Let A Quick Scan Make Your Computer Easier

We all know how anti-virus scanners have made protecting your computer pretty much a hands-off proposition. The software performs its own scan, makes repairs, even updates itself.

What if a quick automatic scan could help make handling another computer chore just as easy. I'm talking about keeping your Computer Drivers updated. You know drivers -- those little bits of software, like Sound Drivers and Video Drivers -- that control all the key parts of your PC or laptop. If you don't have exactly the right driver software, and if its not up-to-date, you'll find your computer silent, unable to print, or worse.

You can spend all night hunting for the CDs that came with your computer, or all day prowling the Web looking for the driver you need. If those searches come up empty, well, then what?

Or skip all that, and automate your driver systems through a quick scan that updates a variety of drivers so you never find your computer half dead ever again. Click on the links above to learn more.

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Researchers Create Next-Generation Software Aimed At Defending Cyber Attack

Researchers at George Mason University’s Center for Secure Information Systems have developed new software that can reduce the impact of cyber attacks by identifying the possible vulnerability paths through an organization’s networks.

By their very nature networks are highly interdependent and each machine’s overall susceptibility to attack depends on the vulnerabilities of the other machines in the network. Attackers can take advantage of multiple vulnerabilities in unexpected ways, allowing them to incrementally penetrate a network and compromise critical systems. In order to protect an organization’s networks, it is necessary to understand not only individual system vulnerabilities, but also their interdependencies.

“Currently, network administrators must rely on labor-intensive processes for tracking network configurations and vulnerabilities, which requires a great deal of expertise and is error prone because of the complexity, volume and frequent changes in security data and network configurations,” says Sushil Jajodia, university professor and director of the Center for Secure Information Systems. “This new software is an automated tool that can analyze and visualize vulnerabilities and attack paths, encouraging ‘what-if analysis’.”

The software developed at Mason, CAULDRON, allows for the transformation of raw security data into roadmaps that allow users to proactively prepare for attacks, manage vulnerability risks and have real-time situational awareness. CAULDRON provides informed risk analysis, analyzes vulnerability dependencies and shows all possible attack paths into a network. In this way, it accounts for sophisticated attack strategies that may penetrate an organization’s layered defenses.

CAULDRON’s intelligent analysis engine reasons through attack dependencies, producing a map of all vulnerability paths that are then organized as an attack graph that conveys the impact of combined vulnerabilities on overall security. To manage attack graph complexity, CAULDRON includes hierarchical graph visualizations with high-level overviews and detail drilldown, allowing users to navigate into a selected part of the big picture to get more information.

“One example of this software in use is at the Federal Aviation Administration. They recently installed CAULDRON in their Cyber Security Incident Response Center and it is helping them prioritize security problems, reveal unseen attack paths and protect across large numbers of attack paths,” says Jajodia. “While currently being used by the FAA and defense community, the software is applicable in almost any industry or organization with a network and resources they want to keep protected, such as banking or education.”

Funding for this software development was provided by the defense, homeland security and intelligence communities and the FAA. Researchers in the Center for Secure Information Systems involved in the software development include Jajodia; Steven Noel, associate director; and Pramod Kalapa, senior research scientist. Five patents are currently pending on the CAULDRON software.

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Sandia Software Selected For Navy's DDG 1000 Destroyer

Jess 7.1a3, a popular rule engine created by Sandia National Laboratories, has been licensed by Lockheed Martin Corp. to play a critical role in the Navy’s DDG 1000 destroyer ships.

According to Dr. Greg Harrison, a Lockheed systems engineer, the company chose Jess after extensive and multiple trade studies confirmed the software’s ability to interface with the information in the DDG 1000 knowledgebase. “I feel confident that we made the right choice with Jess,” says Harrison.

Jess was licensed by Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training & Support (STS), a business unit within the company’s Electronics Systems business area. STS is a leader in the development of logistics solutions and military training and simulation, producing air, ground and maritime systems for customers worldwide.

The Navy’s DDG 1000 is a multi-mission, maritime fleet of destroyer ships. It includes a number of advanced technologies and features, including an integrated power system, dual band radar, integrated undersea warfare system, and advanced gun system. Among other intended uses, Jess will help the DDG 1000 ship domain controller with its alarm management function and reasoning about ship system states for safe operation.

Jess enables software developers to embed intelligence in the form of business rules directly into their Java TM applications. Rules-driven programming, says Sandia software licensing manager Craig Smith, allows software to express real-world concepts in a natural, expressive way that helps business and IT professionals collaborate in bringing enterprise applications to life.

Among Jess’s latest features is an integrated development environment (IDE) for rules that increases programmer productivity and enhances collaboration. The IDE is based on the award-winning Eclipse TM platform (www.eclipse.org) and features tools for creating, editing, visualizing, monitoring and debugging rules.

Jess is the only enterprise-capable rule engine to offer both the convenience of an IDE and an unprecedented level of flexibility and openness that makes it easy for developers to add the power of heuristic rules into applications that run on everything from handheld devices to enterprise servers. Jess supports the industry-standard JSR94 Java Rule Engine API as well as its own rich interface. Jess executes rules written both in its own expressive rule language and in XML.

Jess is licensed commercially and is being used in enterprise applications at dozens of Fortune 500 companies, including many in the finance, insurance, security, transportation, and manufacturing sectors. Sandia also offers Jess licenses to academic and government institutions. Jess (along with the textbook Jess in Action) is used as a teaching tool at hundreds of universities around the globe.

