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Panda Security and Microsoft have signed a collaboration agreement to develop cloud-based antivirus security services on Microsoft’s new cloud platform, Windows Azure.

The new Panda Cloud Office Protection version 6.0 has been migrated to Windows Azure, which is designed to host, scale and manage web applications. This offers customers a set of privacy and security controls that ensure maximum protection of hosted data and applications.

“The agreement with Microsoft has increased our security management capabilities. It has provided us with virtually unlimited IT infrastructure and enhanced our dynamic adjustment capacity”, said Jeremy Matthews, Country Manager at Panda Security South Africa.

Microsoft South Africa’s Server and Tools lead, Johannes Kanis says, “Until recently, concerns about the security and privacy of cloud-based data have been a major barrier to organisations realising the full potential of cloud-based technologies.” He adds that the partnership with Panda helps to remove that barrier by embedding privacy and security capabilities in the cloud computing arena.

Panda Cloud Office Protection 6.0 is a cloud-based security service for PCs, servers and corporate laptops managed remotely from anywhere through its Web-based console.

The new release includes device control technologies that prevent the spread of malware through the improper use of external devices such as USB flash drives, digital cameras, DVDs and more. These controls allow organisations to improve productivity by enforcing access control policies via a single Web-based console.

The Windows Azure platform allows Panda Security to: manage an even larger number of computers, effectively deploy the service to new countries and prevent service downtime. In addition the technology enables reduction in operating and maintenance costs, reduce time to market and improve user interface performance.

Windows Azure is a development, service hosting and service management environment that provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to the internet through Microsoft data centers.

About Microsoft South Africa

Microsoft South Africa is a subsidiary of the world’s largest independent software and services provider, and helps government, people and businesses realise their potential through technology.  A proudly South African company with a Level 2 BBBEE rating, Microsoft has won numerous awards for being an employer of choice, its contribution to the local economy and broad array of citizenship activities.

About Panda Security

Founded in 1990, Panda Security is the world’s leading provider of cloud-based security solutions, with products available in more than 23 languages and millions of users located in 195 countries around the World. Panda Security was the first IT security company to harness the power of cloud computing with its Collective Intelligence technology. This innovative security model can automatically analyze and classify thousands of new malware samples every day, guaranteeing corporate customers and home users the most effective protection against Internet threats with minimum impact on system performance. Panda Security has 61 offices throughout the globe with US headquarters in Florida and European headquarters in Spain. In 2006, Jeremy Matthews founded Panda’s local subsidiary in Cape Town, opening the international vendor’s first presence on the African continent.

 For more information, visit http://www.pandasecurity.co.za/

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Panda Security, announced the release of Panda Cloud Office Protection 6.0, the only Software-as-a-Service endpoint security solution that includes Device Control technologies designed to prevent the spread of malware through the improper use of external devices. These controls allow organizations to improve productivity by enforcing policies to deny access, force read-only access, or grant total access on multiple device types (USB flash drives, digital cameras, DVDs and more) through the PCOP Web-based console.

Panda Cloud Office Protection 6.0 is a cloud-based security service for PCs, servers and corporate laptops managed remotely from anywhere through its Web-based console.

Panda Cloud Office Protection’s infrastructure is fully hosted in the cloud, eliminating the difficulties managing remote users and hardware costs associated with a client-server security model. As always, Panda’s endpoint security service can be installed remotely, either through a distribution tool or email, without requiring the installation of a remote access add-on. The solution also offers group policies for advanced configuration of protection levels; concise and informative malware and threat reports; and a unified, centralized quarantine.

The new version also includes Malware Freezer, a module that ‘freezes’ detected malware for seven days by placing it in quarantine. This tool ensures system stability, restoring false positive files.

Panda Cloud Office Protection 6.0 is hosted in Windows Azure, a cloud platform hosted in Microsoft data centers and designed to support highly available, scalable and reliable applications. Windows Azure uses a set of privacy and security controls that ensure maximum protection of its hosted data and applications.

For more information, please visit http://www.pandasecurity.com/enterprise/solutions/cloud-office-protection/

Panda Security’s anti-malware laboratory, PandaLabs have reported a new bot called Ainslot.L doing the rounds.

This malware is designed to log user activities, download additional malware and take control of the system. Additionally, it acts as a banker Trojan, stealing log-in information related to banks. It also scans the computer looking for and removing other bots so that it becomes the only bot on the system.

“The fact that Ainslot.L removes other bots from infected systems definitely caught our attention”, explained Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs. “It eliminates all competition, leaving the computer at its mercy. It reminds us of the popular ‘Highlander’ movies, – There can be only one –.”

It spreads in a fake email purporting to come from UK clothing company CULT. The message, which is very well crafted, informs users that they have placed a £200 order on CULT’s online store and the invoice amount will be charged to their credit card. The text includes a link to view the order which actually downloads the bot onto the computer.

