Microsoft deems Windows Gadgets vulnerable to hacker exploits, issues fix

Gadgets were Microsoft's answer to Apple's Widgets. Mini apps that could run on top of your desktop and give you weather and news updates, flight information, stock tickers, webcam feeds, you name it

Aside from being an unwelcome reminder of the train wreck that was Windows Vista, it seems these Gadgets are extremely dangerous and should be removed completely.

"An attacker who successfully exploited a Gadget vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user," company officials declared in an advisory issued yesterday. "If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take complete control of the affected system." To be successful, they added: "An attacker would have to convince a user to install and enable a vulnerable Gadget."

Bad Gadgets! The best way to deal with this is to disable them completely and Microsoft has pulled the Gadget library altogether. In order to fix the situation Microsoft has enabled a quick fix that disables the sidebar and the widgets altogether. 

Symantec: 36% of online attacks target SMB's

Symantec  announced the findings of its June 2012 Symantec Intelligence Report, which shows 36 percent of all targeted attacks (58 per day) during the last six months were directed at businesses with 250 or fewer employees. As reported in the recent ISTR, this figure was 18 percent at the end of December 2011.

Click to read more ...

HP TouchPad can now run Android OS...sort of

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

What's more awesome than $99 dual-core webOS tablets? Kick ass hackers who put in hours of work to enable Android on the now discontinued HP TouchPad. Team Touchdroid has managed to install Android 2.3 (yes, it is the smartphone version but you have to start somewhere) with multi-touch now enabled. These lads are hard at work to turn the abandoned tablet into something useful and fun to use.

I'd like to see if someone can figure out how to dual-boot Android and webOS on that sucker...oh, wait Team Touchdroid already did!  Hit up Team-Touchdroid to track their progress, encourage their efforts or donate your TouchPads and $$$ for the common good.

Update on Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 12:25AM by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Seems like Cyanogenmod deserves credit as well for getting things started