Month: December 2009

This year is on its way out and seemingly cybercriminals are also planning their year ahead. Secure content management solutions developer Kaspersky Lab has outlined the threats it expects to see in 2010 as a result of cybercriminal activity. Kaspersky Lab was expecting a rise in the number of global epidemics in 2009 but this year was marked by sophisticated malicious programs with rootkit functionality. Corporates and individuals struggled with the Kido worm (Conficker), Web attacks and botnets. An increase in the cases of SMS fraud and attacks on social networks was also experienced. Continue reading in http://www.pcworld.com/article/185177/cybercrooks_target_file_sharing_networks.html

Few more days… it’ll be Christmas day.  Have a great Christmas everyone and I wish you all the best for the New Year! Calendarofupdates.com was offline for many hours because my fellow admin, Peter (aka ColdinCbus – Thanks Peter!) upgraded to newer version of Invision Power Board software.  That’s new look to many of us and I am liking it.  That’s just in time for a new year’s new look of the forum!  

From F-Secure Blog: Just a quick note – the sudden death of Hollywood celebrity Brittany Murphy last Sunday (BBC report here) has prompted a spike in searches on the subject – and of course, an SEO attack. Users who click on a poisoned search result link will be redirected to a website that will display a scare message trying to panic users into downloading rogue AV software. Screenshot and more info in http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001842.html See also Websense Alert:  http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Alerts/3514.aspx Brittany Murphy’s Death SEO Poisoning Date:12.21.2009 Threat Type: Malicious Web Site / Malicious Code Websense Security Labs™ ThreatSeeker™ Network has discovered that … Continue reading Brittany Murphy SEO

From Sophos Blog: Well, it didn’t take long for the Christmas E-Card scams to start. Recently we have seen email messages pretending to be from Hallmark, suggesting that you have received an E-card from a friend. The complete email message looks like this: You have recieved a Hallmark E-Card from your friend. To see it, check the link below: http://www. hallmark. com/webapp/wcs/stores/Occasion/ChristmasE-Cards There’s something special about that E-Card feeling. We invite you to make a friend’s day and send one. Hope to see you soon, Your friends at Hallmark Note, that the link looks like it’s from Hallmark, but it’s … Continue reading Christmas Bo(g)us

Wi-Fi security in UK retail environments is improving, but shops remain vulnerable to the sorts of attacks carried out as part of the infamous TJX credit card heist. The cybercrooks, who lifted more than 21 million credit card records, leapfrogged onto the retailer’s credit card database after first breaking into the wireless network of a regional store, a subsequent investigation ahead of upcoming US trials revealed. The incident ought to have acted as a wake-up call to retailers worldwide, but progress has been a little slow. A Wi-Fi war walk, passively detecting Wi-Fi networks in a popular shopping areas around … Continue reading UK retail Wi-Fi security still patchy

Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, announces the publication of the analytical article “The botnet ecosystem” by Vitaly Kamluk, Director of Kaspersky Lab’s EEMEA Research Center. The article sheds light on the nature of the cybercrime business and, in particular, the botnets at its core. The author analyzes the components which make up the cybercrime business, how they interact with each other and with the outside world. The article describes the roles played by those who supply services to botnet owners, those who buy botnet services and the botnets themselves that link these activities. Botnets are … Continue reading Kaspersky Lab announces publication of an article entitled "The botnet ecosystem"

From Techcrunch: We’ve received multiple tips right around 10 pm that Twitter was hacked and defaced with the message below. The site is currently offline. We’re looking into this and waiting on a response from Twitter. The message reads: Iranian Cyber Army THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To…. NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA? WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST Take Care. Update: – … Continue reading Twitter Hacked, Defaced By "Iranian Cyber Army"

Waikato District Health Board has been crippled by a computer worm which has seen every PC in the organisation shut down.  While the main hospital in Hamilton and smaller outlying hospitals were continuing to function, spokeswoman Mary-Ann Gill said it was important people only came for treatment if it was absolutely necessary. Emergency care was still available but those arriving for routine appointments were being affected, as were GPs who often made referrals to hospitals via email.  "We are asking GPs to only make urgent referrals," she said.  "We need to keep as many people out of hospitals as we … Continue reading Computer virus cripples Waikato DHB

Microsoft has reached agreement with European Union anti-trust regulators to allow European users a choice of web browsers. The accord ends 10 years of dispute between the two sides. Over that time, the EU imposed fines totalling 1.68bn euros ($2.44bn, £1.5bn). The European Commission said Microsoft’s legally binding agreement ended the dispute and averted a possible fine for the company. The Commission’s concern was that the US computer giant may have broken competition rules by bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with its dominant Windows operating system. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8415902.stm Microsoft Statement on European Commission Decision in http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/dec09/12-16statement.mspx

It’s been a while. If I remember correctly, a variant of Vundo was using the "overlay.xul" mechanism to hi-jack searches in the Firefox browser almost a year ago. Now, ISC reader Tom contacted us with a mystery that took him and his colleagues several days to unravel. The symptoms: You try to search with Google/Yahoo/Ask/Bing, but NoScript (a great add-on!!) warns you that the browser is actually trying to run a JavaScript from innoshots-dot-org. Having checked all the usual culprits, and run all the Anti-Virus tools you have, you find: Nothing. And the browser still redirects. overlay.xul is a Firefox … Continue reading overlay.xul is back