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Cybercriminals reinvent methods of malicious attacks
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| Cybercriminals are not only leveraging new technologies to propagate
| cybercrime, but are also reinventing forms of social engineering to cleverly
| ensnare both consumers and businesses, according to the "Trend Micro Threat
| Roundup and Forecast 1H 2008" report. As a result, the last six months saw an
| upswing in Web threats, but steady decreases in adware and spyware that are
| generated by outdated technical methods and can no longer compete with
| high-level security solutions.
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http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=6292
More 'fun':
Adware Company Refines Opt-out, Notification Technology
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| With access to an ISP's (Internet service provider's) network, NebuAd's
| system monitors Internet browsing in order to deliver targeted advertisements
| related to search queries and Web sites a person has viewed.
|
| NebuAd said it has developed a "direct online notification system" that would
| give consumers periodic reminders -- which could be used in addition to
| regular mail and e-mail -- that they are enrolled in the ad system.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/article/148058/adware_company_refines_optout_notification_technology.html
http://tinyurl.com/5jwcjb
Recent:
Trend Micro's CEO says 'AV industry sucks'
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| Trend Micro’s CEO threw down the gauntlet to her competitors last week,
| proclaiming that hackers are ahead of the game and that the anti-virus
| industry “sucks”.
|
| [...]
|
| Changes in the malware landscape have led to the creation of multiple
| variants of different malware strains and targeted attacks. Traditional top
| down command structures for antivirus distribution are struggling to cope.
| Trend Micro had little choice but to invest in the new technology. However
| Chen, who has five patents to her name, admitted that investors nervously
| questioned her risky decision.
`----
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/06/22/trend_micro_eva_chen/
Schneier: Lots of Security Software Is 'snake Oil'
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| IDG News Service: So what do you think is the biggest threat right now?
|
| Schneier: Crime.
|
| IDG News Service: So how do you fix it? It's expensive to investigate, it's
| cross-jurisdictional.
|
| Schneier: It might not be fixable. A lot of [the solution] is going to be
| making the things that criminals are going after harder to get. You're not
| going to stop the criminals.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144938/schneier_lots_of_security_software_is_snake_oil.html
Malware still malingering for up-to-date anti-virus users
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| Having anti-virus software and keeping it up to date is no longer enough to
| keep from geting infected by malware.
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http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/panda_infected_or_not/
The rise of the Malware Mafia
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| Organized group's embrace of cyber crime has been made possible by the
| availability of highly specialized malware, which has lowered the barriers to
| entry. As a result, Alperovitch said, "The profile of arrested criminals is
| changing from tech savvy teens to traditional criminals with mile-long rap
| sheets for drugs and propagating fake checks."
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/organized_crime_embraces_net/
The Dirty Secret Behind 1,000,000 Viruses
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| But there's something missing in this paragraph – and, indeed, in the whole
| story: it's the word “Windows”. This is the dirty secret behind viruses: they
| are overwhelmingly found on Windows systems. The huge, global cost of viruses
| is just one of the hidden extra fees that we all, collectively, must pay when
| others use Microsoft Windows. Pity Microsoft doesn't use some of its
| extensive cash holdings to compensate victims of its poor coding.
|
| Now, of course, if all the world used GNU/Linux, that wouldn't mean that
| viruses would cease to exist: the focus of malware would shift, and viruses
| would become more common for that system too. But you can bet they'd be far
| harder to write, and that there would be far less than a million.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=685
China Faced With Severe Botnet Problem
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| China faces a serious threat from botnets, networks of computers infected
| with software that allows them to be controlled remotely for
| denial-of-service attacks and to send spam, according to a report issued by
| China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CNCERT).
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144931/china_faced_with_severe_botnet_problem.html
Microsoft Data Show Web Attacks Taking off
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| The company saw the number of Trojan downloader programs it removed from
| Windows machines jump by 300 percent, according to Jimmy Kuo, principal
| architect with Microsoft's Malware Protection Center.
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http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144928/microsoft_data_show_web_attacks_taking_off.html
Bots rule in cyberspace
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| USA TODAY REPORTS that on an average day, 40 per cent of the 800 million
| computers connected to the Internet are bots used to send out spam, viruses
| and to mine for sensitive personal data.
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http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/17/bots-rule-cyberspace
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2008-03-16-computer-botnets_N.htm
Related:
Online banking fraud 'up 8,000%'
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| The UK has seen an 8,000% increase in fake internet banking scams
| in the past two years, the government's financial watchdog has warned.
|
| The Financial Services Authority (FSA) told peers it was "very concerned"
| about the growth in "phishing".
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6177555.stm
Trend, Sophos and McAfee flunk Vista SP1 anti-virus tests
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| Top tier anti-virus vendors including McAfee, Trend Micro, and Sophos all
| failed to secure Windows Vista SP1 in recent independent tests.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/03/vista_sp1_av_tests/
Does antivirus have a future?
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| Peter Gutmann, a researcher at the University of Auckland who presented the
| results of a study of the commercial market for malware at August's Defcon,
| estimates that a good virus programmer can make as much as $200,000 a year
| (here, a 660KB PDF). Alan Cox, an open-source security researcher, points out
| some additional possibilities. One is malware designed to sit under today's
| virtual machines. A proof-of-concept paper proposing such an attack, called
| Subvirt (PDF), appeared last year, written by three researchers from
| Microsoft and two from the University of Michigan. A presentation at last
| year's Black Hat security conference from Joanna Rutkowska, a researcher at
| Coseinc, a Singapore-based security company, covered a much leaner attack she
| called Blue Pill, which targets the virtualisation built into Windows Vista
| and into current processors from both AMD and Intel.
`----
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/20/guardianweeklytechnologysection.spam
Is an antivirus gap looming?
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| The failure of antivirus companies to adapt to the dramatic malware
| appearance rates in 2007 tells us there's time for a change and there's room
| for a new class of tools. "AV is dead" is the battle cry of a new industry
| analyst report. Antivirus companies may not be going the way of the dodo, but
| to many customers, the concept of antivirus as the last line of defense has
| been thrown out the window. It's time for a better approach, one that can
| keep up and really defend networks.
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http://news.com.com/2010-7348_3-6195322.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
Predicting the demise of antivirus apps
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| "It's the beginning of the end for antivirus," says Robin Bloor, partner
| at consulting firm Hurwitz & Associates, who adds he began his
| "antivirus is dead" campaign a year ago and feels even more strongly
| about it today. "I'm going to keep beating this drum. The approach
| antivirus vendors take is completely wrong. The criminals working to
| release these viruses against computer users are testing against
| antivirus software. They know what works and how to create variants."
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http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/mgmt/0047A206FF40A92ECC2572C3000FD867
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