TechBlog

Bruce Schneier, in his blog Schneier on Security http://www.schneier.com/ drew attention to this great interview with an ex-Nigerian-419 scammer on the Scam-Detective site. It’s a fairly long piece and gives a pretty good view of the Nigerian scam industry run by organized crime, how it sucks in young people who have good computer and English skills and pays them a huge amount of money ($75,000 per year in this case) to scam victims they view as white, greedy and rich. ...

Fake antivirus software (a.k.a misleading applications or rogue antivirus) is big business nowadays with Symantec reporting 43 million installation attempts from over 250 distinct programs between July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009. With fake AV software costing the victim anywhere from $30 to $100, this is a lucrative earner for criminals. Over time Symantec has observed various social engineering tactics being used to try and entice victims to hand over their money in this scam. The fake antivirus software known as Live PC Care has now gone as far as offering live online support to potential victims. Once a victim has installed Live PC Care onto their system via a system exploit or social engineering tactics, they are presented with the screen below falsely informing them that their system is riddled with viruses. Any suspicious computer user might wonder what this software is and where exactly it came from. To alleviate doubt and to aid with the whole scam, the designers of Live PC Care have added a yellow online support button in the top, right-hand corner of the fake AV software. ...

When you spend your day scouring the Internet (and my blog 😉) for news about computer security topics you cover a lot of territory. Once in a while you just have a weird day. You run into a lot of strange stuff. Today is one of those days. Yahoo’s tech blog is carrying a story about a man in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who is suing because he has “electromagnetic sensitivity” and can’t live in his own home because of the radiation from his neighbor’s wi-fi network. ...

Advanced Defender is fake security software that tricks people into thinking it’s legitimate antispyware software in hopes they will pay for the product. Advanced Defender is a potentially dangerous and extremely frustrating PC infection that should be removed immediately. If Advanced Defender has infected your computer you may notice the following symptoms: System scans that report numerous infections, yet requires purchase of Advanced Defender before it will remove the infections (These are fictitious scan results) Alerts and Pop-Up system warnings stating the PC is infected and recommend purchase of Advanced Defender (These warnings are fake) Web browser redirecting to random websites (these websites are owned by cyber thieves and will further infect your PC) Advanced Defender will prevent other programs from opening, stating they are infected (The programs are not infected)

Planning a romantic Valentine’s Day for your loved one? Is there is no end to all that you can do to add even more sparkle this dreamy day? Perhaps a bottle of wine, flowers, or a lovely gift to impress him/her—and if you aren’t with anyone, there are even dating services available that provide you with options to meet a date. As Dermot Harnett mentioned in A Brilliant Proposal: Stay Away from Valentine’s Day Spam!, for spammers, Valentine’s Day is a great target. We’ve observed several spam email message styles related to this upcoming event. Gift options, flower delivery, dating service, med spam to spice up your relationship, and much more. Here are some common header lines that Symantec has tracked relating to Valentine’s Day: ...

Adobe has published a security bulletin about security vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player. In all versions up to the recent 10.0.42.34 Flash objects could evade the Sandbox which would allow for unauthorized cross domain requests. The vulnerability is rated critical. The updated version 10.0.45.2 as well of a fixed build of Adobe AIR 1.5.3.1930 is available in the flash download center and the air download center, respectively. Users should apply the update ASAP and administrators in companies should roll the fixed software out soon, too. ...

🙂 (Mashable) — We’ve just confirmed with Google that the company has signed an agreement to acquire social search engine Aardvark. Google isn’t disclosing the terms, but news of the acquisition was first reported by TechCrunch, who put the figure at around $50 million. Google told us that it’s “signed an agreement to acquire Aardvark but don’t have any additional details to report at this time.” Aardvark is a relatively new startup from former Googlers that uses social distribution channels to get immediate answers to your questions. ...

It’s just a few more days before Valentine’s Day. As most people now are already preparing their celebration, malware authors are also getting ready to use this popular event to target users with their malicious intent. Here’s one example of a malicious file (2077ed17f0ad92dafb8fb7601570e06580e4b7f1) we’ve seen recently: Upon execution, it drops the following picture file greeting: Note: It seems that the malware writers are using valid images from legitimate Web sites. ...

Jerome Segura at ParetoLogic blogged about this yesterday: a rogue security product with a web page that tries to imitate that of the German AV company Avira (check out the red umbrella and the type face.) Hmmm. If this company has been providing “20 Years of Total Protection” how come its web site was just registered last year and why was it registered by a proxy service? The fake: ...

SAN FRANCISCO – Deep inside millions of computers is a digital Fort Knox, a special chip with the locks to highly guarded secrets, including classified government reports and confidential business plans. Now a former U.S. Army computer-security specialist has devised a way to break those locks. The attack can force heavily secured computers to spill documents that likely were presumed to be safe. This discovery shows one way that spies and other richly financed attackers can acquire military and trade secrets, and comes as worries about state-sponsored computer espionage intensify, underscored by recent hacking attacks on Google Inc. ...