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If you are one of the users like us who just recently upgraded to Win 7 then here is a disturbing news. Windows 7 is still virus vulnerable, warns a security specialist. SophosLabs reported in its security blog that a test Windows 7 system on a clean PC was affected by 80 per cent of viruses. This is despite Microsoft’s claim about Windows 7 being more secure. With User Account Control (UAC) turned on, it blocked only one out of the 10 proving that UAC in it’s default configuration is not effective at protecting a PC from malware.

Microsoft also claimed that Windows Vista infection was 61.9% less than Windows XP. What they didn’t say was the market share of Windows XP was 70.5% and Windows Vista is 19%.

Sophos’ Chester Wisniewski, said engineers loaded a full version of Microsoft’s recently launched operating system, and configured it to follow system defaults for UAC (User Account Control) without installing an anti-virus package.

Ten samples of net nasties that arrived in the SophosLab security feed were tested to, as Wisniewski put it “see how well the newer, more secure version of Windows and UAC held up”.

“Unfortunately, despite Microsoft’s claims, Windows 7 disappointed just like earlier versions of Windows,” he wrote.

“The good news is that, of the freshest 10 samples that arrived, two would not operate correctly under Windows 7.”

Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report released this week said the infection rate of a Windows Vista machine running Service Pack was 61.9% less than on an up-to-date Windows XP computer.

But only around one in five Windows users are using the new operating system or Vista.

“With millions of hosts still infected with Conficker, ZBot and Bredo, it is obvious a lot of unprotected machines are still out there, and it is no surprise that most of those are XP.”

“But let’s not get complacent,” he said, “Microsoft seems to be saying that Vista is the least ugly baby in its family. You can be sure the next report will highlight its even less ugly younger sibling, Windows 7.

I AM JUST SHARING IT......

Android is constantly accused of various shortcomings, mostly related to piracy, viruses and the lack of security of data. And now, a new experiment says that the situation is even worse than you think — even a full reset of data is not a guarantee that an attacker will not be able to recover information from your smartphone or tablet. What is particularly unpleasant, is under threat of not less than 500 million devices with a “green robot”.

The experts succeed in 80% of cases to restore the data to synchronize the device with your Google account previous owner — contacts, mail, apps, and other data appeared again in the gadgets. In some cases, the recovery procedure yielded even SMS messages and correspondence through a third-party messengers, as well as account recovery Facebook. The disappointing conclusion of the experts: more than half a billion devices can’t completely erase your data from the phone memory and about 630 million do not cope with memory cards.

Separately, an experiment was performed with encryption and then resetting gadgets. In this case, access becomes much more difficult, however, there is a need to use complex passwords. In addition, newer smartphones proved to be more resistant to these manipulations: “the Reasons for this behavior are complex. New phones, as a rule, better than the old ones, and the phones of its own brand Google is better than OEM. However, producers should try to work on it, and users should be more careful”.

The experiment was conducted on smartphones running Android versions 2.3 through 4.3. Samples with more current systems researchers at Cambridge University for unknown reasons, did not check. It is possible that the gap has already closed in new systems. But do not forget about the number of devices at older versions and sluggishness at manufacturers upgrading gadgets — this security hole is very serious. I hope that early information about the growth of security in Android M will be truthful.

Most of all, if you decide to sell your old smartphone in Nigeria, I suggest you do this on JiJi.ng. So you find the real buyers and save your time and money.

Android Viruses isn’t a topic which many people discuss in my locality but there has really been complaints which some people I had met were not even able to describe. Picking up their devices I discovered they had been attacked by one form of virus or the other, that’s why I had to bring us this walk-through.

Just like every other virus that can attack your computer systems, Android viruses are malicious apps, programs, files or even codes that can mess up your device and perhaps in most cases do things in your device without your consent, like stealing your data and/or destroying it.

They surely can do more harm to more devices despite the huge amount of effort Google puts into building Android OS. Many of us believe our Android devices are invulnerable but the OS is Open source (Android Open Source Project -AOSP), this alone completely changes that fact.

They are mainly Malwares and Trojans right now, they’re made up of files & codes, yes you heard me right “CODES”! Viruses are now written in strong encrypted codes and injected to run in your device, we take a sneak peak at Trojans & Malwares.

Malwares can completely hijack installed apps with your data or even the entire device. This virus that use the WebView component on Android versions older than 4.4 (KitKat) are silent and transparent, it won’t notify you before taking actions. 

Okay, this one is pretty smart amongst the rest. If a trojan infects your device, it can relax there without you even noticing, it’s the most sophisticated virus you can think of.

Here’s a paragraph from Wikipedia of what Trojan can do.

This was the first malicious program classified as a Trojan SMS that affects smartphones running on Google’s Android operating system, and which had already infected a number of mobile devices, sending SMS messages to premium rate numbers without the owner’s knowledge or consent, and accumulating huge bills”

See what installing it looks like below…

Another dreadful feature of a Trojan is that it can’t be deleted once it’s installed. This is because Trojan enjoys extended privileges, but is not listed as an application with Device Administrator privileges.

Trojans can go as Far as collecting sensitive data from your device and these may include: your MAC address, telephone number, account balance, local time and of course it will tell the cybercriminalswhether it had successfully gained Administrator privileges of your device.

Now there were still apps submitted to Google and Kaspersky team for Analysis, they returned feedbacks after scanning– trojans make use of a program called“Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a.”

I believe more crafty ways are still been built to encrypt Trojans with codes that cannot be understandable by anti-malware experts. The fight against this virus continues.

Your device can be infected through any means of communication with a 3rd-party device, app, files, or bytes it received.

In most cases those free apps you install from 3rd party stores other than the original Google PlayStore can contain malicious codes.

You may even get your device infected through mails/messages attachments, or shared apps from another devices.

Fortunately, in most cases of reported issues of Android malware & trojan attacks, solutions were quickly created to fight it. Here’s what you can do in case your smartphone or tablet is already infected:

Installing an antivirus can’t be overemphasized. Although this does not guarantee your device is 100 secure, it goes a long way to prevent an infection. You may pick from any of those below, they’re reliable.

– Kaspersky Internet Security

– AVAST Mobile Security & Antivirus

There are more which you can always find from recommendation by Play Store.

You’re expected to install only one AntiVirus! Installing more than one can actually harm your device sooner or later. Wondering why? Installing two different programs to perform the same jab can cause conflicts with undesirable effects like your device crashing or slowing down.

I’ll suggest you also install Bluebox Security Scanner, it can check whether a device is vulnerable to the fake ID attacks and whether your device allows installation of apps from untrusted sources among other things.

People feel Android virus attacks are few but it mustn’t be ignored, otherwise you may loose not only your device, but also your accounts connected with it. Apps like PayPal, GoogleWallet, BitCoin can get hacked through viruses. I still can’t tell which viruses are more harmful,  but I’m pretty sure the tips in this post will help you stay safe from any of them.