Computer Security Articles

Approximately two hours after an 8.9 earthquake hit northeast Japan we spotted the first potential donation scam site. We’ve seen this before of course, but for a scam site to appear in just two hours–indexed and with content–is pretty damn quick in my experience. Hundreds of domains that could be related to the disaster have been registered so far today; we’re keeping an eye on them.

Please ensure that when you donate to victim relief efforts, that you do so through legitimate sites.

1. .Org domains are cheap. Registering does not authenticate charitable status in any way. Verify that the organization is actually a registered charity.
2. Domain solicitations that arrive by unsolicited email, especially those sounding overly urgent or desperate, are very likely to be scams
3. The same goes for advertising banners
4. If you’d like to help, I recommend you support one of the major international organizations that have a “most in need” fund

The types of scams to expect are fake donation and charity sites (including charity phish), 419 variants, fee based loved-ones locators, tweets pointing to scams and, of course, exploit-laden search-engine optimized sites installing malware.

This post from our cybersecurity mom, Tracy Mooney, charitable giving may also be of use.

Stay safe!

PC World – For Android phone users, the newfound convenience of installing apps remotely from the Android Market Website also opens up a security hole for malware.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Even in a struggling economy there are some businesses that continue to thrive. In an era of cutbacks and layoffs, one industry has continued to skyrocket–with double digit growth year over year–cybercrime. The bar for entry is low, the overhead is minimal, and the compensation can be phenomenal. Put away your résumé, though–you don’t want this job.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

In this blog i talk about the history of  XSS worms, how they evolved to spread through multiple webmail providers and the client-server model involved in a XSS botnet.

More here:

http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/index.php/2007/07/19/the-nduja-job-into-the-world-of-xss-worms/

View full post on News from the Lab

PC World – Academic security researchers have created an ingenious piece of malware that runs on Android cell phones and steals credit card details.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

AVAST Software founders (Prague, 2010)

A few months ago we posted this

article on AVAST Software founders Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera

to our Written About Us page (a list of summaries and links to recent press coverage), but I wanted to bring attention to it here, as well.

Containing a brief history of what drove the two men to create software amid major political turmoil and economic transitions (i.e., regained Czechoslovak independence), the article highlights some of the problems they faced as a fledgling company in a new global environment. As well, it points to the difficult choices they made in terms of an innovative business model, which helped them to attain roles as world-class leaders in the antivirus industry.

For those who may wonder what AVAST Software’s plans are for 2011 (and beyond)… pay special attention to the last paragraph.

Full story: avast! blog

PC World – Mobile phones in China installed with malware that secretly rake up user fees has spurred the Chinese government to crack down on the illegal activity.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Android-based smartphones are more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and electronic viruses than the iPhone, according to the chairman of the world’s largest provider of security software for corporate servers. The remarks were made less than a week after the company, Trend Micro, released its Mobile Security software for Android devices.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – The dawn of the new millennium prompted fears about the future, but so far reality has not quite matched the predictions of catastrophe. The first ten years passed uneventfully–well, aside from Y2K and a bunch of intelligent computer viruses. Here’s a look back at the past decade, and ten of the most terrifying tech scares.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Internet security company Trusteer has managed to get access to the log files of Web servers that hosted phishing Websites. Their conclusion? Cell phone users are idiots compared to their desktop computing counterparts. Well, they don’t say it as bluntly as that, but their data is damning.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Online matchmaker Match.com is being sued by some its former users for forcing them to pay for access to expired dating profiles or bogus profiles posted by spammers. According to a class-action complaint filed in federal district court in Dallas, as many as 60 percent of the profiles posted at the site are inactive or belong to fake or fraudulent users, the Dallas Business Journal reported.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – It seems that Google’s prototype netbook can’t go long before a new hack surfaces. Earlier this week, GeekTech told you about how Something Awful forum members managed to run both Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard on the Cr-48. Now a developer adds Android OS to the list.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – A newly unearthed bug in certain versions of the PHP scripting language could crash servers when the software is given the task of converting a large floating point number, raising the possibility that the glitch could be exploited by hackers.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Welcome to 2011. Usually around this time of year, pundits guess what we’ll be seeing in the year ahead. On the computer security front, we’re hearing that 2011 will be the year of mobile malware, that criminals will take to the cloud, and that social network security is destined to become a bigger and bigger problem.

Full story: Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – New online privacy measures proposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce Thursday fall short of the action that’s needed to protect Internet users, several privacy advocates said. – on Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – One of the easiest ways for attackers to lure victims is by planting malware on seemingly innocent-looking Web sites, or actually compromising legitimate Web sites. Google is doing its part to help users make informed decisions about the sites they visit, and avoid having their PCs infected with a new hacked site identification feature being added to Google search results. – on Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Perhaps one of the most common predictions of the last six years has been that mobile malicious software will suddenly proliferate, driven by widespread adoption of smartphones with advanced OSes. – on Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – For a brief period this week, cybercriminals managed to infect Google’s and Microsoft’s online ad networks with malicious advertisements that attacked users’ PCs, according to security consultancy Armorize. – on Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – For a brief period this week, cybercriminals managed to infect Google’s and Microsoft’s online ad networks with malicious advertisements that attacked users’ PCs, according to security consultancy Armorize. – on Yahoo! News: Security News

Another tsunami of United States government documents is up on Wikileaks. We’re talking confidential cables between the US State Department and 274 embassies around the world. 15,652 of them are classified “secret,” according to the site.

The big story circulating around the globe is that Arab nations have been urging the US to bear down on Iran.

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– on Security

PC World – Enterprise software provider SAP is stepping up its security stance as its once-isolated systems become increasingly connected to the Internet, posing new risks as hackers diversify their targets. – on Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – The holiday shopping season is a great time to get tech products at discounted prices, but it also creates a golden opportunity for the Web’s scam artists. The FBI, McAfee, the Better Business Bureau and F-Secure are all warning about cybercriminals who will try to take you for a ride this holiday season. Here are their most pertinent warnings and tips for staying safe: – on Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Adobe Reader X is here. Adobe announced earlier this year that it was working on a more secure version of its ubiquitous PDF reading software, Adobe Reader. The new version includes Protected Mode, a sandboxing security control designed to prevent malware exploits against the application. – on Yahoo! News: Security News

PC World – Some of the greatest bargains of the holiday shopping season are offered online on Cyber Monday. Of course, cyber criminals and malware developers are also gearing up for the biggest online shopping day of the year, so you better have your defenses up before you jump online and start making purchases. – on Yahoo! News: Security News