-core 1.5 GHz; display is 4.7 inch LCD IPS; 8MP camera, etc. However, the disappointment is in the available storage options which include only 8 GB or 16 GB.

google nexus 4

 

The most popular phones running Android include Galaxy S3 from Samsung and HTC One X.

Tablets that you can purchase include Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Sony Tablet S, Lenovo ThinkPad, and Galaxy Tab from Samsung.

Why Should You Buy an Android Phone?

 

There is no specialty to Android devices or the operating system. There is nothing that Android offers that other operating systems can’t. The bottom line: it’s just another mobile operating system and it can run applications just like any other. Then why has Android become so popular and why are people buying them?

Android is a manufacturer’s dream. It is available for anybody without any fees. And anyone can make modifications to the operating system and create their own version of Android. This is the reason why HTC could come up with Sense UI (a user interface overlay on basic Android) and Samsung has its own overlay known as TouchWiz.

Previously Nokia-owned Symbian platform provided this freedom until when it had to restrict the license due to proprietary parts within the OS. That literally caused the end of Symbian.

Since all manufacturers can develop devices based on Android, there is a huge array of smartphones to choose from with enormously wide range of features—displays as big as five inches, processors as high as 1.5 or 2 GHz dual and quad core, memory as high as 2 GB. Compare this with Apple iPhone 5 (4-inch display, 1.3 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM).

iphone 5 vs galaxy s3

 

Besides this, you can get thousands of apps from the Google Play store (official app store of Android). Since Android platform allows seamless development, you can see all kinds of software at the Play Store.
evolution of cellphones
This is the reason why people who like diversity and better hardware and software features opt for Android.

Conclusion

 

One million activations per day! That’s what Google’s latest update says about Android. Due to its wide availability and portability, Android has become a manufacturer’s dream. With seamless integration to Google and its services, Android smartphone is inevitable for anybody who regularly uses Google.

[Image credit: ITProPortal, Wikipedia, AbovetheCrowd]

The History of Microsoft – Page 4

Page 1 –  Page 2Page 3 – Page 4

The story of Microsoft continues here, the final page…

The Year 2005

Major software releases include SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Expression Media, Visual Studio 2005 Standard, BizTalk Server 2006, etc.

Jan 2005: Bangalore, India has MS its research center opened. Also there is an expansion of Redmond HQ.

Aug 2005: Brian Kevin Turner from Wal-Mart becomes COO of Microsoft.

Sep 2005: At Safeco Field, Seattle, Microsoft celebrates the 20th anniversary of MS Windows and 30th anniversary of the company.

Nov 22, 2005: Xbox 360 has been launched. It became extremely popular from the first day.

xbox-360

 

The Year 2006

Mar 2006: Microsoft gets its 5000th patent.

Jun 2006: Bill Gates announces his transition from day-to-day activities giving increased privileges to Ray Ozzie (who would become CTO) and Craig Mundie (who would become Chief Research and Strategy Officer).

Nov 2006: Microsoft and Novell come together to develop interoperability between Windows and Linux operating systems. On Nov 14, Zune 30, the original Zune player has been released.

zune-30

 

The Year 2007

Jan 2007: Windows Vista has been announced with admirable improvements in user interface and security. Also released was MS Office 2007.

Mar 2007: Internet Explorer 8 has been released.

Apr 2007: Microsoft launches Silverlight as a competition to Adobe Flash and Apple QuickTime.

May 2007: Microsoft Surface technology sees daylight for the first time. The original Surface tablet comes much later, but the technology existed this year itself.

Aug 2007: Due to Google’s increased presence in online advertising market, Microsoft also tries to get into the niche. The move happens with the acquisition of aQuantive for over 6 billion dollars. Turns out, this was the largest acquisition by Microsoft to date. However, it became a colossal failure for Microsoft as Google continued to dominate every area in online advertising game. An important service released this month is Microsoft SkyDrive, the cloud storage platform of Microsoft.

Sept 2007: Halo 3 was released and went on to become the most popular video game of the year.

