Spyware Sucks
“There is no magic fairy dust protecting Macs" – Dai Zovi, author of “The Mac Hacker’s Handbook"

Malvertizements – cyberipod and mediaman

March 31st 2008

IMPORTANT: THE TWO ADVERTISEMENTS FEATURED BELOW WERE SHUT DOWN IN JUNE 2007.  My mistake. I’ll be more careful in future to ensure that reports I see are for current malvertisements.  My apologies to Doubleclick. Lesson learned: previously identified malicious content should be moved out of public view. ‘m on the road at the moment, so only have […]

Read On Comments Off on Malvertizements – cyberipod and mediaman

News: Malware victim tries in vain to punish its source

March 31st 2008

It has been reported that Joseph Bochner’s lawsuit against a some people allegedly behind the distribution of “Winfixer” type software has been dropped. I have correspondeded several times with Joseph over the past year or so, and am disappointed for him.  You’ll see from the article that one of the accused, James Reno, was never served […]

Read On 1 Comment

Yet another malicious banner advertisement at www.123greetings.com

March 31st 2008

OK, so tell me oh gentle reader… just how many “free passes” should a website get? 123greetings.com is, once again, displaying a malicious banner advertisement.  This is the third incident that I have personally experienced thanks to an advertisement accepted by those responsible for 123greetings.com, and enough is enough.   The URL of the malicious […]

Read On 5 Comments

Welcome to the world of betas….

March 29th 2008

I received the following email today: “I need to uninstall ie 8 beta it sucks .. <<name removed>> addressremoved@thevillages.net Ie 8 is the worst program from Microsoft EVER“ Our (un)friendly correspondent doesn’t seem to understand the implications of downloading and installing a BETA program – especially an early beta that is called Internet Explorer 8 […]

Read On 1 Comment

Bucksbill.com overcharging victims of fraudware

March 27th 2008

This is an update to my article written on 5 March wherein I warned that Bucksbill.com overcharging for fraudware such as “MalwareAlarm and Registry Defragmentation”. It is worth pointing out that several readers have commented that they, too, have been overcharged by Bucksbill: Tonya says “The same thing happened to me with malware. I agreed […]

Read On 42 Comments

Forceup.com are distributing malicious advertisements .. again – an examination of the social engineering behind malvertisements

March 27th 2008

Today we are going to take a look at social engineering and other tactics used by the fraudsters that push malicious banner advertisements.  Heaven knows we have talked enough about what the malicious advertisements actually *do*; now it is time to talk about what the *fraudsters* do… I cannot stress how important it is that […]

Read On 1 Comment

Gemini Interactive caught distributing malvertizements

March 27th 2008

You may recall that I theorised that the URLs for the malvertizements that were displayed at classmates.com may indicate that the malvertizements were supplied by Gemini Interactive (cite: http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2008/03/23/1550951.aspx)  You may also recall that all of the malvertizements that I found at classmates.com featured myjewelrybox.com. I have received, by email, a copy of an advertisement that […]

Read On 7 Comments

EULA screw-up: installing Safari on a Windows system in in breach of the Safari EULA

March 26th 2008

Cite: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/26/apple_safari_eula_paradox/ Via: http://www.setteb.it/content/view/3647 According to the Register article, we can’t be sued for not reading the EULA and installing Safari on Windows, but that doesn’t make this slip up any less embarrassing for Apple. The grumblings about the Safari push are getting louder; there is an interesting conversation on the patchmanagement mailing list with unhappiness […]

Read On Comments Off on EULA screw-up: installing Safari on a Windows system in in breach of the Safari EULA

Press Release – AG McKenna sues Arizona man for spyware act violations

March 25th 2008

The Washington Attorney General’s Office is accusing a Scottsdale, Ariz., man of coercing consumers to buy software to block computer pop-ups by first bombarding them with ads for pornography and Viagra. In a civil lawsuit filed today in King County Superior Court in Seattle, the state alleges that consumers who downloaded the software were further […]

Read On Comments Off on Press Release – AG McKenna sues Arizona man for spyware act violations

Crazy looping malware….

March 25th 2008

Wow… I just saw one outta control copy of Internet Explorer … As near as I can tell, youhide.com, a web proxy service for anonymous web surfing, has been infiltrated by malicious banner advertisements.. again… But this time, so many MalwareAlarm windows opened, the situation could not be controlled. Nor was Task Manager accessible to shut down […]

Read On Comments Off on Crazy looping malware….


Archives