Facebook's "DeepFace" project is now nearly as good at matching faces as people are... I just can't wait for the Minority Report style advertising to begin...

Over the last few weeks, we've had several customer bring in virus-infected computers, and all were certain that the only place they had gone on the Internet was to their favorite news sites.

Lo and behold, a week or so later and reports are coming out of a new type of malware that seeks to infect machines by posing as news sites, often originating as a fake link or phishing attempt. The worst of this new type of malware is dubbed Careto, which is able to collect a plethora of sensitive information from an infected system, such as keystrokes, WiFi traffic data, and file operations. It can also capture screenshots and Skype conversations, as well as intercept your email.

And Mac Users, don't let your guard down. Careto has

Along with WIndows XP, Microsoft is ending support for Office 2003 at the beginning of April. While the programs themselves will continue to function, the lack of security updates means that any exploits found in the software will go unpatched and represent an ongoing threat to your network.

Now is a good time to look into upgrading your old versions of Office 2003. The best thing for you to upgrade to will depend on your individual needs and the number of machines you need to upgrade, but there are more options that just Microsoft ones.

If you need help choosing an upgrade path, contact InfinIT Technology Group.

While there have been previous instances of Android-based malware designed to infect Windows computers, a new malware named Droidpak seeks to infect android mobile banking apps via a Windows infection. Android users are urged to use caution when assigning permissions to apps and are advised to disable USB debugging on their devices.

First they will deliver our packages... Then they will watch our every move, and disguise themselves as the most innocent of things... Then they will rain death and destruction from the sky...

No, wait, I think did that backwards. Carry on, Amazon.

Malware is the generic term for all of the bad or "malicious software" that exists. It includes some of the more generally used terms (viruses, spyware, worms, trojans, etc) as well as a number of different categories the average user hasn't heard about. So while every virus is a type of malware, not every pit of malware is a virus.

None of the malware out there is something you want on your computer, but all malware isn't created equal, and some of it poses a far more serious threat than others. Knowing and understanding the differences between different types of malware will help make your network (and your data) more secure.

The first step in protecting your computers from malware is to have a reliable antivirus product that is also capable of catching most types of spyware/adware. InfinIT recommends the managed antivirus that comes with our basic monitoring agreements, but has also had good success with Vipre antivirus (for-fee) and Microsoft Security Essentials (free). A great many other antiviru

It's not domestic spying if the servers are located out of the country, right?

Despite the fact that the NSA has far-reaching legal authority to monitor Internet traffic and has never lost a court case where it wanted data that someone else didn't want it to have, the Snowden leak keeps unveiling program after program designed to circumvent the law and give the NSA even greater access to information that many of us would have consider private.

On display today is the NSA program codenamed Muscular, by which is hacked into the front end servers of Google, Yahoo, and other data giants to get easier access to the unencrypted data passing point to point within the companies' data network. Once they created the hack, they captured vast amounts of data, defending their practice by altering the definition of surveillance. But the claim that it's only surveillance if you look at the data after you steal it is weak at best, and when taken in context with other documents whereby human analysts complain about the relative ineffectiveness of the program (you can't have a complaint about a program without someone looking at the data!), it seems fairly evident that the NSA is once again overreaching.

The consequences of NSA policy is starting to impact how the world (both our allies and enemies) view the US, and it's starting to have real-world economic impacts. By way of example, (soured from Extremetech.com) Multiple US providers of encrypted email services have shut down rather than be forced to reveal their users. In the case of Lavabit, the government has argued that forcing the company to reveal the private email encryption keys for some 400,000 customers was not an undue burden in its quest to seize Edward Snowden’s email account. The fact that 399,999 of the people in question had done nothing wrong and were not under any sort of surveillance order was besides the point.

Western Digital has announced the commercial availability of the world’s first hermetically sealed, helium-filled hard drive, the Ultrastar He6 — a 6-terabyte hard drive that, along with being the first helium-filled drive, just happens to be the highest-capacity conventional storage disk in the world.

In science's ongoing quest to have humanity enslaved or destroyed by sentient machines, a team from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is working to build a transistor that behaves like a neuron.

Such technology could greatly increase the speed at which computations can occur, as well as improve a machines ability to learn and remember. Hopefully it won't increase the incidence of Early Onset Artificial Alzheimer's.

For those of you calling in over the last few days asking if the Adobe emails you're receiving are legitimate... they are. Adobe has announced news of a security breach and has locked accounts that have potentially been compromised until the passwords are reset.

If you have an Adobe account, even if you have not received an email from them, it would be best to log in and change your password.

For those of you who ignored the emails because you thought they were spam... you didn't do anything wrong. I always urge customers to be suspicious of emails like that, even when they turn out to be legitimate. In the event you receive a similar notice in the future (from Adobe, a bank, Amazon, etc.), I advise customers to ignore the links in the email, go to the site in question, and look for information about whatever was presented in the email. Even if you just go to the potentially affected account and change your password without confirming the threat, you've done nothing but protect yourself. Just be wary of links in emails. If you're going to use them, make sure they are taking you to the proper places.