10/18/2009
Firefox Blocking Microsoft .NET Plugin/Add-on
There was a lot of noise starting back in February 2009 when Microsoft began pushing out a secret .NET plugin/add-on to Mozilla Firefox. Among other problems was that Microsoft was installing the plugin to Firefox anytime you did a Windows update. The complaints about this plugin were: There was no... Read more
10/11/2009
Conficker Sill Active
Back in March 2009 the worm Conficker gained notoriety for its countdown-to-activation. We covered Conficker and removing Conficker quite extensively before and after the launch date, and now about six months later, it unfortunately comes as no surprise that systems are still being infected by it. In fact, Kaspersky Antivirus,... Read more
10/08/2009
Largest Phishing Ring Busted by FBI
Exciting news today in the fight against phishing: the FBI has charged over 100 people with that the Director is calling, "the largest international phishing case ever conducted." There are some interesting details of this phishing ring bust including: U.S. Financial institutions were targeted Involved criminals in the U.S. and... Read more
10/07/2009
Computer Virus Threatens Power Grid in Australia
Just a few days into October and already there's news of a computer virus attack that's, "...wreaking havoc with Integral Energy's computer network, forcing it to rebuild all 1000 of its desktop computers before the 'particularly sinister' bug spreads to the machines controlling the power grid." Yuck. We learned of... Read more
10/06/2009
Computer Security Researchers Take Control of a Botnet
We got wind today of a research project out of the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) that took over one of the most notorious botnets, Mebroot. In an article on the takeover of the Mebroot botnet, the scope of the Mebroot problem is revealed: They found more than 6,500... Read more
10/04/2009
Antivirus Software's Role in Preventing Identity Theft
I came across an interesting piece on identity theft by Andrew Patrick today. In his blog on identity theft, he quotes a study on identity theft by Copes, H., and Vieraitis, L.M. (2009)1 which claims, "Despite public perceptions of identity theft being a high-tech, computer driven crime, it is rather... Read more
09/30/2009
9% of Enterprise Computers are Bot-Infected
One of the most common misconceptions about computers in a business environment is that somehow, perhaps because of corporate firewalls, perhaps because of the presence of IT professionals in an office, office computers there are immune to virus, bot, worm, and other malware infection. There's very much a mistaken attitude... Read more
09/15/2009
Stopping Malware: ISPs Cutting Off Internet Access to Malware Infected Computers
Malware in all its forms, viruses, worm, trojans, keyloggers, botnets, spyware, and even adware, is for most individuals and businesses unpleasant at best and a nightmare at worst. Once your PC has been infected, cleaning up the mess the malware leads behind can be easier said than done. For better... Read more
09/06/2009
USB Memory Sticks: More Ways Computer Viruses Spread
Perhaps the single biggest mistake people make in computer security and in keeping themselves virus-free is that they take for granted that viruses spread in ways that look harmless. In fact, the virus writers play on that very fact: they hope you're going to take for granted that an email,... Read more
08/26/2009
New Precautions from Banks about Online Banking
It goes without saying that the cybercriminals are getting smarter... a lot smarter, and they're writing more and more sophisticated trojans, viruses, and all forms of other malware to get at your computer and ultimately your data and personal information. What this has led to is a banking industry group,... Read more