Security

Facebook started rolling out a new home page and navigation menus earlier today. And whenever Facebook adds new features, in this case the Applications and Games dashboards, there’s usually a new privacy setting as well. This is what part of the new Applications dashboard looks like. All Facebook has raised some privacy concerns regarding the dashboard’s output. Do you really want all of your “friends” to know what applications you’ve been running? ...

This is really bad for so many reasons. It certainly doesn’t help their security. And yes, it’s completely legitimate.

Mozilla yesterday posted a notice on its AMO blog (that’s an acronym for their add-on site addons.mozilla.org) that two add-ons have been found infected with Trojan code: Sothink Web Video Downloader v. 4.0 and all versions of Master Filer. Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader contained Win32.LdPinch.gen and Master Filer contained Win32.Bifrose. According to the blog, Masterfiler was downloaded 600 times before it was removed from the site Jan. 25 and Sothink was downloaded more than 4,000 times before it was removed Feb. 2. ...

Found this little gem today. It’s distributed with other malware, cracks and drive-by downloads. It purports to be a security warning from your Windows operating system. Notice the “Visa, MasterCard, etc” – it doesn’t even bother to list all the cards it accepts. The really cool thing about it is that it takes FAKE credit card numbers as well as real ones!

Sami, one of our test engineers, was recently seeking a Play Station 3. He found this offer at Huuto.net, a Finnish auction site. 160€ for a 60GB unit, with games, not bad. Sami wanted to confirm that the seller was legit, so he requested a picture, and received this. When he examined the image properties, he discovered that the picture was taken in 2008. ...

With virus and spam outbreaks, analysts needs to keep their nerves to analyze the situation and proceed to deal with the new threat. So, I wasn’t expected to be surprised by my friends’ actions on facebook this past weekend. It started innocently enough, as a post about getting a Free $25 Starbucks gift card for joining a particular group. The first person to join the group from my friends list happens to work for a non-profit organization helping young people. So, I expected the young people on his “friends list” to join this group shortly. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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