June 17th, 2011
The cyber age has proved the immense human potential for both intelligence and stupidity. Perhaps the best example of both is cyber-age “phishing”, where malicious users send counterfeit messages in an attempt to steal account password, personal data, and even credit card info. Yes, we can see the foolishness of your standard user by the fact that they really believe the video they’re being direct to on a YouTube look-alike will show them a crazy, secret video, or that MasterCard really does need you to verify all the data from your card in an online form. However, we can also see the real ingenuity of the cyber-thief community.
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May 20th, 2011
I have a couple of groups that I’m involved with on Facebook and it’s really fun and easy most of the time, but every so often someone comes along and starts posting business opportunities (read “scams”) on our Wall. Then people complain and sometimes I even lose members of the group because of it. Stinks. How can I block these people and even get them kicked off Facebook for ruining it?
Dave’s Answer:
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April 29th, 2011
A new service was launched recently which protects Facebook users from unwanted spam, malware, and viruses posted on their wall. The Using Protection service scans for various harmful items whenever you view Facebook pages. According to the site, this makes it almost impossible for the virus / spam to be spread through your account.
Using Protection servers are constantly scanning Facebook, looking for any unsavory items. If the service does find any, they’re recorded in a virus database and instantly blocked on a users wall if the service is in place, according to a release.
The service, Using Protection, is the brainchild of entrepreneur Randy Adams, who is a former engineering head at Adobe, board member of Yahoo, Internet Division President at Home Shopping and co-founder of FunnyOrDie.com.
“This year more than two hundred million people will find some form of virus or spam on their Facebook wall and inadvertently spread it to all their friends,” said Adams. “Using Protection blocks these viruses making it impossible for you to infect others.”
At the moment Using Protection is only available for Firefox and Internet Explorer, but Chrome and Safari are said to be coming in the near future.
April 15th, 2011
The takedown of the Rustock botnet caused a large and well-documented decline in spam levels around the world. Unfortunately, it looks like cyber criminals are fighting back, as a new report from Commtouch indicates that instances of malware being sent via email spiked in late March.
An official statement on the matter revealed, “Malware sent via email increased by 400% in the last week of March 2011, Commtouch reported today in its quarterly Internet Threats Trend Report, which covers spam, phishing, malware and Web threats. The significant increase was detected two weeks after the takedown of the Rustock botnet had resulted in a 30% drop in spam levels.”
Asaf Greiner, Commtouch’s vice president of products, then observed in the same statement, “Botnets are an essential part of cybercriminal infrastructure, providing vast computing resources, bandwidth and anonymity. Botnet takedowns will almost always result in significant attempts at rebuilding, to allow criminal operations to continue.”
So it looks like it’s time for people who are concerned about spam to raise their guards once again.
It’s possible malware authors are putting even more of an effort into engineering nasty things now that one of the biggest threats out there has been neutralized. Call it revenge or perhaps a scuffle for the industry’s crown.
Anyway, specific suspicious emails to look out for according to Commtouch include fake parcel tracking information, PDF files made to look like Xeroxed documents, and risque PowerPoint presentations.
As always, good luck keeping your inbox clean and your computer malware-free.
April 1st, 2011
The Rustock botnet, which was taken down in March, had been sending as many as 13.82 billion spam emails daily, accounting for an average of 28.5 percent of global spam sent from all botnets during the month, according to a new report from Symantec.
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