Microsoft has warned users of a vulnerability in Windows applications manufactured by out of house developers, which potentially enable intruders to inject malicious code straight into your PC. The attacks, also known as binary planting or DLL preoload attacks exploit the way in which programmes load associated libraries, which in combination with binary files stored in hacker-controlled directories, can swiftly relieve you of complete control of your PC. read more

Microsoft Outlook 2010 is better than ever after receiving a much needed facelift, but also and more particularly in its ever-increasing convergence, as can be seen with the addition of Facebook to your mailing and calendar environment. Microsoft has integrated Facebook and Windows Live Messenger into Outlook, bringing newsfeeds of millions of Facebook users into one combined inboxes, arguably making the area splitting social and business somewhat greyer, but certainly a lot more user-oriented.The success of the integration is riding on the back of the launch of Microsoft’s Outlook Social Connector last year, a plugin that syncs social networking feeds with your Outlook contacts, giving you feedback data on what your friends and other contacts are doing and thinking. read more

Microsoft is planning yet another Patch Tuesday next week to combat five security issues, closing, closing critical holes in both Windows and Office. The five issues, including vulnerabilities a Windows Help Center flaw disclosed by a Google research employee, will be repaired in 4 security bulletins. The two bulletins alleviating issues in Windows includes one rated critical for Windows XP and low for Windows Server 2003, whereby the other only needs to concern users running the 64-bit version of Windows 7. read more

Apple has recently confirmed news that iTunes accounts were compromised, forcing fraudulent purchases and has taken measures to ban the developer at the heart of the latest attack. Warnings of scamming were brought to Apple’s attention after Thuat Nguyen succeeded in pushing 42 of his releases into the top 50 book apps in the US iTunes Store last week. The developer, unpeturbed by his previous ban, Nguyen has been banned indefinitely for his violations of the Developer Programme License Agreement. read more

UK customers using online banking services are warned to be extremely careful in light of the discovery of 2 UK-based botnets being used to rip off UK customers using a variant of the Zeus Trojan. The discovery made by security firm Trusteer shows how the two UK botnets, consisting of up to 30.000 computers, are zeroing in on UK customers using regionally specific infected spam. Trusteer boss, Mickey Boodaei, declined to state which banks exactly are being targeted, but states that customers of all of the major institutions had been targeted. read more

Softwareload is now retailing security software from specialists Kaspersky Lab. Early bird customers can take advantage of our Deal of the Week from 14 June until 20 June and get their hands on a cracking Kaspersky download! read more

Just when you think the coast is clear and Zuckerberg has done all the apologising he can for one month, Facebook finds itself once again in a bit of a bind, as latest hacking research attempts lay threat to user’s friends list – in that it can delete them! Users face being relieved of their friends through exploits via spam or a self-copying worm code hidden in malicious links just waiting to be clicked on. read more

Avid users of Skype, in particular the instant messaging/chat function should keep an eye on who they’re chatting to, and indeed, what they click on. As has been seen in the past couple of weeks on Yahoo!’s chat platform, Skype users are now also vulnerable to messages from randoms with links to images, where viruses and the like are just waiting for you to click on them. So don’t! read more

Microsoft has released 2 critical bug fixes for gaps in its email suites and for Visual Basic for Applications used for programming language implementation in Office. Users are advised to download and install these as soon as possible to avoid email being hacked into and/or intercepted, as well as avoid critical overrides in general PC control. read more

Securing your home is a top priority, but what about the assets stored on your computer? The idea of physical intrusion by thieves into our home is the stuff of nightmares, but allowing cyber criminals to access our PC to steal documents and passwords could be equally intrusive and costly. In this article, Dirk Lebzien, Head of software download portal Softwareload.co.uk, busts the jargon and helps you understand how best to protect your laptop, notebook or PC from attack read more