MS drops some info about the next gen IE.
MS Confirms IE8 = 3 Render Modes
Another teacher accused of some sort of sexual contact with a minor.
Louisiana Teacher Facing PC Sex Charges
I don't know why they need a study for this. Anyone with half a wit knows ads suck
Web Ads Face Growing Opposition
Updates To Rogue Banner Ads
PG Rats Out Script Kiddie To His Mom!!
MySpace Feature Open Season For Spammers
Attackers Using New
Technique On Home Networks
MySpace Spam Seeking Botnets
Reports: Malware Near Epidemic Levels
90% Of Emails To Corps Spam Researcher Breaks YaHoo! CAPTCHAChinese Hit 200 Million Net Users
MS Warns On Forced IE7 Update, Corps Only
PC Shipments Up Double Digits 4Q
Chalk one up to integrity and ethics.
Ask.com, owned by IAC approached the WinPatrol developer about including a toolbar in with the product we all have come to love using and recommending. Would Bill be tempted by the $ signs dancing in front of him? Will he think more of the bottom line and less of his users?
List of latest Storm Worm, with some 'Subject' lines as well
More subject lines here as well
On the teen dating site mentioned earlier, it appears someone may have found some child pr0n on it. The sites been reported. Updates as received.
I also posted about the latest Storm worm variant, but neglected to say there iis also a new link to keep track of these variants located on the Secure Computing website. Nothing like collaboration between researchers to maintain an ever present vigil eh?
Got some action this morning already, so lets get to them.
First up is a disturbing new incarnation for a site which PG had previously written about, but this time its turned itself into a teen date site. Teens meaning 13 year olds!! Oh and Zango is involved. Can you say you're surprised? I can't.
Then a security vendor is claiming that in a corporate environment over 90% of emails received are spam. I'm glad I don't work in an corporate environment.
Or any 'work' environment actually. LOL
There is a report that most home routers are vulnerable to remote take over. So you better read up and make sure you're protected.
Comcast is being investigated by the FCC about its Internet filters. With lots of users complaining I guess it makes sense to see wtf is going on.
PC vendors Dell and HP are sued over fire damage claims by a couple of different people. One case disfigured a daughter of a complainant. Another burned down a business. Not exactly the kind of 'hot' press you wanna see if your the PR guy eh?
Live in Texas? If so did you see the UFOs??? Did ya, did ya??
This weekend was pretty light, news wise but today was steady, so I'll give a quick summary below.
The good people at Sandboxie released a new version over the weekend, so go and check that out. I'm loving using it. Very handy.
Always a favorite, the 2007 Darwin Awards have been named. It never ceases to amaze me some of the stupid things people do.
Got a $100 bill? Better be sure it's not one of these super counterfeited bills. But on second thought, they're so good who cares?
Symantec has encountered what they're calling an intelligent man-in-the-middle trojan. Malware is always evolving and for the average Joe Net user things like this become a problem. Unless of course you've got half a brain and never open unknown emails. Then it won't matter how damned intelligent the trojan is, will it?
PG alerts us to a prank on MySpace that changes your default language to Japanese. Easily fixed tho and no real harm is done.
The people behind MySpace, along with several AGs of some states today announce a new plan to protect kids from predators. This sort of effort always turns out win-win for all involved.
A security research company that analyzes websites visited by its clients employees, looking for malware spreading sites is baffled by the 'who' and 'why' of the hundreds of sites that were found.
Over at InfoWorld they've started a campaign to save XP from being discontinued, except it's not being discontinued at all.
More information about the Russian Business Network has been posted by DDanchev. This researcher knows how to track these guys. I'm sure they hate him. But that's good for us.
Over in the BUSTED! forum we have some convicted script kiddie hacker getting charged with extortion after hacking a MySpace profile. He demanded phone sex and nude pix of her to get her profile back. What a dweeb!!
Finally (whew) we have a report that the IRS has yet to fix 70% of IT related security holes since last year. Great, not only do we have to give them all this money they can't even keep our info safe once they do get it.
Another busy day of security news and other tidbits in the forum.
We'll start off with some stats about IM attacks, from FaceTime. They've come up with some percentages displaying which is the biggest target. Would it be MSN, AIM or YIM?
Sandi over at Spyware Sucks has some good news about rogue banner ads. Seems the offensive server has been firewall blocked. She rocks on these don't she? Heck she rocks on alot of stuff.
The RBN seem to be offering the Storm worm domains for sale or rent. This was not exactly something that wasn't foreseen. I've been keeping track of this and it was previously mentioned as a possibility.
Way back when the SoBig worm came out, it seems this was the birth of the botnet according to these researchers. I wasn't even involved in security back then, but I remember the news about SoBig. It seemed scary at the time. But then once I came to know the slightest bit about worms\spam\emails I realized it was the easiest thing in the world to avoid.
Researchers are saying that the 'shadow economy' of malware is worth about 105bn. Of course no one can really put a figure on this, because no one can know what these guys are actually taking in or spreading around.
ICANN is trying to put an end to domain name tasting in an effort to remove a loophole in the system. Many a poor soul have fallen victim to these asshats. Many people consider them nearly as bad as spammers. Can't say I'd disagree.
