Transmission Electron Micrograph of the Ebola Virus.

Ebola is a killer virus; normally found in animals, primarily bats, which causes what is referred to as a hemorrhagic fever. It is this reaction that can make the infected person to bleed from all their orifices.

The virus was first discovered in 1976 when the nations of Sudan and Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo) suffered two deadly outbreaks in which 90 percent of the people infected with the virus died.

Now we have word of a new study that may have found a new way to battle the virus and is set to be published in the online edition of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Researchers from both Scripps Research; led by Associate Professor Erica Ollmann Saphire, and the US Army, led by virologist John M. Dye, have found that a new antibody is able to attach itself to a Sudan version of the virus in such a way as to link two segments of the virus’s coat protein, thereby reducing their freedom of movement and hindering its ability to infect cells.

The protein-linking strategy appears to be the same as that used by a previously discovered neutralizing antibody against the best-known ebolavirus species, Ebola-Zaire. The new study suggests that this may be

[....]

Ebolavirus researchers hope to develop a vaccine that could be used to protect health workers and others in the vicinity of ebolavirus outbreaks, as well as an antibody-based immunotherapy that could help infected people survive. However, these tasks are complicated by the fact that there are now five recognized species of ebolavirus: Ebola-Zaire, also known simply as Ebola virus; Taï Forest virus; Reston virus; Bundibugyo virus; and Sudan virus.

via PhysOrg

Considering how deadly this virus strain is any success in fighting it is a bonus.

It turns out that the Ebola virus can be beaten is a post from: winextra
Follow us on Twitter: @WinExtra | Don't forget we're on Facebook as well: WinExtra Fans

Related posts:

1. Anti-virus from the cloud
2. About that report regarding the virus getting by most security software….
3. Hey Apple, about this virus thing
4. Turns out T3 Can’t Kinect The Dots

This new (old) trojan, according to Sophos, is a variant of the old backdoor trojan that has haunted Windows users and goes by the name of: darkComet, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT). The creator of the version targeted for OS X is apparently calling his version Blackhole RAT.

From the blog post at Sophos:

The Mac OS X version is very basic and there appears to be a mix of German and English in the user interface. Its functions include:

* Placing text files on the desktop
* Sending a restart, shutdown or sleep command
* Running arbitrary shell commands
* Placing a full screen window with a message that only allows you to click reboot
* Sending URLs to the client to open a website
* Popping up a fake “Administrator Password” window to phish the target

Old Windows trojan being re-worked for Mac OS X is a post from: winextra
Follow us on Twitter: @WinExtra | Don't forget we're on Facebook as well: WinExtra Fans

Related posts:

1. Watch out for the Energizer Bunny he might be carrying a trojan
2. A nasty ransomware trojan making the rounds
3. Zune Desktop 4.7 hits Windows Update
4. Vote on your favorite wishlist items for Windows 8

In turns out as the Telegraph is reporting that an increasing number of malware writers are starting to target the iPad. Granted this is being done by users updating iTunes clients on Windows machines. This update than advises that there is a recent update available for iPads.

A dialog box pops up telling the user that a recent iTunes update has been released for the iPad. Users who click on a link are taken to a site that looks exactly like the iTunes download web page, but the file the user downloads is actually a Trojan that installs malicious code on the machine. The Backdoor. Bifrose. AADY virus tries to steal passwords and login details for email accounts and instant-messaging services.

“The trick is pretty simple,” said Catalin Cosoi, a senior researcher for BitDefender, which uncovered the scam. “They’re clever to do it this way. If they were able to target Mac customers, it would have spread like wildfire, but because most antivirus companies detect this Trojan, it’s aimed at Windows users who have bought an iPad and who also don’t run a security product.”

BitDefender has advised iPad owners not to click on any links that appear in dialog boxes or alerts, and to download iTunes directly from the Apple website. The company also emphasised that the iPad itself remained unaffected by the Trojan.

So ya at this point iPads and Macs are still safe to a point but as I have always maintained there will come a point with Apple’s great growth where it will make sense for malware authors to start expending more of their attention on the platform.

Enjoy the peace and quiet as it lasts because it will happen. It’s just a matter of time and increased numbers of iPad and Mac users.

Hey Apple, about this virus thing is a post from: winextra
Follow us on Twitter: @WinExtra | Don't forget we're on Facebook as well: WinExtra Fans

Related posts:

1. iPad – First to Market and First to the Slaughter
2. Anti-virus from the cloud
3. 88MB for a media player – Way to go Apple
4. Microsoft Security Essentials: One more thing Microsoft gets right.

The only problem is that this is a fake online scanner virus warning notice being displayed in a browser window. According to the guys over at Sunbelt Software this is one called BlockScanner and is a variation of the Winisoft family.

Thanks for the memories Alex – I think

Talk about bring back memories is a post from: winextra
Follow us on Twitter: @WinExtra | Don't forget we're on Facebook as well: WinExtra Fans

Related posts:

1. Starting the road back
2. Microsoft to bring Twitter and Facebook to 800 million people
3. System Restore and malware – a piece of advise