According to Corrons, “Phishing emails are not usually so well done. There is no doubt that this time fraudsters have been very careful to try to make these messages look as real as possible to get as many bites as they can”.

Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company announced the launch of its new channel partner recruitment campaign, “Security to the power of the cloud”.

The campaign includes a webinar series to show the benefits offered by the company’s cloud-based solutions to resellers.

Training sessions will mainly focus on Panda Cloud Partner Center, a new management console for partners and will include a demo of the product. These seminars will run in both the morning and afternoon at 12:00 (GMT +2) and 18:00 (GMT +2) respectively. The dates for when the webinars will take place are on the 3^rd and 5^th of April 2012.

“Our concept of ‘Security to the power of the cloud’ is based on three major pillars for channel partners: simplicity, margin and control”, said Paula Quiros, Director of International Marketing and Communication at Panda Security. “Partners demand easy-to-use tools that make their job simpler, return the expected margins and help them keep sales processes under control”, she added.

With Panda Cloud Partner Center, partners can manage all channel activity online in real-time, while remotely enabling protection for customers’ email and endpoints, such as servers, PCs and laptops.

Additionally, Panda Cloud Partner Center lets partners manage and monitor customers’ lifecycle and take better advantage of new business opportunities through better insight into license extension and cross-selling opportunities. It also simplifies the renewal process for service providers with customizable tools to streamline channel management, enabling them to assign new and existing customers trial versions of new products.

Prospective partners interested in attending these webinars organized by Panda Security can sign up at http://securitytothecloud.pandasecurity.com.

The Cloud Security Company, Panda Security announced that Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 Beta Version, compatible with Windows 8 Consumer Preview is now available. Users who have installed the beta version of the new Microsoft operating system will benefit from the best protection against malware.

Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 is an easy-to-use antivirus protection consumer product, designed specifically to offer maximum protection with minimum resource consumption. Panda Security’s 2012 solutions leverage Collective Intelligence, the company’s exclusive cloud-computing technology, that collects threat intelligence from millions of computer users and deliver automated, instantaneous protection against known and unknown malware.

Every day PandaLabs receive nearly 73 000 new files that Collective Intelligence automatically analyzes, classifies and remedies by gathering information on malware from the worldwide Panda community. Collective Intelligence continuously improves protection levels and offers more rapid response to the newest and most dangerous malware attacks.

According to Jeremy Matthews, MD of Panda Security South Africa, “Making our 2012 solutions compatible with Microsoft’s upcoming operating system was essential for us, as for over 20 years, Panda Security has been innovating and developing new technologies to protect our customers from all kinds of threats, we are always there when users need us.” Figures show that the Consumer Preview for Windows 8 has already had over 1 million downloads.

 For more information and to download the free beta, please visit: http://www.pandasecurity.com/windows8

Many webmasters are unaware that their websites have been hacked and that they may be serving hidden links and even malicious code to their visitors.

Many hackers deface a website when they breach the web host or CMS’s security, but other hackers prefer to inject covert code into a website – often unbeknownst to the webmaster and website visitors.

Hidden links are often inserted in websites to gain Google page rank.  This means that the hacker’s websites have more back links, and therefore a higher page rank, while the website owner may be penalized for their promotion of websites containing illicit products or pornography.

South Africa’s Film and Publications Board (FPB –http://www.fpb.gov.za/) website is a good example. The website was defaced in July 2011, but the organisation said that it was repaired soon afterwards.

Unbeknownst to the FPB, they had been serving hidden website links to beauty products and even erotic video websites. This may well have happened since the initial security breach in 2011.

The FPB was contacted about the fact that their website has been a victim of hackers, and what is being done about the issue, but the organisation did not provide feedback by the time of publication.

FPB Website Source Code

To see hidden links in a website is as simple as right-clicking on the website an viewing the source (“View Page Source” in Firefox, “View Source” in Internet Explorer and “View page source” in Chrome”).

After the injected code and links are removed, it is advisable for website owners to change their passwords, check file permissions and ensure that all their software is up to date.

Earlier in the month it was announced that Cabinet has approved a national cyber security policy framework for South Africa, said Collins Chabane, Minister in the Presidency.

Chabane went on to say, “the framework was aimed at addressing national security threats in cyber space and it would combat cyber warfare, cyber crime and cyber ills, as well as build confidence and trust in the secure use of information and communication technologies.”

These initiatives will help to keep South African web users safe and secure, more security news to follow in upcoming posts.

We are happy to announce the availability of Panda Cloud Antivirus version 1.5.2. If you are reading this after seeing a “Panda Cloud Antivirus has upgraded automatically!” message on your Desktop traybar, then you already have this latest version installed and running and you don’t have to do anything else. In case you are interested you can read about the fixes introduced in this version in this blog post. If your version of Panda Cloud Antivirus hasn’t upgraded yet to version 1.5.2 yet don’t worry. As we are releasing the automatic and transparent upgrade little by little in a few days your copy of Panda Cloud Antivirus will upgrade itself automatically.

