Technology News: Malware

Cyberfraud Arrests Unlikely to Stem ZeuS Rampage
November 18, 2009

British police on Wednesday announced the arrest of two people in the city of Manchester on suspicion of using the so-called ZeuS Trojan horse to commit banking fraud. The couple, who were detained Nov. 3, are out on bail pending trial. ZeuS, also known as "Zbot," is a notorious bit of malware used to steal users' banking and other personal information from their computers.

Microsoft Addresses Prickly Pair of Windows 7 Flaws
November 16, 2009

Windows 7, which was publicly released Oct. 22, has been hit by at least two security flaws. One of these lets hackers execute code remotely; the other lets them trigger an infinite loop remotely, causing a kernel crash. Both are flaws in SMBv2, security researcher Laurent Gaffie, who posted details about them on his blog, told TechNewsWorld.

Safe Mac Computing on an Unsafe Web
November 14, 2009

We first saw the Apple Macintosh at the 1984 Super Bowl. At the time, IBM and Microsoft gave us only text-based computing. The Mac appeared looking like nothing we had ever seen. Its screen was all graphics, all the time. It had a mouse, the first one seen by most people. It was smaller than a PC, lighter and more portable.

Everyone's Stoked About Cyber Monday - Vendors, Customers and Hackers
November 14, 2009

Less than 20 days until Cyber Monday. You've got staffing queued up. Your warehouse is full. Your shipper is standing by. But have you considered what will happen on your Web site after a flood of qualified buyers click on the irresistible and precisely worded ad for your product or service? You've got one shot -- one day -- to win their holiday business.

Tech Futurist Sees Rosy Prospects for Net Security
November 02, 2009

Sometime between now and the year 2019, Comcast will start going after botnets and will stop sending malicious Web traffic to its customers. Google will send up more alarms if your search results include possibly infectious links. Microsoft and Apple will get better at plugging holes in their software.

Ridding the Web of the XSS Scourge
October 19, 2009

Cross-site scripting/SQL injection attacks have been blamed for numerous data breaches, perhaps most notably the nightmare of the Heartland Payment Systems data breach. This type of attack has been around for at least a decade. However, the tendency for programmers to continue with old, insecure code writing techniques make XSS one of the most deadly methods for hackers.

ICANN Cuts the Apron Strings
October 02, 2009

According to ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, nobody but nobody controls the Internet. Not China, not Comcast, not your IT guy, not Clippy, nobody. The Final Boss of the Internet does not exist. But there does exist a nonprofit that governs Web addresses, and that's Dengate Thrush's organization, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

Navigating the New Cybercrime Threatscape, Part 4
September 30, 2009

Regardless of the agreements or disagreements on how individuals, companies and governments are to combat cybercrime, one fact stands true: Doing nothing is the worst posture to assume. Cyberrisk is as limitless as human determination, ingenuity and ignorance. As such, it is crucial we take the right measures to protect ourselves online.

New Microsoft Security App Battens Down Windows for Free
September 29, 2009

Microsoft released version 1.0 of Microsoft Security Essentials, a free basic anti-malware service from Redmond, on Tuesday. This replaces Microsoft's discontinued Live OneCare Security-as-a-Service offering. Live OneCare customers can move to Microsoft Security Essentials once their subscriptions expire.

Navigating the New Cybercrime Threatscape, Part 3
September 23, 2009

With the constantly evolving Internet security threatscape, being able to actually get a grasp on the latest threats, let alone arm oneself against them, can seem overwhelming. While there are seemingly limitless best practices in regard to cybersecurity, below are several that should help reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim of cybercrime.

Navigating the New Cybercrime Threatscape, Part 2
September 16, 2009

The current threatscape, as with any landscape, can be viewed as endless vistas of changing complexities and unfathomable permutations of technologies, network topologies, risk scenarios and user requirements. It's the white noise of this dizzying array of technologies -- built upon an operating system monoculture -- which creates a healthy breeding ground for cybercrime.

Navigating the New Cybercrime Threatscape, Part 1
September 09, 2009

Cybercrime is pervasive, pandemic and increasingly connected with other parts of the criminal ecosystem. It ranges from the theft of an individual's identity to the complete disruption of a country's Internet connectivity due to a massive attack against its networking and computing resources.

Snow Leopard to Prowl for Mac Malware?
August 26, 2009

Apple has reportedly included antimalware technologies in Snow Leopard, which will go on sale Friday. The news comes shortly after Apple released a fresh round of commercials indicating that the Mac, unlike PCs running Windows, is virus-free. Mac security software vendor Intego's blog carried a screenshot showing the antimalware feature detecting a version of the RSPlug Trojan horse in a downloaded disk image.

On Bugs, Viruses, Malware and Linux
August 10, 2009

Among all the reasons geeks choose Linux, security is often near the top of the list. And no wonder -- personal preferences aside on all the other many relevant issues, there's plenty of evidence to suggest our favorite operating system really is more impervious.

1 Million Linux Kernels Booted for Vast Botnet Simulation
July 31, 2009

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have laid the groundwork for an unprecedented simulation of a large-scale botnet after booting up 1 million Linux kernels as virtual machines. They now are waiting for completion of a new, faster and more capable supercomputer on which they hope to run 10 million kernels in a simulation of the open Internet.

Security Testers Spot Worrisome Weakness in SSL
July 30, 2009

Yet more Web security flaws have emerged to threaten Internet users, who are already bedeviled by the likes of drive-by attacks, SQL injections and spam. At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, researchers reportedly demonstrated serious flaws in the Secure Sockets Layer encryption protocol, a commonly used method of protecting communications on the Web.