Alert

Symantec Connect: Phishers are constantly developing new strategies in an effort to trick end users. In April 2012, phishers created sites spoofing the Apple brand with fake offers for Apple discount cards. In this phishing attack, customers were targeted by region: namely, the UK and Australia. The phishing sites mimicked the webpage of Apple and prompted customers for their Apple ID. The phishing page stated the customer’s long-term loyalty toward the brand gave them eligibility for an Apple discount card as a reward. Upon entering an Apple ID and clicking the “Next” button, the customer was redirected to a page that asked for more confidential information: ...

Cross posted from GFI, Sunbelt Blog: There’s not a day when we don’t see a new scam or hoax—yes, even the old ones—being proliferated on Facebook. I’ve seen both today. Let’s take a quick look at each one, shall we? First off, the scam: The screenshot above is a post generated by the “Sexappeal Meter” app that have spread within the social network. Clicking the “How much Sexappeal you have” link, or sometimes a bit.ly shortened URL, leads users to a page where it requests for permission just like any normal app. Allowing the app access to user profile, however, leads to two succeeding survey scam pages and, eventually, to a page where one can download a browser toolbar. ...

Symantec Connect: In recent years, scammers have flocked towards social networking sites as they have grown and made it easier to access a large number of potential eyeballs to convert into dollars. Brands have found value in leveraging social media to know what their customers are talking about, so, naturally, scammers are doing the exact same thing. Free iPads and iPhones Every time Apple unveils a new iPad or iPhone, you can bet there are scammers out there trying to leverage the announcement for financial gain. In the days leading up to and after the announcement of the new third-generation iPad, Twitter users who tweet about the new tablet most likely will receive some targeted Twitter replies from scammers offering the new device for free: ...

Exploit found in Russian adware invades process, doesn’t install files The Register: Researchers at Kaspersky Labs have found malware which, unusually, does not install any files on its victims PCs. The researchers aren’t quite sure how unusual it is, describing it as both “unique” and “very rare”, but no matter how scarce this type of malware is it does sound rather nasty as it “… uses its payload to inject an encrypted dll from the web directly into the memory of the javaw.exe process.” That mode of operation means Windows and MacOS are both affected by the exploit, which is hard for many antivirus programs to spot given it runs within a trusted process. ...

SophosLabs: Messages are spreading between Facebook users, claiming that members of the social network have lost all respect for popular songstress Rihanna after watching a video. However, if you’re careless enough to click on the link you will find yourself lured into a survey scam that attempts to earn affiliate cash for fraudsters. A typical message trying to tempt users into falling for the scam looks like this: ...

SophosLabs: Is Google really extending its online empire, and opening an online pharmacy? Of course not. So don’t believe spammed-out emails like the following: Do you notice how the spammers have changed the “o”s in Google to Cialis and Viagra tablets? Very creative. Part of the spam message reads as follows: We’ve just launched a pharmaceutical interfaces for Google, as well as several new features that will improve the Google experience for the people buying pills and using pharmaceutical interfaces. ...

Oops indeed. At least if you were one of the Facebook users who believed that a hidden camera video had leaked onto the net of Justin Bieber sharing some intimate moments with his girlfriend Selena Gomez. Of course, Bieber’s typical fans – or those who would delight in his public humiliation by a hungry paparazzi – are probably unlikely to think twice about clicking on a link shared with them by their Facebook friends, claiming to leak to a sex video. ...

I’ve owned up to some of the great loves of my life in the past. For instance, I’m a music lover and I’m very partial to board games (even during a denial-of-service attack). Today I can also share that I like The Beatles. In particular, anything from “Rubber Soul” and later when the “Yeah yeah yeah” turned into something rather more “Yeah man. Dig it”. I’ve simply never come across a more talented combination of musicianship and songwriting abilities – for me, you can kick The Stones, The Who, Cream and.. yes.. even MeatLoaf to the kerb, as Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr are the guv’nors. ...

SophosLabs: Want a free password for one of the world’s most popular adult websites? YouPorn, one of the world’s most popular porn video websites and one of the top 100 websites of any kind in the world, appears to have been caught with its pants down – after a list of many of its users’ email addresses, passwords and dates of birth were left exposed on a public-facing server. ...

Sunbelt: Be wary of emails claiming to be from AICPA – as per their alert here, these are not real and any mention of “unlawful tax return fraud” is just a bait to convince the end-user to open up a malicious attachment (in this case, a .doc file although there are rogue PDF files in circulation too). As with many of the malicious spam campaigns doing the rounds at the moment, this one will use the Blackhole exploit kit to serve up zbot from multiple compromised domains. Worse, a Sakura kit (typical example here) will download Sirefef / ZeroAccess , which as we’ve seen elsewhere is not a good thing to have on your system. ...