Microsoft Support informs you…

Author: Omid Farhang Published: February 4, 2010 Reading Time: 1 min

Since yesterday, our lab has detected a flood of email messages that seem to contain a Microsoft Update, but it’s actually malware. We’ve seen around 3,000 in a few hours. The message is like the following: This email, which seems to have been sent by the Microsoft Support team, informs you that a new security update for Outlook/Outlook Express has been released. It’s a critical update, so it’s better to install it as soon as possible. ...

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Hackers Disrupt European CO₂ Market

Author: Omid Farhang Published: February 2, 2010 Reading Time: 2 min

In recent weeks, various cybercrime attacks have disrupted the computer systems that allow nations to manage their national greenhouse-gas emissions quotas and their possession of carbon assets according to international agreements (the Kyoto Protocol and the European system). One quota is the right to emit the equivalent of one ton of carbon dioxide during a specified period. The initial attack targeted the Danish CO₂ quota register that was shut down on January 12. The Danish authorities took this decision after registry users received a fake email purporting to originate from the Danish Energy Agency and redirecting the recipients to a mirror site to steal their credentials. ...

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Protecting Privacy by Design

Author: Omid Farhang Published: February 2, 2010 Reading Time: 5 min

Last week I revealed troubling transmissions by the Google Toolbar: Even when a user specifically “disable[s]” the Google Toolbar, and even when the Toolbar disappears from view, the Toolbar continues tracking users online behavior—including specific web pages visited and specific searches run on other search engines. To Google’s credit, after I posted my article Google promptly fixed these nonconsensual transmissions—but big questions remain. How did this bug slip through Google’s internal testing? What happens to the data Google collected without user consent? And why was Google collecting this data in the first place? ...

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Beware of Skype Phishing

Author: Omid Farhang Published: February 1, 2010 Reading Time: 1 min

We were made aware that phishing for Skype credentials is currently taking place. The link the phishing mails direct to are dangerous – they aren’t detected by any phishing filter of the popular browsers yet. One thing caught my attention. Modern browsers should support domain highlighting so that the real domain is visible when someone surfs the Internet. Like Internet Explorer 8 properly does: There you can clearly see that you are not on the Skype website, but on another domain. ...

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New Rogue: MyPcSecure

Author: Omid Farhang Published: February 1, 2010 Reading Time: 1 min

MyPcSecure is the latest rogue anti-spyware application and a clone from the WiniGuard family.

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New Rogue: LiveEnterpriseSuite

Author: Omid Farhang Published: January 27, 2010 Reading Time: 1 min

LiveEnterpriseSuite is a clone of InternetAntivirusPRO. Actually, the only thing that the authors of this rogue have changed is the name in the GUI. LiveEnterpriseSuite will detect false infections and require a license to remove them. If your computer is infected with this malware, you should remove it soon, Click Here to learn how to remove such malwares.

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Google Media Player under development

Author: Omid Farhang Published: January 27, 2010 Reading Time: 1 min

Google has confirmed that it’s future operating system Chrome OS will have an integrated media player that will offer basic codec support , so that users can directly play audio or video files from Gmail or from USB drives or other media devices. In an interview with Ars Technica, Matthew Papakipos, the lead engineering director for the Chrome OS project, shared that Chrome OS will have a complete media player that approximates the functionality of Windows Media Player. ...

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Google Chrome 4 – now with Extensions, Take Care!!!

Author: Omid Farhang Published: January 27, 2010 Reading Time: 2 min

With the latest release of their browser, v.4.0, Google has published a long expected feature: Browser Extensions. Now Chrome features what other browsers like Firefox, IE, Opera and so on offer for a long time already. But, being able to compete with the others better doesn’t mean that they have solved all problems. Actually, their problems just start to appear – because adding extensions in the browser is just the same as opening Pandora’s box. ...

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Loose Tweets Sink Fleets

Author: Omid Farhang Published: January 27, 2010 Reading Time: 1 min

Information leakage is a real problem. It’s especially bad for high-security organizations, like military agencies. And it’s now harder than ever, thanks to services such as Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. So, we worked together with Lewis Communications to submit a Freedom Of Information Act request to Ministry of Defence in UK, asking if they’ve had problems with this. After waiting some weeks, we got a reply back, detailing that UK military personnel and Ministry of Defence staff have leaked secret information 16 times on social networking websites and Internet forums. ...

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Local Trends comes to Twitter

Author: Omid Farhang Published: January 27, 2010 Reading Time: 1 min

The most popular micro blogging network ‘Twitter’ has now added local trends support. This new feature allows users to track Trending topics on twitter related to their region. Though, currently very less number of countries and cities added to it. In twitter words: Local Trends will allow you to learn more about the nuances in our world and discover even more relevant topics that might matter to you. We’ll be improving this feature over time to provide more locations, languages, and data through our API. ...

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