Motherboard manufacturer Super Micro is moving manufacturing completely outside China to allay fears from customers on spyware implanted by China. Bloomberg in October 2018 put out a sensational article alleging that Super Micro, which specializes in server motherboards bought in bulk by data-centers and cloud companies, contain spyware by the Chinese government designed to spy on US enterprises. Super Micro was quick to refute the article as baseless, but by then the damage to its reputation was done. Faced with declining sales by as much as 10 percent despite rapid industrial CAGR growth, the company is now forced to relocate manufacturing outside China not just to allay these fears, but perhaps also to reduce its import tariff burden imposed by the US government on a spectrum of electronics goods manufactured in China.

China had a manufacturing strangehold on server motherboard manufacturing, amounting to 90 percent of server motherboards shipped in 2017. In 2018, however, with the the US-China trade-war underway, that figure dropped like a rock to just 50 percent, a dramatic fall for just one year. Server component manufacturers are relocating to other countries, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Super Micro is relocating to Taiwan, with a new factory set up in Taoyuan at a cost of $65 million.

Nowadays everyone will tell you that most virus, spyware, malware and other malicious definitions are written solely for Windows, but it appears that times have changed a bit. Security experts are warning now about a new Trojan horse released in the wild, targeting Apple operating systems or more specifically Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard (version 10.4 and 10.5). In addition to the usual stuff a trojan can do (run in background, open ports, steal your passwords, replicate etc.) this one can also log what you type in every moment, take screenshots of your active desktop and even take a picture of you using Mac's built-in iSight camera. Here's how it works: AppleScript.THT comes either as a 3.1MB application dubbed AStht_v06 or as a 60KB compiled AppleScript script called ASthtv05. Once started on a Mac OS system it adds itself to the System Login Items and thus runs with root privileges every time the OS is started. Once the system is infected AppleScript.THT also moves itself into the /Library/Caches/ folder. To protect your system against this threat, security experts advice to run SecureMac MacScan 2.5.2 anti-virus software with the latest Spyware Definitions update (2008011). More details on the malicious code and additional removal instructions are posted here.

Safer Networking has released a new version of Spybot - Search & Destroy (commonly abbreviated simply to Spybot) taking it to version 1.5. The major changes from version 1.4 include improved support for Vista, restored Windows 95 compatibility, improved browser support for Firefox and Opera and improved malware detection and removal, along with many other minor updates and additions. Download here.

Anyone who currently uses Ad-Aware SE Personal (the free version of Ad-Aware) should be pleased to hear Ad-Aware 2007 Free has now been launched by Lavasoft. Ad-Aware is one of the most popular spyware scanners available, and definitely worth a try if you don't already use it. This is the list of new features:

• Redesigned Engine - Benefit from superior program flexibility and more accurate scanning methods with all-new program architecture.
• Improved Code Sequence Identification (CSI) Technology - Boost your privacy protection with precise detection of embedded malware, including known and emerging threats.
• Incremental Definition File Updates - Save precious time and resources with smaller update files resulting in faster download times.
• TrackSweep - Control privacy by erasing tracks left behind while surfing the Web on Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera, with one easy click.
• Multiple Browser Support - Choose Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera with expanded browser support.
• New Straightforward User Interface - Effortlessly maneuver the complexities of malware detection and removal with our new user-friendly interface.

You can download Ad-Aware 2007 Free from here.Source: Lavasoft

Update: please note, Ad-Aware 2007 does not yet work with Vista - although it looks like Lavasoft is working on Vista support and it should be available soon.

Popular free antivirus provider GRISOFT has today launched the first non-beta version of its AVG Anti-Rootkit software, which is free to all home users. Unfortunately GRISOFT does not offer support for this new product so you'll have to rely on their forums if you run into any problems, but you should certainly consider adding this software to your PC security arsenal. Rootkits are among the newest and most difficult to detect forms of malware being circulated at present, and most standard virus scanners will have either no rootkit detecting abilities or be very limited in their effectiveness, so at present the best way to combat them is by using these standalone rootkit-detectors. Other free anti-rootkit software to look at includes RootkitRevealer, Rootkit Unhooker, Rootkit Buster, IceSword and Sophos Anti-Rootkit, although some are difficult to use and may not remove the rootkits for you - as rootkits are still relatively new and different software will be better at detecting different exploits, it is a good idea to use multiple scanners to complement each other. AVG Anti-Rootkit will work on the 32-bit versions of both Windows 2000 and Windows XP, although Windows Vista support is not mentioned.

Despite China, Russia and even Korea often being stereotyped as the main online criminals, security firm Symantec has revealed that its findings suggest most online attacks come from the United States, accounting for a huge 31% of attacks. China was the next behind after quite a gap, making up 10% of attacks - Germany proved to be a wildcard coming in at third with 7%. Servers in the USA account for 51% of phishing attacks - considering that the malicious firms can make up to $6 for each credit card number, online identity theft is becoming quite a profitable business.

StormWorm shows a disturbing new trend of malware authors- playing off victim's fears. Instead of using classic baits of sex or celebrity information, malware authors are using a hot news event to get people to click their links. Malware authors are sending emails with the subject "230 dead as storms batter Europe", which has a link to the storm worm where a news story ought to be. Security firm F-Secure says that the worm is just a variant of Small.DAM, but it definitely has an unusual install approach.

Due to unrelenting pressure from the press, angry parents, and politicians, MySpace is releasing software that will monitor a MySpace user's activities on MySpace. The software, codenamed 'Zephyr', does look a lot like spyware, but will only report MySpace activities to parents, not unlike AOL's Parental Controls. The software would allow parents to see what name, age, and location their children are using on MySpace. 'Zephyr' would run even if the user logged in from a different location, and does not record highly private/sensitive information such as MySpace comments and email. The main reason MySpace is doing this is because a massive amount of USA senators (33) are threatening to take legal action against MySpace if it does not do something to verify the age of it's users. Other popular social networking sites, such as Facebook and Xanga, will not allow anything like 'Zephyr' on their sites, as it is a direct violation of their Terms of Service.