An Austrian security analyst has built the first known bootkit that bypasses Windows 8's defenses against installing malware while the operating system is booting.

Peter Kleissner, an independent programmer and recognized security expert, is expected to release his Windows-cracking application at the International Malware Conference in Mumbai, India, scheduled for Nov. 25 and 26.

Microsoft has built into Windows 8 technology that requires authentication of firmware through digital signatures before the programs are allowed to run as the operating system is loading. Firmware is used to wake up the various electronic components in the PC.

Kleissner's bootkit sidesteps the protections to install itself in the Windows kernel, where the application could give a hacker access to the whole system. The Vienna, Austria-based Kleissner has built what he calls "Stoned" bootkits for Windows XP, Vista and 7.

If you're interested in testing the next version of Microsoft Security Essentials, head over to the Microsoft Connect site. The location of the signup site leaked yesterday, when Microsoft began sending email invitations to previous beta testers who had tested Microsoft Security Essentials version 2, which shipped last December.

By signing in with your Live ID and venturing to the page, you should be added to the beta list. If you're interested, do it now, just in case Microsoft withdraws the offer.

The Web page itself won't tell you anything of interest, beyond "Thank you for participating in the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta program, which will start soon." But here's what the leaked email said:

Thank you so much for being a part of the Microsoft Security Essentials v2 Beta.

AMD quietly changed the pricing on some of their Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) and even introduced a new Athlon-branded CPU. Such changes took a back seat to the launch of enterpriseOpteron 6200 and 4200 processors based on Bulldozer architecture earlier this week.

In a rather unusual move, AMD increased the price of two budget dual-core APUs, the A4-3300 which operates at 2.5GHz and the A4-3400 with a frequency of 2.7GHz. The A4-3300 went from $64 to $66 while the 3400 variant saw a $2 increase as well, from $69 to $71. The triple-core A6-3500 with a clock speed of 2.1GHz saw a price break of $4, down to $85 from $89. Finally, AMD’s six core FX-6100 processor is now $10 cheaper at $155.

PDF to Word Converter, a new freeware utility that enables the user to convert a PDF document to an editable DOC format quickly and accurately. The program offers a three-step conversion process, support for batch processing and exceptionally accurate output. 

You might ask what's the different between this converter and other PDF converters. Whether in the office or at home, users sometimes have to deal with restricted PDF documents that they want to convert to DOC because they need to edit, or reuse their content in their own documents. Quite often such files are protected against copying, modifying, or printing.

Retyping a document from scratch takes time and efforts that could be put into more important tasks. Of course, there are some expensive programs the user has to buy to convert PDF to DOC but PDFWordConverter.net has just introduced a new freeware utility called PDF to Word Converter that performs conversion to DOC quickly, accurately and, most importantly, for free.

Here's quick tutorial on how to add the site to the Trusted Sites list in Internet Explorer using Group Policy.

Open Group Policy Editor | Create a new GPO and link it to the Computers container where you want the policy to be applied.

Edit the newly created GPO object and navigate to:

Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer | Internet Control Panel | Security Page

In the right pane double click the 'Site to Zone Assignment List' | Click Enabled radio button and click Show.

Now click Add and in the first text box type the location (URL) of the site/page. In the lower text box type 2 as to represents Trusted Sites in Internet Explorer. Number 1 - represents Intranet zone, 3 - Internet zone and 4 - Restricted Sites.

Click OK three times to close open windows.

Close Group Policy Editor and test this setting on one PC.

Note: When you apply this group policy to a PC, user will loose their current settings and won't be able to add or remove Trusted Sites settings as this option becomes greyed out.