The world of Mac gaming just got a huge tesla jolt. It’s time for Mac gamers to enlist with the Command & Conquer universe once again and get Red Alert 3 for Mac!

Red Alert 3 for Mac carries the same great feature-set as the PC version, however, it also offers Mac users “Multiplayer interplay with PC”. The Mac version of Red Alert 3 supports interplay between PC and MAC users, thus making it possible for Red Alert 3 Mac players to challenge PC players to non-ranked and ranked online matches. This assures all Mac players can partake in the massive Red Alert 3 online multiplayer community and all official e-sports and tournament challenges.

The Mac version is available in retail at all Apple stores and the EA Store.

source : www.commandandconquer.com

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Post tags: games, mac, Network, pc, red alert 3

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“Play a white mage? You might want to perk your ears up and check out Square-Enix’s latest message to the Final Fantasy XI community. It seems that your job is due for a very nice set of upgrades.

The April version update will be adding brand new WHM job abilities and changes to how white magic works in general, including changes to reraise, holy, cure, martyr, banish, and others. All of these changes are based around the WHM’s newest two abilities — Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Misery. Each of these abilities will be set to a 1 minute reuse timer and last for 2 hours, making them easily switchable depending on your situation. Using one will, of course, overwrite the other. Both of these abilities can’t be active at once.”

source : www.n4g.com

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Post tags: games, Network

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John Edwards

Spam now constitutes an overwhelming majority of email traffic. The never-ending onslaught of junk messages strains networks, erodes user productivity, propagates dangerous malware and costs business millions of dollars.

Related Articles:

• Is It Real or Is It Spam?
• Tips and Tricks to Secure Your Email
• Security Backlash: How to Repair Your Business’s Email Reputation
• Email Security Essentials

Types of Spam

Though all junk email might look the same, spam continues to arrive in a seemingly endless number of configurations, ranging from the innocuous to the lethal. The major spam types include:

• Advertising: Spam is used to promote an entire spectrum of products and services, from software to real estate to questionable medical and nutritional offerings.
• Malware Delivery: Spam is one of the main distribution channels for delivering viruses and other types of malware. Targeted individuals, believing they have received an important document or media file, are often tricked into opening a malware attachment.
• Scams: Posing as Nigerian princes, Swiss bankers, tragically ill children and other stock types, scammers prey on recipients’ sympathy and greed.
• Phishing: Hiding behind the names of respected retailers, financial institutions, businesses, charities and government bodies, phishers attempt to lure unsuspecting recipients to bogus Web sites where they steal personal financial or identity information.
• Nonsense: A significant chunk of junk-mail text is pure gibberish. Some of this material is generated in an effort to trick spam-filtering technologies into passing an attached message onto recipients. Many nonsensical messages seem to exist for no purpose at all.

Spam Media

Spam is overwhelmingly an email problem. Yet as Internet technology advances, junk content is rapidly spilling over to many other types of IP media, including:

• IM (instant messaging): Spam is a growing problem on IM networks, where the threats closely parallel those of email spam.
• VoIP: SPIT (Spam over Internet Telephony) is a rare but potentially dangerous form of spam that threatens to annoy users and jam voice-mail inboxes.
• Search Engines: Using techniques such as hidden text, doorway pages and mirror sites, a search-engine spammer attempts to boost a Web site’s ranking by redirecting traffic to the site. This practice is also known as “spamdexing.”
• Web Message Boards: Spammers like to use Web message boards and Usenet.com groups to promote products and services that are usually unrelated to the site’s content focus.
• Blogs: Junk advertising is inserted into a blog’s reader-comment area.
• Online Video: YouTube LLC and other video-sharing sites are plagued by video spam, which consists of thinly disguised commercials for products and services of dubious value.

Combating Spam

It sometimes seems as if anti-spam technologies and methodologies are proliferating as rapidly as spam itself. These are the main tools that can keep spam under control:

• Spam Filters: A growing number of technology vendors are targeting spam with products that are designed to block and quarantine suspected spam. These offerings use sophisticated algorithms to scan each incoming message for signs that it may contain spam.
• Firewalls: Spam firewalls offload message filtering from the email server, freeing up network resources and bandwidth. Spam-firewall appliances usually come preconfigured and can be set up in minutes. Maintenance is usually minimal.
• Anti-Malware Technologies: Hardware- and software-based anti-malware products can block dangerous attachments from reaching employees’ inboxes.
• Client Control: Leading email clients, such as Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, as well as Mozilla Foundation’s Thunderbird, offer built-in controls that are designed to minimize inbox spam.
• White Lists/Black Lists: This feature is found in many spam filters and client controls. White lists of trusted email addresses allow messages to proceed to the user’s inbox unimpeded by any filter or client settings. Black lists work in the opposite way, routinely blocking incoming email from known offenders.
• Disposable Email Addresses: Many businesses and individuals routinely distribute different email addresses to every external contact, then funnel all incoming messages into a single account. This way, if one address begins spamming, it can be safely eradicated without affecting the flow of messages originating from other contacts.
• Legal Action: While it’s rare for an individual business to sue a junk-mail sender, a growing number of law-enforcement bodies are targeting spammers, particularly organized crime rings that use the technology for financial and identity theft.
• Policies: All businesses need a comprehensive anti-spam policy. Besides mandating the use of filtering and other good spam-fighting technologies, the policy should cover routine workplace practices. Business Web sites, for example, should never publish visible email addresses that can be “harvested” by spammer software. Employees should also be encouraged not to post business email addresses on message boards, social-network sites and personal Web pages.
• Education: The simple task of teaching employees to be wary of phishing messages, and not to open unknown attachments, can help any business minimize spam’s impact.