Version 1.5.2 is a maintenance upgrade from version 1.5.1 which fixes some bugs reported by the user community. The bug fixes included are the following:

• Improved on-demand scanning speeds, specially under Windows 7.
• Improved integration with Collective Intelligence backend to obtain new malware variants even faster.
• New toolbar version 3.0 with Google search instead of Yahoo search.
• Fixed slowdowns while deleting files from the computer.
• Fixed BSOD under certain conditions when unloading one of the Panda drivers.
• Fixed synchronization erros (same as already released hotfix).
• Fixed issues scanning certain type of folders (as reported by AV-Comparatives)
• Fixed upgrade notification popup showing up every 20 minutes.
• Fixed problem of certain auxiliary files being written to the root of the drive when ProgramData directory could not be found.
• Fixed disinfection problem under certain conditions on malware running in memory.
• Fixed problem under certain situations when a malware detected without Internet connectivity was not recorded in the event report.
• Fixed problems disinfecting certain malware with specific format and characteristics.

Remember that if you have any problems whatsoever with Panda Cloud Antivirus you can always ask for help at our Technical Support Forum.

Also if you like Panda Cloud Antivirus don’t forget to help us grow the community of  users. The more we are, the better protection we get. Make sure to click on the “I like CloudAV” button on the main window to easily protect your community of friends and family by letting them know about Panda Cloud Antivirus.

Panda Security’s anti-malware laboratory, PandaLabs have reported new malware distribution campaigns, which details numerous emails in circulation with links for downloading romantic greeting cards, videos, gift ideas, or Facebook and Twitter messages related to Valentine’s Day.

According to PandaLabs, social engineering is cyber-crooks’ preferred technique for deceiving users by convincing them to take a series of actions therefore obtaining confidential information from users. Crime-ware and social engineering go hand-in-hand: a carefully selected social engineering ploy convinces users to hand over their data or install a malicious program which captures information and sends it on to the fraudsters.

Cyber-crooks, however, are also exploiting other channels, such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+ and given the access to millions of users that these social networks provide, they have become just as popular among the criminal fraternity for spreading malware as email. 

A Recently discovered, new Facebook attack that utilizes users walls to spread harmless messages inviting users to install a Valentine’s Day theme on Facebook. However, if the user clicks the wall post, they are redirected to a page where they are prompted to install the theme. This installs a malware file which, once run, displays ads from other websites. It also downloads an extension that monitors Web activities and redirects sessions to survey pages that request sensitive information like phone numbers.

Some weeks ago, the PandaLabs blog reported on a link included in a Twitter profile that took users to a dating site: http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/sex-lies-and-twitter/. Special dates like Valentine’s Day can see a proliferation of malicious Twitter posts used to steal users’ confidential data and empty their bank accounts through social engineering. 

Here is a collection of some of the Valentine’s Day themed malware campaigns detected by PandaLabs in recent years: 

Waledac.C: This worm spread by email trying to pass itself off as a greeting card. The email message includes a link to download the card. However, if the user clicks the link and accepts the subsequent file download they are actually letting the Waledac.C worm into their computer. Once it infects the computer, the worm uses the affected user’s email to send out spam.

I Love.exe you: This was a RAT (Remote Access Trojan) that gave attackers access to the victim’s computer and all their personal information. The Trojan allowed the virus creator to access target computers remotely, steal passwords and manage files.

Nuwar.OL: This worm spread in email messages with subjects like “I love You So Much”, “Inside My Heart” or “You in My Dreams”. The text of the email included a link to a website that downloads the malicious code. The page was very simple and looked like a romantic greeting card with a large pink heart. Once it infected a computer, the worm sent out a large amount of emails, creating a heavy load on networks and slowing down computers.

 Valentin.E: This worm spread by email in messages with subjects like “Searching for True Love” or “True Love” and an attached file called “friends4u”. If the targeted user opened the file, a copy of the worm was downloaded. Then, the worm sent out emails with copies of itself from the infected computer to spread and infect more users.

Valentin.E: This worm spread by email in messages with subjects like “Searching for True Love” or “True Love” and an attached file called “friends4u”. If the targeted user opened the file, a copy of the worm was downloaded. Then, the worm sent out emails with copies of itself from the infected computer to spread and infect more users.

Storm Worm: This worm spread via email by employing a number of lures, one of them exploiting Valentine’s Day. If the targeted user clicked the link in the email, a Web page was displayed while the worm was downloaded in the background.

