Alert

As we were working through URLs identified as suspicious due to our GTI technology, one of the URLs that presented itself was an average “.com” site that loaded a php. As we processed this – it was interesting to see that this php actually reached out to download a file that ended with the string facebook.com.exe — as this “.com” site was very social-network friendly – it would be easy to see how an average user, without web protection in place, would not even realize what was going on. ...

Cybercriminals are attacking bloggers who use Google’s Blogger.com. We have received emails intended for bloggers to update their account. Here’s the snapshot email of the email we have received: The email contains link that will redirect to fake login page of the “Blogger.com”. As seen from the highlighted link, it has a root domain “*.erdca.kr” which is differ from the authentic root domain of blogger.com. The fake login page which is known as phishing site appears to be like this: ...

On Friday evening I was talking to a North American customer who had been fighting with infections caused by SEO poisoning. They mentioned a particular search term that could generate new samples of FakeAVs. The funny thing was that the website hacked by the SEO poisoner was a blog of someone trying to promote legitimate business use of SEO technologies.. If you click on any of the links returned by the search you would be redirected to an Indian site containing this image: ...

Somebody is trying to pose as F-Secure. If you see an email like the one below, just ignore it: Before you ask: No, we’ve never heard of “F-Secure HTK4S anti-virus” either.

Recently, We received some malicious files which appeared to be signed by “Adobe Systems Incorporated”. On closer inspection, however, it was seen that the signature was just a ruse used by the malware author to give an air of legitimacy to the files. Virus writers are getting smarter and going that extra mile to digitally sign their files. Using this technique the malware authors could, for example, penetrate an environment where only signed files are allowed but the authenticity of the signature is not checked. ...

Microsoft has issued an advance notification for Patch Tuesday next week. The company said it expects to issue two patches, one for Windows and one for Office. Both are intended to patch vulnerabilities that could allow remote code execution and both are rated “important.” Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for March 2010 here.

Symantec has been observing several spam and phishing attacks regarding the recent Valentine’s Day. One such phishing attack was on an e-card website that asked for user credentials in order to send Valentine’s Day greetings to loved ones. The legitimate e-card website has partnerships with several other brands and so accepts credentials from certain other websites as well. Hence, attackers can steal user information from several brands’ sites by phishing on just one e-card website. This particular attack asked for users’ credentials for a popular information services website. The phishing domain was hosted on servers in China and has been reported as “domain tasting.” Domain tasting is a situation in which a domain name is used for a small period of time and is checked to see if it is making enough money. If it doesn’t earn enough, the domain name is deleted and the registrant is refunded the entire registration fee. This is a technique used by attackers to perform phishing activity for small periods of time at low costs. ...

The U.S. Census Bureau is warning of phishing and other scams that are using the 2010 Census as bait. Here is the warning from the bureau’s web site: If you are contacted for any of the following reasons — Do Not Participate. It is NOT the U.S. Census Bureau. Phishing: ‘Phishing’ is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, social security numbers, bank account or credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by email and it often directs users to enter sensitive information at a fake web site whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. ...

Right! A site registered in the state of “Taliban.” You’re really going to go to a site with this registration: Nice work SANS. Thanks to Daniel Wesemann at SANS: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=8350

In the same way that media event X guarantees Rogue Antispyware Y, a new and highly anticipated videogame that’s about ready to launch will similarly bring out the scams and fakes. If you have any family members that like their PC games but perhaps aren’t clued up on their Internet fakeouts, you might want to warn them that no matter how cool the so-called “Battlefield: Bad Company 2” keygens look, they should steer clear: ...