source: http://www.itsecurity.com

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Post tags: Access Control, email, Network, Scanning, Security, Spyware, Vulnerability

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Cindy Waxer

By definition, zero-day attacks always beat anti-virus vigilantes to the punch. That’s because these destructive viruses are able to exploit unknown, undisclosed or newly discovered computer application vulnerabilities before a software developer is able to release a patch to the public — which can render anti-virus programs practically ineffective. By the time anti-virus companies make the necessary fixes available, a worm’s damage can be widespread. The Zotob worm, for example, caused disruptions for about 13 percent of the organizations surveyed by computer security firm Cybertrust. Victims included cable news station CNN, TV network ABC Inc., The New York Times Co. and Chrysler LLC. The average cost of recovering from a Zotob infection was $97,000, according to Cybertrust. For 61 percent of victims, cleanup required more than 80 hours of work.

Related Articles:

• DoS Attacks Take Aim at Small Business
• Targeted Cyber Attacks
• Hacker High: 10 Stories of Teenage Hackers Getting into the System
• The IT Security NAC Buyer’s Guide

IT Security: How widespread are zero-day attacks?

A.N. Ananth: The signature-based approach to preventing virus attacks has reached a limit. Software companies are patching like mad on a daily basis and the zero-day attacks are still coming through. You see them all the time. You can go to any anti-virus software provider and ask them what their life has been like over the last six months and they’ll tell you that the number of signatures that they’ve had to put out has quintupled, straining them and their resources like gangbusters.

IT Security: How have hackers changed over the years?

A.N. Ananth: They’ve organized themselves so that now you have a bunch of folks that are out there not just to joyride but to launch attacks for money. They have a short-order menu and can launch eight attacks and do so really quickly. At the same time, they can craft a custom-made virus specifically to get past your defenses.

IT Security: What are the benefits and limitations of anti-virus software?

A.N. Ananth: To say that anti-virus software is ineffective is stretching it. The fact is, it’s reached the limit of their ability to protect systems because it operates as a blacklist mechanism, checking traffic against a list of potential infections. But that list is growing enormously and anti-virus software is having a tough time keeping up. That said, don’t give up on your anti-virus software. It’s been effective, it’ll continue to be effective, and we’re not saying that it’s worthless. We’re merely saying it’s not enough.

IT Security: How does Prism Microsystems’ EventTracker differ from anti-virus software?

A.N. Ananth: Rather than worry endlessly about all the things that can go wrong with your system, EventTracker takes a snapshot of the patterns of a company’s system when it’s healthy, monitors the patterns today and compares these with the system’s healthy state. By understanding and identifying attack taxonomies and the typical patterns that are precursors to security breaches, EventTracker makes sure security professionals can proactively protect their systems in realtime.

IT Security: How does your solution leverage data that already exists in a company’s computer system in order to safeguard against viruses?

A.N. Ananth: Most computer systems have too many applications and systems for a company to log manually. So our solution automatically pulls all that information together and applies it against knowledge that we have for each of these platforms. If we see something that merits your attention, we notify you right away. As a result, instead of being drowned in data, we’ll send you certain amounts of vital data in realtime.

source: http://www.itsecurity.com

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Post tags: Access Control, Intrusion, Malware, Management..., Network, Scanning, Security, Spyware, Vulnerability

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Cindy Waxer

All it takes is one complaint from an overzealous anti-spam vigilante for your company’s email newsletter to mistakenly wind up on a blacklist. An email blacklist essentially blocks all messages from a particular server, which could prove very costly to a company’s bottom line. After all, today’s major ISPs subscribe to blacklist databases in an effort to filter out spam that is sent across their networks or to their customers. In fact, AOL LLC blocks a reported 80 percent of messages sent to its subscribers via blacklisting technology.

Related Articles:

• The Essential Guide to Email Security
• Email Security Essentials
• False Positives Equal Lost Business
• Tips and Tricks to Secure Your Email

The good news is that there are ways to restore your company’s email reputation if it has been unjustly pegged as a spammer. Here are expert-recommended methods for making amends with the blacklist authorities that have unfairly targeted your company.

Take the Easy Way Out

In some instances, getting removed from a blacklist is as easy as submitting a Web-based form explaining why your company should be removed. So before you overreact to all of those emails that are bouncing back, keep an eye out for an easy resolution. Unfortunately, there are times when getting back into an ISP’s good graces will take some heavy lifting. Just ask Ted Roberts, director of deliverability and ISP relationships at Silverpop, a provider of permission-based email-marketing solutions, strategies and services. According to Roberts, some blacklist owners “simply don’t care if you’re legitimate or not. They want to know what actions you have put in place to stop the behavior that caused the listing in the first place.” However, no matter how much of the burden of proof is placed on your company, find out the blacklisting service’s own procedures for adding and removing IP addresses and act accordingly.

