No matter how big your company is, maintaining platform parity — that is, keeping all of your apps functionally identical across multiple smartphone platforms — is tough work. Even Facebook can’t seem to get their Android app quite up to par with their iPhone app.

Later today, PayPal will be introducing version 2.0 of their Android App, which seems to be aimed at bringing it up to speed with its iPhone counterpart.

Now, PayPal has had an Android app for about a year and a half. That app has always supported the most crucial feature: sending money. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but it got the job done.

Along with a visual overhaul which makes it a more-or-less one to one match with the iPhone version, today’s update brings over a handful of tools:

• Bump support: Remember Bump? It’s an app that lets two users swap contact info by fist-bumping their smartphones together. Back in late 2009, Bump opened up their API to allow third-party iPhone developers to swap just about whatever they wanted between bumpers, and PayPal was one of the first to hop on that train. Bump’s API has since been ported to Android, and now the Android app offers up support.
• Split the Check: You and your friends just ate your way through 200 bucks worth of Sushi, and the restaurant only takes one credit card per table. Oops! PayPal’s Split The Check feature lets you tally up everyone’s total, and then send out a payback request from anyone who didn’t have the cash.

Expect PayPal to be dumping a considerable amount of effort into mobile in the coming months — according to the company, they’ve handled twice as much money over mobile in the first six months of 2010 as they did in all of 2009.

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CrunchBase Information

PayPal

Website:	paypal.com
Location:	San Jose, California, United States
Founded:	December 1, 1998
Acquired:	July 8, 2002 by eBay for $1.5B in Stock

PayPal is an online payments and money transfer service that allows you to send money via email, phone, text message or Skype. They offer products to both individuals and businesses alike, including online vendors, auction sites and… Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase

So Google is reporting that 200,000, that’s right two hundred thousand new Android based handset are activated every day.  Every day, not a week or a month, every day. 

I just got a Motorola DroidX and I gotta say I love it and it is a great smartphone, but that is a lot of phones being activated daily.  Granted there seems to be a new phone for Android announced daily on every carrier imaginable.  So I guess 200k phones being activated should not be a surprise but I sure was…

For the full story you can got to Endgaget or PC World or any other Android or Tech blog…

The link below is a very detailed description of conficker/downup.  New variants are supposed to be released on April the 1^st. 

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/the_downadup_codex_ed1.pdf

If you are using SEP, here are some best practices:

 - Make sure Auto Protect is set to load at “System Start” – This is in the Auto Protect options and will load SAV as a driver. This is the default setting.

- Make sure Auto Protect is set to scan “All Files” - This is in the Auto Protect options and will load SAV as a driver. This is the default setting.

- Make sure Auto Protect is set to scan files when “Accessed or Modified” - This is in the Auto Protect options and will load SAV as a driver. This is the default setting.

- Make sure Tamper Protection is set to block.

- Check folder exclusions list and make sure it is not too wide.

- Make sure virus definitions are up-to-date.

- Make sure IPS policy is on and that the relevant policies are set to block (4 policies see documents attached).

- Consider protecting with Application Control and protect system32 from modifications (System Lockdown/File write protect).

- Consider applying strict personal FW rules to block unnecessary  traffic.

What is it?

Conficker is a new class of worm that Symantec has been tracking since it showed up about 5 months ago.  In that time it has infected between 3 and 10 million systems worldwide by leveraging a vulnerability in Windows to compromise machines.  The third iteration of this worm, version “.C” appeared on March 6^th, and we were the first vendor to identify it, understand what it is and how it works, and issue the signature to our customers to protect them.  With a successful infection, the virus authors pretty much gain complete control to download more malcode, steal data, use the machines in a bot network, and disable access to good sites from compromised machines, though as of today the only identified action of the worm is to infect as many machines as possible.  The worm spreads by accessing other systems on networks, and through USB sticks.  Our own security researchers identified that this worm is incredibly complex, very well designed, and is bringing renewed visibility around endpoint protection due to the buzz generated and threat presented.

Also of note is that Microsoft released a patch shortly after the vulnerability was identified, so the majority of infected systems are overseas where pirated copies of Windows are used in large numbers.  However we also know that patching remains a challenge for many of our customers who have a real challenge getting even critical Microsoft issued Windows security updates to all of their machines, across all of their networks.  This case provides a perfect illustration of the core Symantec vision – the unification of protection and management.  Our customers can instantly identify their systems that need to be patched, deliver the patches, update their SEP signatures, and then validate the currency of their risk posture with our compliance tools.

How do I fix it if my PC is impacted?

Full instructions for infection remove are included in the Symantec threat write-up here: http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-030614-5852-99&tabid=3

I hope this information is helpful.