BitLocker Drive Encryption

• A Real-world Windows Vista BitLocker Tip
• BitLocker Drive Encryption
• BitLocker Drive Encryption Frequently Asked Questions (Microsoft TechNet)
  
• BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool
• Keys to Protecting Data with BitLocker Drive Encryption (TechNet Article)
  
• Why won't Bitlocker read my USB token on boot? How to use Bitlocker without a Trusted Platform Module(TPM)

Data Exception Prevention (DEP) (32 Bit)

• How DEP Can Protect Your PC (Scott Dunn, Windows Secrets)
  

Encrypting File System Enhancements

• Encrypting File Systems

Internet Explorer Protected Mode

• Internet Explorer Protected Mode

Parental Controls

• Family Safe Computing & Microsoft (MSDN Blog)
• How to configure Parental Controls in Windows Vista (3.5MB) (Vista4Beginners Video)
• How to view the Activity Reports (1.5MB) (Vista4Beginners Video)
  
• Internet Explorer Parental controls
• Parental Controls for Windows Vista (MSDN)
• Parent's Guide to Microsoft's Windows Vista (The Road to Know Where)
• Setting up Windows Vista Parental Controls (Bleeping Computer Tutorial)
• Use Windows Vista to help enforce limits on your children's computer use (Microsoft "Security Tips & Talk")
  

PatchGuard (Kernel Patch Protection)

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Several companies and organizations began gathering and packaging Linux software together into usable forms called distributions. The main goal of a Linux distribution is to make the hundreds of unrelated software packages that make up Linux work together as a cohesive whole. For the past few years, the most popular commercial distribution has been Red Hat Linux.

In September 2003, Red Hat, Inc., changed its way of doing business. That change resulted in the formation of the Red Hat–sponsored Fedora Project to take the development of Red Hat Linux technology into the future.


Red Hat forms the Fedora Project
The announcement of the Fedora Project by Red Hat, Inc. at first it prompted more questions than answers about the future direction of the company and its flagship Red Hat Linux product. In fact, it seemed that nothing named Red Hat Linux even existed anymore. Instead, what was Red Hat Linux would be reflected by Linux distributions coming from two paths:

• Fedora Project (http://fedora.redhat.com) — An open source project, beginning from a Red Hat Linux 9 base, that produces its own Linux distribution. While the project is sponsored by Red Hat, Inc., there is no official...

Malware E-Mails Disguised as Invoices and E-Tickets contain the GenericDownloader.ab Trojan

Recent reports from McAfee have stated that malware is being distributed through e-mail in the form of airline e-tickets and UPS invoices. The price of air travel is already outrageous so you want to be sure your purchased airline ticket is secured right?. If you are one of the lucky ones and recently purchased an airline ticket, 9 times out of 10 you are going to open a received email related to an “airline ticket”. What better way to spread malware onto computer users than using a fake airline e-ticket, airline titled email or even a UPS invoice?

Through further examination of these types of emails, it was confirmed that the threats are variants of a downloader called Generic Downloader.ab which is classified as a Trojan infection. Because many Trojans are manually installed they can utilize emails such as in the case of fake e-tickets and UPS invoice messages. Once the Generic Downloader.ab trojan is installed it attempts to access a remote host (81.29.241.20) where it could send your personal information to a remote user or hacker.

Have you ever had UPS or FedEx mess up

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For sure, most of us will not be content with the current PC configuration that we have. Depending on the length of time that we have had our personal computers, we are bound to want more in terms of speed and features of personal computers offered in the market. But the real question is what in particular do we look for?

There are a lot of options we can think of today. Ranging from processor chips, memory modules and video cards, it may seem that the possibilities are endless. But considering that these upgrades carry costs, it would be wise to determine what you really need. There are some who go for overkill specs and traditionally these would not be put to full use. Some only need a computer for word processing or browsing the web. So how sophisticated of a specification would you need?

Others tend to be drawn into tempting sales talks from PC vendors. For example, you would seek a certain specs and the usual thing you would hear is for an extra couple of bucks, you can get this higher version. Some do it to help a buyer decide and get more value for their money while others

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Now that Vista is starting to permeate the enterprise...I have started to get quite a few questions like this:

Steve, we just replaced 10 machines, and they all are running Vista. We have a 'one time' script that we need to roll out that requires administrative access. Every time we run it, it fails, and the users *are* administrators of their own machines. Know any way around this?

Yes. The reason why the script is failing is because Vista executes it with limited access - even if they are an administrator.

To get Vista to run a program as an administrator, you need the program to be elevated to full access. Vista will only show the elevation (UAC) prompt if the application requests it, or if it is detected that the program is actually an installer.

If you have not had the pleasure of using Vista yet (I am joking), it looks like this:



To force Vista to request administrative access, you need to have two scripts. The first script will force the prompt, and if accepted it will call the second script (The one you...