Start a Conversation

You may want to scream at the blacklist owner who is responsible for inundating your inbox with undeliverable messages, but that’s no way to rectify the situation. Instead, said Roberts, “If you can get into a conversation with the maintainer of a blacklist, it’s always a good thing.”

Get to the Root of the Problem

There are countless ways that an email newsletter might be miscategorized as spam. That’s why “the most important thing is for companies to diagnose what problem landed them on that blacklist in the first place,” advised Ray Everett-Church, director of policy and advisory services at Habeas Inc., a company that specializes in online-reputation-management services. Inheriting old IP addresses from known spammers, including links to other sites, switching email-service providers, refreshing a database and contacting customers after a long absence are all perfectly innocent activities that can launch an IP address to the top of a blacklist.

Determine the Criteria

Find out a blacklist service’s specific criteria for separating spammers from legitimate senders. Each blacklist has its own definition of a spammer; thus, it is sometimes just as easy for small businesses that send email newsletters from a residential connection to land on a blacklist as it is for sites with high ISP complaint rates.

Consider the Source

Not all blacklists are created equal. In fact, there are more than 300 email blacklists actively tracking perpetrators, and they range from the well-known (The Spamhaus Project Ltd., SpamCop, MAPS and SPEWS, for example) to independent blacklists that are owned and operated by self-ordained industry watchdogs. The trick, said Roberts, is “evaluating how prevalent a blacklist is and what effect it’s having on your mailings. The good news is a lot of these lower-echelon blacklists are not very prevalent. Not a lot of people are using them.”

Everett-Church agrees. “You should prioritize [removal from a blacklist] based upon where the size of your delivery problems are,” he said. Everett-Church added that if your company sends one-third of its email newsletters to Hotmail addresses, and Hotmail has flagged it as a spammer, then the company should devote time and attention to restoring its reputation with that particular email service.

However, there are blacklist authorities with questionable agendas. “The more credible blacklists tend to be more public and transparent organizations like Spamhaus,” said Josh Aberant, a privacy and standards manager at marketing-technology vendor Lyris Inc. “But there are literally hundreds of blacklists, and some of these are just run by guys out of their bedroom.” In fact, stories abound of blacklist owners holding companies’ IP addresses hostage unless they agree to retain their services. Said Aberant, “There’s no point in even communicating with them. Besides, the minor blacklists don’t have a lot of deliverability effect today.”

But what if your company has been blacklisted by a service with strong industry credentials but somewhat outlandish criteria? It happens, admitted Aberant. But rather than appealing to the service itself, Aberant recommends contacting customers that have been affected by the blacklist on an individual basis.

Seek Third-Party Assistance

Unfortunately, restoring your business’s email reputation in the aftermath of a blacklisting is a time-consuming process that can pose a significant drain on IT resources. Turning to a third-party marketing-technology company, however, can help ease the burden. Said Roberts, “For the most part, we have contacts at these blacklist services, so if something happens and you get on a blacklist, we can negotiate a way off on our client’s behalf.”

Habeas’ team of experts is also willing to step in where many organizations fear to tread. Said Everett-Church, “We’ll work with you and the ISPs to mediate and resolve delivery problems that can arise, even if everyone is doing the right thing.” But an ounce of prevention is also key to rectifying a tarnished online reputation. For this reason, Habeas offers tools that scan countless blacklists in search of a client’s IP address before an email newsletter makes its way into the wrong inbox. “You can track and monitor any problems you might run into before you start seeing undeliverable mail,” stated Everett-Church.

Here are just a handful of vendors that offer solutions to help a company falsely accused of spamming quickly restore its reputation:

Vendor: Lyris

Tool: Blacklist Monitor

How It Works: A component of EmailAdvisor, this tool tells you if any of the major blacklist organizations have targeted the domains that are referenced in your email campaigns, allowing your business to take the appropriate steps to resolve blockages. When you conduct an EmailAdvisor audit, you’ll receive a Blacklist Monitor report in just a few minutes; that way, you can review it and take corrective actions immediately.

Vendor: Habeas

Tool: SafeList for Senders

How It Works: An Internet whitelisting service, SafeList for Senders requires customers to pass Habeas’ strict reputation requirements in order to qualify. In turn, senders receive significant delivery uplift to more than 5 million email systems at partner ISPs and enterprises, resulting in faster delivery times and expert assistance with dispute resolution.

Vendor: Silverpop

Tool: Bounced Email Management

How It Works: This complex engine rapidly analyzes each email bounce against hundreds of rules in order to classify it and immediately take the appropriate action, including whether to opt out of, retry or suspend message delivery. Many of the tool’s settings can even be tailored to each customer’s unique needs.

source : http://www.itsecurity.com

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Post tags: Access Control, Audit, Detection Systems, Email Security, Firewalls, Intrusion, Malware, Network, Scanning, Security, Spyware, VPN, Vulnerability

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