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

Marshal8e6 protects students and staff from inappropriate email
posted on 24/01/2009

Marshal8e6 has announced a complete Internet security portfolio for schools, colleges and universities. Marshal8e6 products offer the education sector the most comprehensive safeguard for students venturing online: securing all forms of Internet-based communication including email, Web, instant messaging and peer-to-peer applications. The portfolio works across multiple operating systems and delivery platforms. The Byron Review, “Safer Children in a Digital World”, acknowledges the benefits of the Internet to pupils’ development, but calls for schools to restrict access to inappropriate Web content as part of their eSafety strategy. Byron reports that 16 per cent of 8 to 17 year olds who had viewed harmful web content said that they were at school at the time. To meet the very real challenges of ensuring online child safety IT staff need to ensure that both incoming and outgoing email and Web content is appropriate for the learning environment, while preventing excessive bandwidth con... [more]

Online gaming password stealers are the most prolific threat
posted on 22/01/2009

According to ESET's Global Threat Report for 2008, online gaming password stealers were the most prolific threat during the year, accounting for nearly 11 percent of all detected attacks. In second place was INF/Autorun which uses the Windows Autorun facility as an infection vector. "Clearly, gamers need to be aware that they're a very popular target. However, the fact that INF/Autorun was in the top spot in December and has held that position, on and off, since 2007, demonstrates that it would be better for most people if Microsoft's "Auto-Infect" feature was disabled," says David Harley, Director of Malware Intelligence, ESET. "In addition, the continuing presence of advanced detections like INF/Autorun, Win32/Statik and Win32/Genetik in the top ten threats testify to the ever-present need for sophisticated heuristics to flag the presence of new malware that doesn't resemble known malware closely enough to be identified using an existing family identifier." While the general cl... [more]

How to fight the Conficker worm
posted on 20/01/2009

There has been a resurgence in the Conficker worm (also known as Downadup) that we first saw in November. This is probably due to the malware authors adding some new propagation methods such as spreading via USB flash drives and Windows file-sharing. These techniques make it hard to remove from a network, as a single computer unpatched against the Microsoft MS08-67 security vulnerability, is able to reinfect the whole network via file shares. Obviously the best thing you can do is make sure that Microsoft’s patch is in place on every vulnerable computer on your network. In addition, you should ensure that your anti-virus software is up-to-date and ensure that HIPS and Buffer Overflow Protection (BOPS) protection is enabled, as that can prevent the initial exploit that causes a network to become infected. But what can you do if you can’t patch a computer with Microsoft’s patch for some reason? The advice is to block all incoming and outgoing traffic on port 445 from those compute... [more]

Michelle Obama spams overtake Angelina, Britney and Paris
posted on 20/01/2009

SPAMfighter has revealed that for the month of December, Michelle Obama overtook traditional spammer IT girls subjects such as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Angelina Jolie. Out of 1.4 million spam e-mails analyzed in December, SPAMfighter found the soon to be First Lady now tops the list as per the following results: · Michelle Obama 1,955 · Britney Spears 468 · Paris Hilton 368 · Angelina Jolie 195 However Michelle isn’t the only Obama getting the attention. SPAMfighter also found that Barack topped the charts with a whopping 7,186 dedicated spam e-mails in December alone. SPAMfighter predicts Obama related spam is only set to get worse. Commenting on the recent results, Martin Thorborg, the co-founder and CMO of SPAMfighter says, “This is only the tip of the iceberg. As the big inauguration day nears, it’s likely we’ll see an even bigger increase in Obama related spam.” “E-mail users can beat spammers to the punch, however they must be ... [more]

Trojan claims to be Northwest Airlines electronic plane ticket with non-existent credit card transaction
posted on 16/01/2009

Email users should be wary of messages in relation to air travel as a widespread malicious spam campaign claiming to relay information pertaining to non-existent credit card transactions continues to grow. These new emails, masquerading as communication from Northwest Airlines – a subsidiary of US carrier Delta Airlines – claim that the recipient has registered an account with the company’s online ticket service and that their credit card has been charged. The attached ZIP file, titled ‘Your_ETicket.zip’, does not contain a genuine electronic ticket and neither have the user’s credit card been charged. Instead, the file contains a Trojan horse – Troj/Agent-IPS – designed to steal information or allow hackers to secretly access the victim’s computer. "This technique of posing as an air ticket isn’t a new one – cybercriminals tried a similar scam in the run-up to Christmas, as well as using similar tactics at the height of the holiday season in 2008,” said Graham Cluley, senior techno... [more]

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