TechBlog

Symantec Connect: We have become familiar enough with malware creators poisoning popular search engine terms through SEO techniques in order to deliver their malicious files to a greater pool of unsuspecting users. Other popular services such as Twitter have not escaped the watchful eyes of the miscreants. This attack involves pumping out many of the same tweets with different accounts to push them into the Twitter trending list. That way more people are likely to see them even if the individual user accounts being used to send the tweets don’t have that many followers. Incidentally many of the accounts used in this attack don’t have that many followers and are quite fresh – meaning they are probably fake accounts set up specifically for the purpose of spamming tweets. ...

It’s a normal day to us. We receive a new Bamital virus sample report from a customer, and we provide an analysis. Suddenly, something interesting bursts into my eyes: What’s your thought on this code fragment? At the first glance, this piece of code looks like a non-malicious call to manipulate the Windows Printer SubSystem. But if you’ve analyzed Alureon before, it may look familiar to you. Yes, Alureon also takes advantage of the Windows Print Subsystem to install its payload. ...

Mashable: A large number of messages containing only the link “goo.gl/R7f68” has appeared on Twitter today, redirecting the users to various malware-laden sites. The messages are mostly coming from disposable accounts, but they also appear on some accounts that appear to be genuine, which indicates that there’s a worm spreading and sending the messages from infected accounts. Furthermore, all of the messages containing the link are sent from the mobile version of Twitter. ...

Avira programmers spent a lot of work and drastically overhauled the Avira AntiVir Rescue System which is now available in version 3.7.16. Next to a much better usability due to the redesigned user interface and 11 supported languages the new version offers even improved detection and removal capabilities. Avira AntiVir Rescue System uses Linux as operating system. The new kernel has much better and wider hardware support. The bootable CD can not only be used to analyse the system for malware infections and remove them, but also enables the user to get access to data on the system in case the operating system won’t start anymore so it can be backed up onto a USB drive, for example. ...

Take a look in the Email I got from Google a few minutes ago: Dear Website Optimizer user, We are writing to inform you of a potential security issue with Website Optimizer. By exploiting a vulnerability in the Website Optimizer Control Script, an attacker might be able to execute malicious code on your site using a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attack. This attack can only take place if a website or browser has already been compromised by a separate attack. While the immediate probability of this attack is low, we urge you to take action to protect your site. ...

The New York Time: The Google e-bookstore is finally open. Tom Turvey, head of strategic partnerships at Google, said he thought the book business should have diversity of retail points After years of planning and months of delays, the search giant Google started its e-book venture on Monday, creating a potentially robust competitor in the digital book market to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple. ...

The Register: YouPorn nabbed in real-world privacy sting Boffins from Southern California have caught YouPorn.com and 45 other sites pilfering visitors’ surfing habits in what is believed to be the first study to measure in-the-wild exploits of a decade-old browser vulnerability. YouPorn, which fancies itself the YouTube of smut, uses JavaScript to detect whether visitors have recently browsed to PornHub.com, tube8.com and 21 other sites, according to the study. It tracked the 50,000 most popular websites and found a total of 46 other offenders, including news sites charter.net and newsmax.com, finance site morningstar.com and sports site espnf1.com. ...

Wired: SAO PAULO — Despite widespread speculation at the time, a massive power outage that left 18 out of the 26 Brazilian states in the dark for up to six hours last year was not the result of a cyber attack, according to a classified diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks last week. The Nov. 10, 2009, blackout came just two days after the CBS News magazine 60 Minutes reported that an earlier outage in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo in 2007 was the work of hackers. And it came just one day after Threat Level reported that, no, it wasn’t. ...

The Register: Windows source code tapped, say WikiLeaked docs The Chinese government may have used its access to Microsoft source code to develop attacks that exploited weaknesses in the Windows operating system, according to a US diplomatic memo recently published by WikiLeaks. The June 29, 2009 diplomatic cable claims that a Chinese security firm with close ties to the People’s Republic of China, got access to the Windows source under a 2003 agreement designed to help companies improve the security of the Microsoft operating system. Topsec allegedly worked with a government organization known as CNITSEC, short for the China Information Technology Security Center, which actively worked with “private sector” hackers to develop exploits. ...

Google has upgraded its Priority Inbox, a recently launched Gmail feature that automatically places important mail on top of your inbox, with a couple of improvements based on user feedback. The Priority Inbox now reacts much faster to users’ manual corrections. Furthermore, if you hover the mouse cursor over the importance marker of individual emails, you’ll see a short explanation of why that message is considered important. As far as what kind of impact the Priority Inbox has had on Gmail users, Google claims that typical Priority Inbox users spend 43% more time reading important mail compared to unimportant, and 15% less time reading email overall, when compared to Gmail users who don’t use the Priority Inbox. ...