Rogue ads pushing malware -- how it works
On Monday, eWeek wrote an article about DoubleClick displaying ads that promoted rogue antispyware. The article quoted our work.
DNS hacks the norm
For search engine optimization and increased distribution, pornography and malware distributors commonly hack websites (interestingly, Google’s work in marking sites as “unsafe” in search results may be contributing to this trend, as it is driving malware and porn distributors to rely increasingly on hacking good sites to perform redirections to their own bad sites).
eEye comment spam
This is kind of a bummer: A really good, very reputable security vendor is doing comment spamming. I did contact them the last time I saw this, thinking it might be a Joe job. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a clear answer. In fact, I got a response which indicated an affirmation of sorts.
Weekend viewing: Facebook
The comedy group Train of Thought has a video which pretty much encapsulates the Facebook experience.
Some more fake codec sites
gneprogram(dot)com
ndcperformance(dot)com
mzdsoftware(dot)com
pkbsolution(dot)com
zerocodec(dot)com
A culture of fear: Japanese traveler removed from train for taking pictures
Our post-9/11 culture of fear is not having the best effects on our economy. And this depressing story, of a foreign traveler removed from a train for taking pictures, is just another sad highlight as to why:
Fake gaming site spawns dangerous Trojan
Visiting the main page prompts a download of the Black Energy DDoS bot.
Seen in the wild: Fake error message pushes, of all things, Google Pack
Google Pack — completely legitimate.
Unfortunately, one naughty group is trying to get affiliate commissions from Google by referring customers to download the Google Pack — all to watch a porn movie (I hope that convoluted sentence makes sense).
A little bit of de-fudding on the DNS changing Trojan
We’ve seen quite a bit of FUD out there about the Trojan DNSChanger (both Windows and Mac versions) hijacking your DNS settings and then redirecting you to malicious websites, stealing personal identities, killing your dog and even crank-calling your grandmother with naughty messages.
Mac trojan: This guy gets it
I’m surprised I didn’t catch this earlier. Craig Schmugar at McAfee gets it in his blog post:
The confusing saga of Roberto Preatoni
Roberto Preatoni is the founder of Zone-H as well as WabiSabiLabi. He’s well respected in security circles and has even been a professor at the University of Urbino. This is not some malicious hacker. He’s a security professional. He’s also been a staunch advocate of civil liberties in the post 9/11 world.
Yesterday, he was arrested in Italy, on charges that are more than confusing (particularly since the news is mostly in Italian). There are even hints at charges of conspiracy to commit murder — which is utter nonsense.
Mac security counterpoints
A couple of articles have come out that provide some counterpoint on the “Is the Mac no longer secure because of this new Trojan, bla bla?” question.
Mac apologist Carl Howe writes a slightly misinformed article on Mac security, where he (sort of) confuses vulnerabilities with this new Trojan and generally bashes Windows.
Ingenious new method used by spammers
I love doing Google hacks, so this caught my eye: Our friends over at Symantec wrote up an interesting report on an interesting new method spammers are using to bypass filters. Many filters look at the URLs inside of a spam to determine a spamminess of an email.
Some new fake codecs
Reboot and here’s what your desktop looks like after installing one of these.
zsvcompany(dot)com
bcnproduction(dot)com
mojtechnology(dot)com
vaulimited(dot)com
A rather heated debate with a rogue antispyware maker
There’s a thread over at CastleCops (thanks PG), where the security folks are arguing with the people from IEDefender as to whether or not the program is malware.
Can a spam filter play chess?
Interesting stuff.
Many people these days depend on Bayesian filters to protect them from the ever present email scourge that is spam. Unlike older technologies, these programs' claim to fame is that they learn the spam patterns automatically, and more importantly, learn personalized spam (bad) and ham (good) email patterns.
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