Security

A variety of sources are reporting that blog hosting sites with WordPress-created sites and php-based management systems such as Zen Care eCommerce are being infected with malicious scripts. Websites hosted by ISP DreamHost, GoDaddy, Bluehost and Media Temple have been found with the malcode, according to H-Online.com. The malicious scripts download malcode and block Google’s Safe Browsing API from alerting users. Story here: “Large-scale attack on WordPress” The Sucuri Security blog has offered clean-up instructions for those with infected pages here.

Late last week, the wires were buzzing over news that the official site of PHP-Nuke “Professional Content Management System“ was serving malware. I am frankly amazed to see the site still infected 4 days later. We see hacked sites everyday and the majority are running PHP-driven applications such as Content Management Systems (CMS). The PHP-Nuke site is currently running PHP v. 5.2.9. Server: Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 PHP/5.2.9 ...

I had a look at my twitter page early this morning and read “Twitter is a rich source of insanity”, and thought “Wow, the twitter marketroids are really bold, but it’s a good line.” Upon re-reading, however, I realized that what it really said was “Twitter is a rich source of instantly updated information.” It might, however, have been a Freudian slip, because twitter got hacked yesterday, and bunches of celebs found they had been forced to follow the hacker. Even worse, as it struggled to right the ship, twitter temporarily removed their followers, and celebs found themselves in the traumatic position of being unpopular, at least for a while. ...

When consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo prepared for Mother’s Day by conducting a survey of parents’ social media practices, it found that nearly half (48%) of parents add their children as friends on Facebook. Parents admitted that “it can be awkward at times” when they follow their kids’ Facebook updates, but think that it’s probably worth it to keep tabs on them. Of course, savvy teens could easily exclude their parents from seeing potentially incriminating updates using Facebook’s advanced privacy features. ...

PayPal users are at risk of getting their credentials stolen if they follow instructions given in a scam email. “We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party…. PayPal will verify it with your bank records for your own protection. If you provide a wrong PIN your account will be suspended or limited for unauthorized account access.” ” Please visit the Resolution Center and complete the steps to remove limitations.” ...

When I was a child, I was fascinated by ATM machines. I had a savings account which my mother would deposit money regularly and I waited for the day that I could raid the account with the ATM card for frivolous spending on console games and fast food. Nigerians have developed a cunning method to transfer millions of dollars to lucky winners worldwide. Yes, it is indeed the humble ATM card. ...

Email hoaxes are nothing new, dating back at least as far as 1994 with what is widely believed to have been the first email hoax—referred to as the “Goodtimes virus” or the “Goodtimes virus hoax” after the subject of the email. The message in the early version was short and to the point, advising recipients not to open email messages with the subject “Good Times” because doing so would ruin their files. This, of course, was not true, but in cases where the recipient complied with the warning, it obviously had the effect of ruining their chances of actually reading any legitimate email messages with that very subject. ...

I was wrong in my earlier assessment that the three treasury websites had been cleaned… the attack site was simply tracking ip addresses, and would not serve the iframe on subsequent visits.I really should have noticed that earlier, and have no excuse except that it was very early. And pre-caffeine. Folks should stay away from the sites mentioned until they’re cleaned.

Spam emails such as the one below have been doing the rounds on the Internet hoping to lure recipients into downloading a Facebook toolbar. If you download the file by clicking on “Download Here”, you’ll see a file with the icon shown below: If you take a closer look at the icon, “darkSector” is shown inside of it. How strange. Is this actually a Facebook toolbar? Let’s take a look at the property of the file since the file looks a bit fishy. In the file properties, you’ll see the following in the Details tab. ...

For the second time recently, a security researcher has pointed out that running machines without administrative privileges could significantly improve security. Mikko Hypponen, the head of research at Finnish AV company F-Secure in an interview with The Inquirer, said a great way to stop a lot of malware would be to take administrative rights away from online users. “Most wouldn’t notice (although those who did would be incandescent with annoyance) and most malware would be stopped from functioning. It should have been done already,” he said. ...