Storm Worm: This worm spread via email by employing a number of lures, one of them exploiting Valentine’s Day. If the targeted user clicked the link in the email, a Web page was displayed while the worm was downloaded in the background.

Web page displayed by Storm Worm. You can see the image at: http://prensa.pandasecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/STORMWORM.jpg

 PandaLabs offers users a series of tips to avoid falling victim to computer threats:

•  Do not open emails or messages received on social networks from unknown senders.
•  Do not click any links included in email messages, even though they may come from reliable sources. It is better to type the URL directly in the browser. This rule applies to messages received through any mail client, as well as those in Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks or messaging applications, etc. If you do click on any such links, take a close look at the page you arrive at. If you don’t recognize it, close your browser.
•  Do not run attached files that come from unknown sources. Especially these days, stay on the alert for files that claim to be Valentine Day’s greeting cards, romantic videos, etc.
•  Even if the page seems legitimate, but asks you to download something, you should be suspicious and don’t accept the download. If, in any event, you download and install any type of executable file and you begin to see unusual messages on your computer, you have probably been infected with malware.
•  If you are making any purchases online, type the address of the store in the browser, rather than going through any links that have been sent to you. Only buy online from sites that have a solid reputation and offer secure transactions, encrypting all information that is entered in the page.
•  Do not use shared or public computers, or an unsecured WiFi connection, for making transactions or operations that require you to enter passwords or other personal details.
•  Have an effective security solution installed, capable of detecting both known and new malware strains.

 Panda Security offers you several free tools for scanning computers for malware, like Panda Cloud Antivirus: www.cloudantivirus.com

 More information is available in the PandaLabs blog: http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com

Panda Security’s antimalware laboratory, PandaLabs have recently detected a new Facebook scam that uses a fake video of singer Katy Perry and ex-husband actor Russell Brand to trick users.

According to PandaLabs, if the user clicks the link, they are taken to a fake Facebook page where they are invited to download a plug-in to watch the video. The page indicates that over 4,000 people have already clicked the “Like” button, which is used by the scammers to trick victims into believing that the video is legitimate.

If the user tries to play the video, the worm will act differently depending on the browser used. On Internet Explorer, the worm displays an age verification page to access an application called “X-Ray Scanner”.

Then, before the user can take any other action, the browser takes them to a typical scam site where they are asked to enter their phone number. However, if they do so, they will start receiving unwanted premium rate text messages.

The infection is even more serious on Firefox and Chrome, as the worm installs a browser plug-in and uses it to post the scam to the victims’ friends’ pages.

According to Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, “Once again, user curiosity becomes cyber-criminals’ best ally. Scammers exploit people’s interest in this couple to infect users, who click the malicious link and download the worm without taking any precautions. This has two negative effects: on one hand, users infect their own computers; and on the other, a message is automatically sent to all of their Facebook friends.”

Social engineering is cyber-crooks’ weapon of choice to spread their creations through social media. The fact that users themselves unknowingly send the malicious links to friends facilitates malware distribution as people are more likely to click on a link received from a reliable source. There have been similar cases in the past. Last year, for example, over 80,000 users fell victim to a scam exploiting Steve Jobs’s death.

PandaLabs offers users tips on how to avoid falling victim to this type of scam:

-       Be wary of websites offering sensational videos or unusual stories.

-       Before you click on a link sent by one of your contacts, make sure it has been intentionally sent by your friend and it is not the result of a massive scam like this one.

-       Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know. This will help keep your privacy safe.

-       Always keep your computer’s operating system and Web browsers up to date, and make sure you have an up-to-date antivirus solution installed.

If, however, you suspect you have fallen into the trap:

-       Check your browser plug-ins and remove any suspicious ones.

-       Check the applications that have permission to access your Facebook account, and delete those you don’t know.

-       Change your Facebook account password. If you use the same credentials to sign in to other services as well, change them too. It is always better to take all necessary precautions.

More information is available in the PandaLabs Blog.

About Panda Security 

Founded in 1990, Panda Security is the world’s leading provider of cloud-based security solutions, with products available in more than 23 languages and millions of users located in 195 countries around the World. Panda Security was the first IT security company to harness the power of cloud computing with its Collective Intelligence technology. This innovative security model can automatically analyze and classify thousands of new malware samples every day, guaranteeing corporate customers and home users the most effective protection against Internet threats with minimum impact on system performance. Panda Security has 61 offices throughout the globe with US headquarters in Florida and European headquarters in Spain. In 2006, Jeremy Matthews founded Panda’s local subsidiary in Cape Town, opening the international vendor’s first presence on the African continent.

For more information, visit http://www.pandasecurity.co.za/

For more information:

pr@za.pandasecurity.com

Tel. 08600 PANDA (72632)

Follow us on:

http://on.fb.me/PandaSecurityZA

http://www.twitter.com/PandaSecurityZA

www.gplus.to/PandaSecurityZA