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

Do you have an ASK Toolbar installed? Beware…

November 23rd 2016

Discovery by Red Canary: https://blog.redcanary.com/ask-partner-network-compromise “On 5 November, Red Canary detected suspicious activity associated with Windows applications distributed by the Ask Partner Network (a.k.a. APN, Ask.com, or simply Ask). Upon further inspection, we discovered that Ask’s software was being co-opted by a malicious actor to execute malicious software on victims’ endpoints. “

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New security steps for linked Skype and Microsoft accounts

November 23rd 2016

I received a spam message via Skype today from a person who I normally think of as too sophisticated to do something silly like re-use passwords.  And heard of another person who had also been compromised, but had absolutely no idea how it may have happened. I learned as part of my research into what may […]

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Kryptowire discovers mobile phone firmware that transmitted personally identifiable information without user consent or disclosure

November 16th 2016

The Kryptowire article can be seen here: http://www.kryptowire.com/adups_security_analysis.html Adups response can be found here: http://www.adups.com/article/show_article.php?id=162

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Microsoft’s new Security Updates Guide

November 9th 2016

Microsoft have released a preview of their new single destination for security vulnerability information, the Security Updates Guide. Instead of publishing bulletins to describe related vulnerabilities, the new portal lets you view and search security vulnerability information in a single online database. I quite like the Software Update Summary. Microsoft will continue to publish bulletins while also […]

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Google Chrome extensions sold and adware/tracking behavior added without notice

November 8th 2016

This morning I have read about four extensions, all of which have now been removed from the Chrome Store and which should have been automatically disabled if installed to Chrome: “Live HTTP Headers”, “Tab Manager”, “Appspector” and “Give Me CRX”. The common thread is the extensions started injecting code into webpages pointing to “s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/forton/*****.js”.  The goal […]

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Web of Trust (WOT) scandal

November 7th 2016

Originally reported in Germany (http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/Nackt-im-Netz-Millionen-Nutzer-ausgespaeht,nacktimnetz100.html) and picked up by PCMag (http://www.pcmag.com/news/349328/web-of-trust-browser-extension-cannot-be-trusted). From the German site (apologies for the translation errors): “In the background, however, the extension also logs and transmits the data for the surfing behavior of the user to a server abroad. A profile is created where the date, time, location, and controlled web […]

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