This is one of the more common “issues” that I encounter. Probably many of you reading this blog may be guilty. When someone asks you to type an address (URL) in your browser (ex: www.smartergeek.com), that means you should type it in the ADDRESS BAR of the browser!

Sure, you can type in the search bar of Google, Yahoo, or Bing – but that requires an extra click. It’s not a really big deal, but when I’m trying to get you to type in an address and see a particular page, and then you don’t and get something different – it just makes it that much harder to help you.

Interestingly enough, if you want to see the top search terms for Yahoo and Google – click the following links:

http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

http://www.google.com/trends

Several years ago, Google made the decision to move into China and caved in to filtering certain search terms. There were many in the tech community that raised their voices – after all, Google’s corporate motto is “Don’t Be Evil”. Many people decried the censorship as evil.

Personally, I always figured it was a way for Google to get their foot in the door with China, like they stated in their blog. After all, some sort of western presence in China was better than none.

Now things have changed drastically. Apparently, China has been doing a little technical espionage, and targeting Google and other companies. According to Google, they have been targeting specific user accounts.

In something that I think might be unprecedented – Google is firing back at the Chinese government. This obviously presents a financial growth danger to Google, and potentially puts Google’s whole Chinese business in jeopardy. Nice to see a company grow the proverbial “set of nuts”. Go Google.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the exploit is reported to involve a combination of social engineering and a serious flaw in Internet Explorer – imagine that!

I know – I know. Typically I don’t post about Internet Explorer exploits. However, this one is pretty serious.

I do have a few customers that must use IE for sites such as the Caddo Parish and Bossier Parish websites. Both of them stupidly use Active X controls. Not that either of these sites are malicious, but they tacitly encourage people to use Internet Explorer, which puts users at greater risk.

How do you avoid the IE risks and vulnerablilities? Simple – USE FIREFOX.

www.mozilla.org

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The Vulnerability
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Microsoft Security Advisory (961051)
Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/961051.mspx

Limited Exploitation of Microsoft Security Advisory 961051
http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/archive/2008/12/11/limited-exploitation-of-microsoft-security-advisory-961051.aspx

According to the investigation thus far, the vulnerability affects Windows Internet Explorer on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Our telemetry indicates that this issue is impacting home and corporate users.

This issue could impact you even if you avoid surfing questionable sites. Over the past few months, we’ve seen a surge in SQL injection attacks which enable miscreants to inject content onto trusted sites…