Well that's about it for now. That ought to be plenty of reading for you. Please take some time to share your experiences in our forums.
In our BUSTED! forum you can read about the longest sentence given to someone for computer sabotage.
Websense posts an alert about an infected\compromised website to be on the watch for.
There is a report that ties watching pr0n and violent movies creates a drop in criminal activity.
Finally from Symantec we have info on the a new MBR rootkit
SCMagazine reports that one of the latest Storm variants is being used in an expansive phishing scheme targeting two large banking institutions. No matter the season, there's always another Storm brewing.
Over at Trend Labs they warn of another IM worm making the rounds. WTF, are people still clicking these unknown links? Wake up people!!
Wow, forum has been busy since my last post. Well busy with me posting more stuff there anyhow. Why don't you all drop in and comment?
There seem to be more states adding laws that restrict computer forensics to 'official' investigators. This I'm sure is an effort to prevent those who 'think' they know what they're doing from actually doing more harm than good.
An opinion from a journalist expresses concerns over new TLDs as they may relate to new areas of spammer exploitation. Certainly a qualified concern. Lord knows we don't need any more areas to worry about. I know I'll be blocking any of those new ones.
Popular site Geek.com got got hacked late last year, having personal info on users who bought from them in the last year or so stolen. Oppss. One would think a site named 'Geek' would keep extra secure software. Just goes to show you.
PG weighs in on what he thinks really happened with the whole Facebook\Zango 'spyware' situation. Reading it might just surprise you.
To finish off this latest entry we have an update on the wonderful gang over at RBN. They have a new set of servers ready to go. Thankfully we get a pretty ecent jump on this info thanks to the tireless efforts of a dedicated group of people.
The first Monday in 2008 brings us some good reads in the forums.
Got Vista? Then read about stopping those annoying balloon alerts about start up programs. I know this was annoying when I was using Vista....all of 3 minutes at least.
It seems there is a never ending stream of banner ads running on sites everywhere. I ought to just make a 'sticky' post for them already.
Users of YaHoo! based webmail have a new spam defense system which was just rolled out. That's always good news. Die spammers!!
Lastly there may be a reprieve for users of the old Ad-Aware SE. You just might be able to keep using it. But so far we have no idea how long. we'll keep you abreast of things tho.
Well Saturday nite I went cruisin' for malware on Blogspot. And I'll bet ya can't guess what I found there?
Couple of updates and our first BUSTED! entry in the new forum.
The thing that PG found earlier, thinking it was a MySpace exposure turned out to be the companies hosting company. So no major worries.....we think.
Sears went rather quickly to disable the search function found earlier which exposed everyone's buying history to most anyone. Good work Sears!
Lady Justice is tracking a few scumbag spammers who were involved in a spam\scam\fraud scheme. And one of them is on the run.
And filing under 'embarrassing', a security vendors site was hacked earlier in the week but is ok now. Guess whoever was in charge of maintaining server stability was off drinking eggnog or something. Hope he got some coal for that.
We have a new member, so drop in to say 'hello'
Researchers have put forth proof that a virus could spread via wi-fi connections pretty easily.
It seems PG has stumbled across something that could be a MySpace control & command application, but he's not sure!
Finally users of the ever popular IMs need to take heed as the number of attacks has increased recently and more are expected for 2008.
Some new info posted in the forums, so I'll summarize here for you.
A new set of rogue domains has been posted, I'm sure all will be added to most hosts files soon enough.
The rogue banner ads thread has an addition, a German sites been hit now and Sandi has details as usual.
As if things were not bad enough, sears has suffered a serious privacy issue. Bought anything there lately? If so I can tell you what it is.
Trend Labs lists their top December threats for those keeping score.
Finally we have a new forum called BUSTED! In there you'll find links and articles of people who've been busted in online related scams. Not so much rogue stuff really, more for actual legal cases.
The gang at Sunbelt alerts us that Fortinet researchers have discovered a widget that tries to installs Zango on Facebook. Check it out and warn your fellow FBers, I know I am.
Wow...busy day already.
We have two 'Emerging Security Threats' to post about today. One in Real Player and the other a flash player problem.
Then we have what Kaspersky is calling Diehard virus variants making their top ten list for December and Sunbelt finds a a trojan which requires a phone call to activate a license.
In the Spam\Phish forum we find that users of Facebook are being phished with fake account that is live.
Finally those of you using Ad-Aware SE must upgrade to Ad-Aware 2007 as SE will no longer be supported
Been busy the last day or so with the Blogspot malware stuff. I even got a mention on a major new IT site!
Sandi over at Spyware Sucks blog has more rogue banner ads and PG found some MySpace ringtone spammers using Toms profile! Yea, that's real low key.....they may know how to make some money but these malware guys just ain't too bright. Few code lines short of a program.
The good people at F-Secure got their hands on a malware kit and have it dissected. Scary professional looking too.
Finally we have a potential major problem with file identification. There may be a way for the scumbags to avert one of the ways in which a file is specifically ID'd.
Well I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. I'd expected a good number of hits this month as I watched and tracked. Was figuring I'd get maybe 800K. But lo and behold, you guys got me to over 920,000 hits.
Thanks! Some more stats here....
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