I plan to live forever. So far, so good.

Following an article in the Financial Times where Google states they’re dropping Windows all across the company, out comes the response of the Windows Team, on their official blog. In short, Google are blaming Windows for the China attacks in January, and they’re ditching it in favor of Linux and MacOS. But is really blaming a 9-year-old browser the way to go?

To be honest, I find that the biggest security problem with Windows is actually it’s popularity: in the long run, using Linux or MacOS might in fact be less secure if attacked directly, even if there really are more known attacks/viruses/worms/trojans built  for Windows than there are for MacOS or Linux. After all, the security of a computer system depends very much on it being up to date and properly configured, while also running latest versions of any software being used. Having an outdated and/or badly configured version of any OS is a dangerous thing to do, no matter which OS it is. And switching to another OS simply because you can’t properly and securely configure the previous one is a really dumb move.

In any case, both links above are worth a read.

Later edit: Google have also announced that ChromeOS will be out “later this fall” -  do you really think this is just a coincidence?

Okay, now that the WHH course is over, here’s a quick link to all the presentations [in Romanian]:

• www.slideshare.net/Tudy/white-hat-hacking-1 (social engineering, hacking ethics)
• www.slideshare.net/Tudy/white-hat-hacking-2 (privacy, social media security, wireless networks)
• www.slideshare.net/Tudy/white-hat-hacking-3 (information security, web threats, network/security best practices)

Also, for all those who attended the course, I have some extra content available for download on whh.tudy.ro. For the ones that weren’t present at the last meeting: you may contact me directly for access.

A big thanks to MAP UBB for their help in organizing this, and of course to all the attendees, along with a note that I’m still available for any questions/discussions you might want to raise on the subject.

After last week’s meeting, where we talked about hacking ethics and social engineering, tomorrow it’s time for the second part of my WHH course – this time about privacy, social media security and wireless networks.

The time and location are the same.

Microsoft Security Essentials, the free antivirus from Microsoft is finally out of beta.

It’s available for XP, Vista and Windows 7 users (both x86 and x64), with the sole mention that your PC must run genuine Windows in order to install it.