Orkut Users Infected by Virus
by David MastersUsers of social networking sites beware. This week thousands of members of Orkut, Google's social networking site, became infected by a potentially malicious worm. At its most dangerous, the virus was infecting over 100 users every minute. Members of Orkut, a networking website similar to Facebook and MySpace, were sent an email by the worm telling them that they had a new scrapbook entry - a message on their ...
December 23, 2007
1 in 5 fail to back up laptops and PDAs
by Brian TurnerBritons are risking losing valuable images and data forever with almost one in five who own a portable device losing phone numbers and contact details on mislaid items and 40% admitting to not backing up photos on portable devices, according to research commissioned by Network Appliance (NetApp), a leading provider of storage and data management solutions. The YouGov survey of 2,035 online adults, reveals that whilst 58% of those that ...
Common free iPod spam IPs
by Brian TurnerEvery forum admin is used to seeing supposed offers for cheap ipods and mobile phones on their forums, supposedly from trading companies. After some research, Security Watch has found that a lot of this spam originates from just two IP addresses: 216.139.164.85 216.139.164.86 Checking up the IP history of one forum, no less than 20 banned users had used these two IP addresses alone to post ipod and nokia mobile phone spam. Of course, these ...
December 22, 2007
Dutch Police Bust Phishing Scam
by David Masters14 account holders of Dutch bank ABN AMRO are being investigated by police for their complicity in a phishing scam which was targeted at users of ABN AMROs online banking services. The cyber-fraudsters behind the scam set up a number of false ABN AMRO websites in which customers of the bank were encouraged to enter their account login details. These illegally obtained details were used by the fraudsters ...
December 18, 2007
freebabytoys.co.uk referrers continue spam
by Brian TurnerForum admins are advised to censor the domain freebabytoys.co.uk due to extensive spamming of the domain by referrers on forums. The domain name has previously been targeted in spam runs already on forums, and now affiliate referrer links are being extensively posted to forums on a regular basis, for example: freebabytoys.co.uk/members?referer_id=9394 The most recent has the following details: Email address - dragonite19@hotmail.co.uk IP: 172.201.45.62 (AOL) The website itself provides no contact information itself, and the ...
December 17, 2007
Qualys Releases QualysGuard PCI 2.0
by Brian TurnerQualys, Inc., a provider of on demand security risk and compliance management solutions, today announced the availability of QualysGuard PCI 2.0, second generation of its On Demand PCI Platform. QualysGuard PCI 2.0 dramatically streamlines the PCI Compliance process and adds new capabilities for large corporations to facilitate PCI compliance on a global scale. “Compliance with the PCI data security standard can be a complicated and confusing process,” said Dennis Kavanaugh, director, ...
dealsjamaica on forum spamming rampage
by Brian TurnerForum spamming promoting dealsjamaica has been especially prevalent already on financial forums this winter. Users sign up from a limited range of IPs - at present 72.252.176.27 and 72.252.120.235 - and join via Gmail accounts with the format jassy001@gmail.com and fattty002@gmail.com, with increasing integers on the numbers. There is sometimes an attempt to hide the spam by mentioning other companies, but many of the posts simply focus on dealsjamaica as the main ...
ICI chooses AT&T for enhanced security filtering
by Brian TurnerAT&T has been selected by ICI to provide an enhanced level of managed security services across its global network. ICI is in the process of implementing AT&T’s managed Web-filtering service as part of a companywide program designed to increase levels of security across the organization. In addition to protecting users from accidentally visiting inappropriate Internet Web sites, AT&T’s Web Security service will protect against any malware that users may catch from ...
Secerno warns on corporate security risks
by Brian TurnerSecerno today warned that simplistic security solutions based on signature block lists or rules-based network security will put organisations at risk in 2008, as it becomes impossible for these products to keep up with the multitude of new attacks. 2007 has been regularly punctuated with data breaches, and as a result public awareness of data protection has risen to an all-time high of 85% (1). The Information Commissioner's annual report also ...
December 11, 2007
Data networks suffer sloppy employees
by Brian TurnerA survey of more than 100 UK office workers has revealed that employees are hugely reliant on access to network data to do their jobs, yet show an alarming apathy about the value of that data. The survey was carried out by secure online backup specialist, Databarracks, and the findings are a stark warning to UK businesses: Data dependent: Workers are so dependent on corporate data that 84% felt they couldn’t ...
iPhone predicted to be major hacking target
by Brian TurnerSecurity predictions released today by Arbor Networks reveals that the iPhone will be a major target for cybercriminals in 2008. The forecast also highlights Chinese specific crime as a major issue for the New Year. Arbor's Security and Engineering Response Team (ASERT), who have put together the forecasts, believe that the iPhone will become the victim of a serious attack in 2008. These assaults are likely to be in the ...
December 10, 2007
Senior managers to plug Information Leakage gaps
by Brian TurnerAdverse publicity and damage to customer trust resulting from the loss of confidential information is focusing the attention of senior executives on the dangers associated with information leakage, claims a new report from the Information Security Forum (ISF). But the report that has been released into the public domain today (www.securityforum.org) also highlights that while the term 'information leakage' may be new, it is a problem that organisations have had ...
December 7, 2007
Simplifying SAM
by Brian TurnerThis is a guest editorial, by Matt Fisher, VP Marketing, Centennial Software It is an irony of modern business that, despite investing huge amounts of financial and human capital into IT, organisations often have less interest in effectively tracking and managing those assets than they do in maintaining the company car. Although most IT directors would claim to know exactly how many PCs they have on their network, the reality ...
hostinggratisargentina.com in massive spam run
by Brian TurnerA massive spam run using the spambot Xrumer was used this evening against blogs across the internet. The comment spam all linked to testxrum.hostinggratisargentina.com/map.html and was sent out via IP 89.179.1.177 (89-179-1-177.broadband.corbina.ru). The scale was unusually aggressive, with ten of our own blogs suddenly in receipt of over 400 spam comments within an hour. Criminal gangs in Russia have frequently been blamed for a host of spam and malware incidents, and ...
December 6, 2007
Security Executives fail on data leakage
by Brian TurnerBrand reputation, risk management and preventing data loss surfaced clearly as the burning concerns of senior security professionals participating in the London meeting of the CSO Interchange, a high level forum geared to discussing hot topics of the day. 60% profess to having only "some idea" as to where their customer data is stored and "limited controls" over it. 72% see the impact of payment card loss on ...