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Video: Google's 'Android' Cellphone Platform

WSJ's Amol Sharma reports on Google's new announcement that the company will offer free cell phone software to a variety of carriers.

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$58 Billion Damage, 373,000 Jobs Lost in U.S. Due to Copyright Piracy

Pandemic theft of copyright-protected products, including motion pictures, video games, sound recordings as well as business and entertainment software, has cost the U.S. $58 billion in annual economic output and 373,375 jobs, according to a report released by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI).

The report, "The True Cost of Copyright Industry Piracy to the U.S. Economy," sheds light on the injuries from copyright piracy to the national economy as a whole, not just to U.S. copyright producers and industries.

Because of global and U.S.-based piracy of copyrighted material:

• The U.S. economy loses $58 billion annually;
• U.S. workers lose 373,375 jobs;
• U.S. workers lose $16.3 billion in earnings annually, including $7.2 billion in earnings from workers in the copyright industry or "downstream" retail industries, and $9.1 billion in earnings by workers in other U.S. industries; and
• The U.S. government loses at least $2.6 billion in tax revenues annually, including $1.8 billion in personal income tax and $800 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.
  

"As policy makers turn their attention to the competitiveness of the U.S. economy in the global marketplace, it is clear that the problem of copyright piracy should be afforded a prominent place on the policy agenda," says Stephen Siwek, author of the report and principal with Economists, Inc.

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New NASA Software Monitors Space Station Gyroscopes

NASA has added a new computer program to help monitor the four gyroscopes that keep the International Space Station properly oriented without the use of rocket fuel. During a spacewalk on Monday, two astronauts from the space shuttle Endeavour removed and replaced a gyroscope that failed in late 2006.

Computer scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., designed the new software for the space station. The Inductive Monitoring System will be added to a group of existing tools to identify and track problems related to the gyroscopes.

"If the system does something unexpected, the software alerts ground controllers that something is different, an anomaly, and that allows them to analyze the situation and take preventive measures as necessary," says David Iverson, the computer scientist at Ames who spearheaded the five year-effort to develop the software.

During its development, researchers used the software to analyze several months of normal space station gyroscope data collected by the International Space Station Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. In these tests, problems with the gyroscopes were noticed long before the previous system flagged glitches. NASA started using the software earlier this year.

The software program also has been used in F-18 fighter planes and by the space shuttle's leading edge impact detection system, as well as for electric power plant and water quality monitoring.

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NOD32 For Your Anti-Virus Solution

Whether you're a consumer or you run a small- to medium-sized business, look to NOD32 for your anti-virus solution.

NOD32 is the world record holder of the coveted Virus Bulletin 100% award. With a tiny footprint, roaring scanning rates and unequaled heuristics, NOD32 has become the leader in the "next generation" of Anti Virus solutions for Home and Home offices. And remember their 30-day money back guarantee.

Software Security Solutions offers NOD32 as part of its advocated layered security solution using different Internet and computer-security products. They recognize that different users require different solutions. Software Security Solutions says they can help you find the solution set and information that is the best fit for your user type.

"I heard about NOD32 from a friend who said it caught viruses that hadn't even been named or known," customer Paula C. says in a NOD32 testimonial. "So, I went on line and downloaded your 30 day trial. I took off my [popular well-known brand] which was due to expire, and ran NOD 32. It found 5 viruses (worms, trojan horses) that my updated [previous Anti-Virus] never did. Right off the bat!! So then I was already in a positive frame of mind. I loved how it was always at work and letting me know about viruses coming in and did I want to send it for review. Very well thought out program to help protect my 'puter. Bought the second copy for my laptop. Gotta have that protection. Keep up the great work, NOD . . . . I am telling all my not so savvy computer wise nurses I work with."

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Anti-Spyware Coalition Unveils Two Major Documents

The Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) unveiled a comprehensive set of "best practices" for identifying potentially unwanted technology. Based on more than a year of consultations and building on all of the coalition's previous work, the best practices document provides the clearest description yet of how anti-spyware companies determine whether software may be "unwanted," the coalition says.

Issuing best practices has been a top priority of the ASC since it was founded in 2005 with the mission of educating users, establishing a community for anti-spyware advocates and collaborating to improve the usefulness of anti-spyware technologies. In addition to the best practices, the ASC also today released its conflict identification and resolution process, which establishes a routine methodology for resolving software conflict between anti-spyware tools.

Both spyware documents are available online. You may also comment on the documents at the ASC site.

"This is a watershed moment for the Anti-Spyware Coalition and for the global anti-spyware community. These best practices will be a vital tool -- not only for anti-spyware vendors to use in honing the detection process -- but also to help software developers avoid publishing products likely to be unwanted by consumers," says Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and coordinator of the ASC. "The underlying goal of everyone involved in the Anti-Spyware Coalition is to make the Internet experience safer, more productive and more enjoyable. This document goes a long way toward supporting that goal."

"Best Practices: Factors for Use in the Evaluation of Potentially Unwanted Technologies" details the process by which anti-spyware companies review software applications identifying behaviors which raise red flags as well as behaviors that help to mitigate concerns by providing real value to users. It relies heavily on the ASC's own spyware "definitions" document and its risk-model description, which helped to establish a common understanding of spyware and how it is classified, the spyware coalition says.

The "Conflict Identification and Resolution Process" highlights possible ways in which anti-spyware tools may conflict with one another and offers clear steps to resolve those conflicts. In addition to allowing for better, more structured interactions between developers, the resolution process will also provide a level of transparency to consumers who may be affected by such conflicts, the spyware organization says.


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