Oct 2007: MS launches HealthVault that helps people store their health information. Google also released its health database, Google Health the next year. HealthVault is still operational through its website. On 16 Oct, MS releases a round table video conferencing device shown below:

ms-roundtable-video-conferencing-device

 

The Year 2008

Major software release: Visual Studio 2008, MS Office for Mac 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 (codename: Longhorn)

Feb 2008: Microsoft proposes acquisition of Yahoo! to be able to compete with Google more efficiently. The proposed acquisition was for 44.6 billion dollars giving 31 dollars per share. The merger talk between the firms happened since 2005, but this was the major offer made. Yahoo would decline the offer and cause its share price to drop further due to shareholder disbelief. The acquisition of Yahoo! actually happened much later, and is a great story indeed.

May 2008: WorldWide Telescope has been released. In that year, it directly competed with Google Earth. Microsoft withdrew the Yahoo! merger offer, since Yahoo! didn’t like the price.

June 27, 2008: Bill Gates retires.

last-day-for-bill-gates

Sept 2008: MS announces Hyper-V. This is a technology that enables running an operating system within another (like running Windows XP from a computer that runs Windows 7).

The Year 2009

May 2009: The birth of Bing as Microsoft’s major sub-brand. The BlueTrack technology has been used in Microsoft mouse, making it usable on any surface.

Sept 2009: Zune HD touch media player becomes available.

Oct 2009: Microsoft launches Windows 7, highly acclaimed, highly secure version of Windows. Windows phones also become available that have Windows Mobile 6.5 Pro.

The Year 2010

May 2010: Office has its latest version released—MS Office 2010 along with MS SharePoint 2010.

Sept 2010: Halo Reach has been released and crosses 200 million purchases within 24 hours.

Oct 2010: Cloud based version of MS Office called Office 365 has been created. Also, the Windows Phone 7 has been released with its first devices, announced by Steve Ballmer.

windows-phone-launch

Nov 2010: Motion detector for Xbox, Kinect has been launched, and has sold over 8 million units in the first two months. This month, Microsoft Lync has been released. This is an enterprise communications package containing instant messenger, virtual presence, file transfer, etc.

The Year 2011

Mar 2011: Windows Intune has been launched. This is a cloud-based PC management program. Internet Explorer 9 has been released.

May 2011: Bing search offers personalized search based on the suggestions of your Facebook friends.

Sept 2011: Windows Phone 7.5 (codename: Mango) has been released.

Oct 2011: Microsoft’s largest acquisition to date: Luxembourg-based Skype, for 8.5 billion dollars.

Dec 2011: Xbox has a new dashboard allowing voice and motion control with the help of Kinect.

The Current Microsoft: Year 2012

Oct 26, 2012: Microsoft releases Windows 8 in two editions—RT and 8 Pro. Microsoft releases Surface, the tablet powered by Windows RT, a direct competition to Apple iPad.

Oct 29, 2012: Unveiling of Windows Phone 8

Nov 6, 2012: Halo 4 has been released.

Conclusion

It has been a pleasurable journey to go through Microsoft’s entire history in these four pages. I have tried to gather as much information as possible about the development of this great company. We have never been able to talk about computers without mentioning ‘Microsoft’, and that is the brand identity of this firm.

[Photo credit: Microsoft.com]

Page 1 –  Page 2Page 3 – Page 4

Apple iPad Mini : How Great This New Tablet Really Is?

Have you wondered recently how Apple is progressing in terms of technical advancements? When Steve Jobs released the first version of iPhone and iPad, and other legendary products like iPod, I have never had any doubt about the technical supremacy of Apple. It’s capability to compete with other products in the niche has been tremendous.

 

However, now I believe Apple is riding on that respect and repute created during Jobs’ reign, because all that they are doing is creating not-so-appealing products or doing absurd innovation. Why else would they release a lesser iPad with a big price tag? Apple iPad Mini was released with average features at an absurdly big price tag of 329 dollars (starting).

The Tech Specs

 

Here are the technical specifications of this new iPad.

Display 7.9 inch LED IPS, 1024×768 (163ppi)
Processor 1 GHz ARM-Cortex A9, Apple A5 chip
Camera 5MP
Memory 512 MB RAM
Storage 16/32/64 GB
Battery 16.3 Wh, up to 10 hours of use
Dimensions 7.87×5.3×0.28 inches; 308g

 

The starting price is 329 dollars, for higher storage, 32 GB for $429 and 64 GB for 529 dollars. The other version, Wi-Fi+Cellular (just like iPad 3) will start from 459 dollars. My question is “Are you ******* kidding me?”

