TechBlog

With a dazzling laser show, the 26th Chaos Communication Congress (26c3) in Berlin, the last big security conference of 2009, has ended. If you haven’t been here, you might have missed fewer of the sessions than people on site, thanks to the worldwide availablility of live streams (and recordings). What you did miss was meeting all these people, though! 26c3 has simply outgrown the location it has occupied for the last few years, but this may be offset by a very successful experiment: allowing full remote access to the conference network via VPN for those who couldn’t attend. Other conferences should consider this (hey, Defcon team, are you reading this? 😉 ) as well, especially as air travel becomes less and less attractive. ...

From a site that is hacked and serving phishes: What’s mildly interesting is the types of phishes — “speciality phishes” that are not your typical banking/finance scam. These are phishes that are highly targeted, in this case at email systems of tiny Hamiltom College (not the first time I’ve seen this), the religious site cfaith.com, Saginaw Valley State University, and Villanova. cfaith: SVSU and Villanova ...

It’s the time of year to make predictions. I only have one: in 2010, governments around the world will BEGIN to increase their efforts to do something about the massive malware threat that every Internet user on the planet faces. It’s going to be controversial and difficult legally and technically. It’s going to cost serious tax money, political capital and diplomatic work to counter this crime wave that is like nothing the world has ever known. ...

GreatDefender is a great big scam. GreatDefender is the latest rogue antispyware software, or phony security program that rips people off. If GreatDefender has infected your computer, do not buy the software, you should remove it immediately. GreatDefender uses scare tactics to frighten people into buying this corrupt software. These scare tactics include: System scans that report numerous infections, yet requires purchase of GreatDefender 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 GreatDefender (These warnings are fake) Web browser redirecting to random websites (these websites are owned by cyber thieves and will further infect your PC) GreatDefender will prevent other programs from opening, stating they are infected (The programs are not infected) If your windows is infected with this malware you should remove it as soon as possible, Click Here to learn how to remove it.

Jerome Segura, a Security Analyst at ParetoLogic of Victoria, B.C., Canada, just posted a nice piece on computer security practices with a different perspective in his “Malware Diaries” Blog. He begins his list of security tips by considering four classes of users: the pre-baby boomers: These folks rarely touched a computer in their lives and if they did, kudos! Typical use: Work, Solitaire, Printing stuff. the early and late baby boomers: They have been interacting with computers pre-Internet and have good notions but lack the ‘modern day stuff’. Typical use: Work, e-mail, Online searches. the 70’s – 80’s users: These guys are definitely into computers, maybe a bit more gaming and such. They possess quite a good sense of computing. Typical use: Games, Work, E-mail, Online Dating, Forums 90’s to present: Some of them were born with a computer or handheld device. Their lives would not be possible without the MSN, Skype and more recently all the social engineering glitter. Typical use: Twittering, Facebooking, Online shopping. then makes further distinctions by level of security knowledge and awareness: ...

I recently had an interesting message arrive in my system; after viewing the message, 100% of those polled agreed on what it was. What do you think? What do YOU see? If you answered spam, you’re on your way to having the mentality of a spam analyst. This message has many hallmarks of classic unsolicited commercial email: the middle of the message says “Click Here” in big prominent text there’s an “opt-out” banner, announcing that this is an ad the ad contains a “unique ID” despite the (intentionally obscured) address, the message does not say who it is actually from the “call to action” link is http :/fefcbdacggbfg.[redacted].info/alphaville/4754-1b416/ — random sub-domain, published in the .info top level domain, with a directory name comprised of two random words, and a sub-directory that looks like yet another unique identifier. everything in this message except for the “unique ID” under the opt-out banner is actually an image. Those of you who are actually interested in psychology will also note that the inkblot is not actually part of either the Rorsach or the Holtzman Inkblot Test. It seems to me that this message is more designed to take advantage of those who are willing to try anything to get a job. In the long run, an accredited educational institution will likely be much more beneficial.

Is this the last rogue for 2009? The cyber criminals will probably ditch 2009 in their naming after the New Year.AntivirusPC2009 may still trick some people before next year though. The fraud tool downloads files on the system and detects them after a scan has been performed.

Activities associated with Koobface have increased during the month of December. Often it is for the sending of traffic to compromised servers in order to obtain more servers. Other times the activity centers around using those same compromised servers to proxy users to malicious domains that are then used for further distribution of malware or command and control of the infected machines. I noticed a trend with some of the domain-based locations making use of the holiday theme. This has included everything from “presents for your pets” to “festive holiday trees” – these are domains that appear legitimate but are not. In fact, many of the domains that are being used were legitimate at one point and now are serving a different, more questionable purpose. ...

SystemCleanerPRO is a rogue antivirus program, or a complete scam. SystemCleanerPRO uses fake security alerts and fictitious system pop-ups that warn or infections to frighten users into buying the software. SystemCleanerPRO is a complete rip-off and should be removed form infected PC’s immediately. If SystemCleanerPRO has infected your computer, you may experience the following symptoms: Slow sluggish PC SystemCleanerPRO running a system scan every time you turn your PC on System alerts warning you that the computer is under attack or is not protected, recommending you purchase SystemCleanerPro Web browser redirecting to random websites (which are owned by the crooks who author this and other malicious software) Other programs not opening or shutting down if your windows is infected with these kind of malware Click Here to learn how to remove it.

As you may have heard in the last few days, Twitter has banned 370 passwords (actually only 369, ‘password’ appears twice in the list) as ‘too obvious’ to be safe for their users. A good move in theory but why are so few words banned? And what are they? The list is available in various places online, or even just by viewing the source of the Twitter sign up page. Sadly the sports fans in this Sophos office may be out of luck with both ‘boston’ and ‘redsox’ making the banned list. ...