Threat Research

DNS Changer infrastructure shutdown is a *good* thing

February 4th, 2012

 - The FBI may shutdown the DNS servers victims of the DNS Changer malware have been using on March 8th. Is this a dangerous action, or is five months to clean up your PC enough? (continue reading...)

Purchases From This Super Bowl Sale Will Not Take You Anywhere

February 4th, 2012

 - You may not need pills to watch the super bowl but spammers feel that this definitely  is an occasion to do so! The most exciting annual championship of the NFL -  the Super Bowl XLVI (continue reading...)

AVAST reaches 150 million active users

February 4th, 2012

 - If you are planning to visit Europe these days or actually live here… get ready for some very cold weather and temperatures much lower than (continue reading...)

DreamHost: hijacked websites redirect to Russian scam

February 3rd, 2012

 - 
Following the Dreamhost hack, that was revealed this week, many websites hosted by the company have been hijacked to redirect users to a Russian scam page.

I've identified hundreds (continue reading...)

Encrypted? Check. Strong passphrase? Check. Mailing them together? Oops.

February 3rd, 2012

 - Encryption only helps secure your data when the keys are a secret, a lesson learned the hard way by Ernst and Young and Regions Financial.

How Valuable Is Your Time?

February 3rd, 2012

 - Do you remember that time my husband clicked on scareware? Or that story I tell about before I started blogging for McAfee, the kids downloaded a virus onto the computer that we couldn’t get rid (continue reading...)

Cisco IPS Signature Retirement and the Default Configuration

February 3rd, 2012

 - Walter Sulym from the Cisco IPS team explains the signature retirement process and how the default configuration is determined.

Google responds to Android app Market security with stronger scanning measures

February 3rd, 2012

 - In response to recent reports that malicious apps may have made their way into the official Android Market, Google has responded by announcing a new program to more proactively scan the Market and developer accounts (continue reading...)

Super Sunday means Super Scams

February 3rd, 2012

 - The Super Bowl, the much-hyped championship American pro football game, will be broadcast this Sunday night to an estimated 200 million people. Any major (continue reading...)

Android Market Gets a Bouncer to Kick Out Malware

February 3rd, 2012

 - Today Google announced its Bouncer security service for the Android Market. This is a good initial step in protecting Android users.
Respect the Bouncer
To keep out known troublesome apps, the service performs a malware and (continue reading...)

Cyber Insurance and Security

February 3rd, 2012

 - I recently read an article in Computerworld that really got me thinking about servers: what they are, what they do and what they hold. Traditionally, the insurance industry has offered risk protection from tangible (continue reading...)

Is Google Bouncer going to bounce all malware from the Android Market?

February 3rd, 2012

 - Google has pleasantly surprised the mobile malware research community when it announced yesterday that Android apps are analysed for malicious behavior before being allowed onto the Android Market, but is it all good news? Vanja (continue reading...)

US attacks Iran and Saudi Arabia? Malware spreads via Facebook status updates

February 3rd, 2012

 - A fake CNN webpage is being linked to from Facebook users' status updates, claiming that World War III has begun.

But the real story is the malware waiting to infect your computer. (continue reading...)

Anonymous spies on FBI / UK Police hacking investigation conference call

February 3rd, 2012

 - A recording of a confidential conference call between the FBI and UK law enforcement officers at the Metropolitan Police has been released by Anonymous on the internet. (continue reading...)

#4 Nessus Licenses & Usage – Top Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Nessus

February 3rd, 2012

 - 
The video below is part 4 in our series of the top ten things you didn't know about Nessus and covers how to schedule scans from within Nessus: (continue reading...)

Cheap Professional DDoS Service

February 3rd, 2012

 -  Now here's something that you don't see everyday, a YouTube video in which a young woman advertises DDoS services, with a smile."Hello, Hackers." (continue reading...)

Learning to Analyze Computer Viruses: Year Five

February 3rd, 2012

 -  For the fifth year now we are arranging a course on malware (malicious software) analysis in co-operation with Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. The first lecture is on January 18th by our Chief (continue reading...)

Unlock Your Phone’s Hidden Features!… Not.

February 3rd, 2012

 -  Yesterday, we stumbled across this ad from an Android-related site:Clicking this led to a malicious Android Market. Note that this isn't the official (continue reading...)

Android Permissions: For Apps or Ads?

February 3rd, 2012

 -  An Android application package (APK) can include multiple modules; one or more of these modules may be an advertisement SDK. That's pretty normal nowadays, as many Android developers currently use such modules to (continue reading...)

Mac Malware Summary 2011 (Q2/Q3/Q4)

February 3rd, 2012

 -  Brod, a researcher on our Threat Research team has been tasked with tracking emerging Mac based threats. Microsoft Excel is one of the tools he uses to chart variants. From April to December (continue reading...)

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