At around 200 dollars you can get a lot of other mini tablets that are perfectly well equipped, from Samsung, Sony, Asus (Google), and Amazon. Spend a little more and you will get wonderful hardware, bigger screens, and a lot more. Kindle Fire HD is an amazing choice for a mini tablet or a big tablet with amazing features. In a tear-down done by iSuppli, we come to see the manufacturing cost of iPad Mini is only 198 dollars, which makes it more profitable than the regular iPad.

iPad Mini doesn’t even have the trademarked â€˜Retina Display’. I don’t know why Apple believes there is a market for mini tablets and would jump into it with a mini (of course it is) tablet at a regular (or higher than that) price tag. I don’t even understand what the whole reason behind this move. It’s just that Apple has seen a niche for mini tablets and as always, wants to monopolize that realm as well. I think the company has gone way too confident of itself. They probably believe their customers will stand by the brand despite such insane price tags

I say Apple products are great, including the latest iPhone and the iPad (not Mini). But I sincerely would advise against this iPad Mini. Also, it waits to be seen whether iPhone 5S is going to cut it or not.


 

[Update: ]

Here is a table comparing the performance of iPad Mini and competing tablets, the table has been prepared with data from Geekbench.

Tablet (Processor & technology used) Geekbench Score
Samsung’s Google Nexus 10 (Exynos 5250 1.7 GHz, ARM Cortex-A15) 2433
Apple iPad (4th gen (Apple A6X dual-core 1.4 GHz, based on custom microarchitecture, Swift) 1776
Samsung Galaxy Note II and upcoming Galaxy Note 8.0 (Exnynos 4412, 1.6 GHz quad-core) 1936
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (Exynos 4412, 1.4 GHz quad-core) 1702
Asus Nexus 7 (NVidia Tegra 3, quad-core 1.3 GHz 1481
Apple iPhone 5 (Apple A6, dual-core 1.3 GHz) 1587
Apple iPad 3 (Apple A5X dual-core 1 GHz) 848
Apple iPad 2 (Apple A5 dual-core 1 GHz) 782
Apple iPad Mini (Apple A5 dual-core 1 GHz) 755

 

As you can see, iPad Mini is at the very bottom of benchmark charts. It includes the yesteryear processor that used to ship with iPad 2, and the latest iPad 4 and other Android tablets are way ahead of Mini in performance.

Major Competition to Apple iPad Mini

Apple is hours away from releasing its iPad’s more affordable, more portable version today—iPad Mini. This is a seven-inch Apple tablet that has iOS 6 and other features which we will know soon. Here we will look at an assortment of mini tablets out there that will compete with iPad Mini.

Amazon Kindle Fire HD

Arguably the most atrocious competitor to Apple iPad Mini, Amazon Kindle Fire HD had been released recently. This is a significant upgrade to Amazon’s popular tablet. Here are the technical specs.

Display 7 inch 1280 X 800 HD TFT IPS
Processor 1.2 GHz dual-core
Storage 16/32 GB
Battery 11 hours per charge
Wi-Fi Dual-band unlike iPad and Google Nexus
Input 10-point multi-touch
Dimensions 193x137x10.3 mm 395 gm

 

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0

The most important tablet project by Samsung, Galaxy Tab is now in second generation with this 7 inch tablet. Besides this, Samsung has other larger tablets, which we will not look at here. The seven-inch Tab has following specifications that stack up against iPad Mini.

Display 7.0 inch 1024 X 600 PLS LCD (170ppi)
Processor TI-OMAP 4430 dual-core 1 GHz
Storage 8/16/32 GB
Battery 4000 mAh
OS Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich
Dimensions 193.7×122.4×10.5 mm; 345 g

 

Google Nexus 7

This is Google’s own pure Android Nexus tablet. This is the first tablet that features Android Jelly Bean. The specifications of this Asus-made tablet are as follows.

Display IPS LED 7 inch, 800 X 1280 (216 ppi)
Processor Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core 1.3 GHz ARM Cortex A9
Storage 8/16 GB
Battery 4325 mAh; up to 10 hours
OS Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
Dimensions 198.5x120x10.5 mm; 340 g

 

Conclusion

The iPad Mini will come in hours and it seems the competition is already gruesome for the tablet. The price expected is around 200 dollars about which all of these tablets stack as well. An extremely difficult and still most anticipated move by Apple after the advent of tablets.