unix

New malware exploiting Java 7 in Windows and Unix systems

A new Trojan horse called Mal/JavaJar-B has been found that exploits a vulnerability in Oracle's Java 7 and affects even the latest version of the runtime (7u10).

The exploit has been described by Sophos as a zero-day attack since it has been found being actively used in malware before developers have had a chance to investigate and patch it. The exploit is currently under review at the National Vulnerability Database and has been given an ID number CVE-2013-0422, where it is still described as relatively unknown:

"Unspecified vulnerability in Oracle Java 7 Update 10 and earlier allows … Read more

Two asteroids named after Unix co-creators

Two small asteroids now bear the names of two towering figures in computing history, Unix inventors Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.

Asteroid 300909 Kenthompson and 294727 Dennisritchie both were discovered in 2008 by Tom Glinos and D. H. Levy (the latter famous for being a discover of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which smashed into Jupiter in 1994).

Rob Pike, who worked with the pair where the influential operating system was invented, AT&T's Bell Labs, flagged the news in a Google+ post yesterday; the new names apparently arrived in February. Pike nowadays is heavily involved in Google's … Read more

Options for searching the Unix man pages in Lion

If you are used to the Unix command line, then you will find yourself right at home with Apple's Terminal application in OS X. The tool launches bash as the default shell for user accounts, but you have the option of using others such as sh, zsh, and csh.

In addition to the shell environment, Apple offers a full set of BSD tools that enable you to script many tasks for automating just as you would on any Unix system.

The BSD library and other commands that Apple includes in its operating system are vast, and with hundreds of … Read more

Security threat in Reader and Acrobat poses threat to Macs

Yesterday Adobe released a security bulletin that discusses a new attack which is targeting a flaw in its Acrobat and Reader programs.

The flaw affects both version 9.4.6 and 10.1.1 of its Reader and Acrobat programs, on all supported platforms, which include both Windows and Macintosh PCs.

Described only as a "U3D memory corruption" vulnerability, if the attacker takes advantage of it by releasing a compromised PDF document that when opened causes the target system to crash, it allows the attacker to take control of the system. Adobe does not go into any additional … Read more

Dennis Ritchie, father of C programming language, dies

Dennis Ritchie, an internationally renowned computer scientist who created the C programming language, has died at age 70.

Ritchie died at his home over the weekend, according to a Google+ post from longtime colleague Rob Pike. His Wikipedia entry was updated to say he had died in Murray Hill, N.J.

His death was confirmed today by Bell Labs, in a message from its president, Jeong Kim, to employees. That message reads, in part:

Dennis was well loved by his colleagues at Bell Labs, and will be greatly missed. He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just … Read more

Malware attacks Linux and Unix-like routers

Malware has been found in the wild that masquerades as harmless Linux/Unix-like software for routers, but is in fact an IRC backdoor.

The malware, which poses as a .elf file, has infected machines in Latin America, security company Trend Micro said in a blog post yesterday. Trend Micro has called the exploit ELF_TSUNAMI.R., and says it can also compromise D-Link DWL-900AP+ access points.

An infected machine connects to a botnet on internet relay chat (IRC) servers, Trend Micro said. The exploit may perform brute-force attacks on router username password pairs. At the time of writing, Trend Micro was … Read more

Weekly troubleshooting utilities update

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is on bringing you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This past week there were updates with maintenance tools, some popular ones for managing disks and filesystems, and an open source Unix port management utility.

Maintenance

The first updates this week are to OnyX and its stripped-down sibling "Maintenance," … Read more

Tease your brain

Brainteasers can be both fun and useful, helping you develop your problem-solving skills and memory while also providing hours of addictive entertainment. Gbrainy is a basic program that contains a variety of different mental challenges, effectively helping you pass time and sharpen your mind. It's not the most attractive program we've ever seen, but it's not bad for what it is.

Gbrainy's interface is plain, especially for a game; there is a handful of colored buttons across the top, but the rest of the interface is pretty drab. User can choose between four different types of … Read more

Unix commands for managing HFS+ compression in OS X

A couple of days ago we discussed some problems that could arise with sizing files with HFS compression. This problem basically arises from there being a lack of consistency in the various utilities that are available in OS X, where some show compression status and size, and others show the uncompressed size.

If you regularly do scripting or other work with files on disk that require you to know details about the compression, there are some utilities available that can help you get the status of file compression, and apply or remove compression from files on disk.

Hfsdebug

Hfsdebug is … Read more