Latest Virus, Worm, Email security, spyware and malware News

Nexor extends Nexor mailguard family with different operating systems
posted on 06/02/2009

Nexor Sentinel is the mailguard of choice for operational use by the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA). Sentinel protects an organisation by ensuring that any outbound data conforms to the data sharing policy and any inbound data has been suitably checked to prevent entry of inappropriate content that could lead to a downstream denial of service. Nexor has announced two new additions to its family of high assurance guards : Nexor Sentinel 2 is the latest version of the STOP-based Sentinel. Available immediately, Sentinel 2 runs on STOP 6.4, which is evaluated to EAL5 by both the NSA and CESG. Sentinel 2 offers optimised performance and a range of new functionality including SNMP monitoring, remote management using SSH, support for S/MIME, multiple simultaneous content types, structured security labels and the ability to use third party content filters. In parallel, Nexor has developed its first SELinux based guard, Sentinel 3, available in March 2009. Sentinel 3 is an ap... [more]

Disgruntled software engineer attempted to plant malware timebomb
posted on 04/02/2009

A Federal grand jury in Maryland, US, has indicted a 35-year-old ex-employee of Fannie Mae for planting a malicious script, designed to destroy data on the US financial giant's servers. According to media reports, Rajendrasinh Babubhai Makwana worked as a software engineer at Fannie Mae's offices in Maryland for three years, where he is said to have had access to all of the company's 4,000 servers. During this time, Makwana, an Indian citizen who now resides in Virginia, is alleged to have embedded destructive code on the company's server which was due to trigger at 9:00 am on 31 January 2009, wiping out all data across the network by overwriting it with zeroes. According to the prosecution case, anyone trying to log in to the network on 31 January would have received a message saying 'Server Graveyard'. Documents presented to the court state that, Fannie Mae terminated Makwana's employment in October 2008 - the malicious script was allegedly found the following day. If found guilty... [more]

40 percent discount on Engate email security appliances and hosted security service
posted on 02/02/2009

Engate Technology Corporation has announced promotional pricing of its Email Security appliances and Hosted Email Security service for enterprises, businesses and service providers. At regular retail prices, Engate's is already offered as a lower cost alternative to competitive appliances and hosted email security services. Beginning February 1, 2009 and running through March 31, 2009, organizations will additionally benefit from a 40 percent discount off the regular retail price of Engate’s Email Security appliances and 40 percent off the regular retail price of Engate’s Hosted Email Security Service. Engate empowers organizations with next generation email security technology with compelling price points that satisfy any budget. Engate delivers a variety of compelling benefits: • Superior Protection – over 99% accuracy in stopping botnets, viruses, phish, spam and email-borne threats at the connection level - outside the email gateway; • Improves Productivity – delivers up t... [more]

Less than 10 percent of emails in 2008 was non-malicious
posted on 29/01/2009

According to data compiled by TrustLayer Mail, the clean mail managed service from Panda Security, of 430 million email messages analysed, 89.88% were spam and 1.11% were infected with some type of malware. In the last three months of the year, 301,000 zombie computers were activated and used, above all, for distributing spam. Sexual performance enhancers and pharmaceuticals were the most common subjects used by spam in 2008. Only January witnessed levels of spam below 80%. The amount of spam fluctuated throughout the year, peaking in the second quarter at 94.27% of all mail reaching companies. With respect to infected messages in 2008, the Netsky.P worm was the most frequently detected malicious code. This type of malware activates automatically when users view the infected message through the Microsoft Office Outlook preview pane. It does this by exploiting a vulnerability in Internet Explorer that allows automatic execution of email attachments. Exploitation of this vulnerabilit... [more]

Monster.com and USAJobs.gov victim of a serious hacking attack
posted on 27/01/2009

Users of careers website Monster.com and USAJobs.gov, the official job site of the US Federal Government, should change their passwords following news that both sites have been the victim of a serious hacking attack which has compromised usernames and passwords. Monster USAJobs have published security alerts to their customers warning of a serious hacking attack: Monster has published a warning for its users, advising them to change their passwords. A similar alert has appeared on the USAJobs.gov website, whose database is run by Monster. Furthermore, as research has discovered that 41 percent of people use the same password for every website they access, many Monster and USAJobs users are likely to be at risk of their accounts on other websites are at risk of being hacked. According to a warning published by Monster, other data stolen included users' email addresses, names, phone numbers and some demographic data. The incident follows a similar attack on both sites 18 months ago ... [more]

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