Category: Scams and Hoaxes

Worm uses QuickTime to spread on MySpace | CNET News.com

Worm uses QuickTime to spread on MySpace | CNET News.com For more info click on above link update A malicious video on MySpace.com pages changes people’s profiles when played, embedding itself and adding links to fraudulent Web sites, experts have warned. The video is a rigged QuickTime file that exploits a MySpace vulnerability and support for JavaScript in Apple Computer’s embedded media player, Web security firm Websense said in an alert posted on Friday. When played by a MySpace user, the video adds itself to the user’s MySpace page and replaces the links on the user’s profile

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Company accused of selling fake antispyware settles suit | CNET News.com

Company accused of selling fake antispyware settles suit | CNET News.com For more info click on above link A company accused of selling phony antispyware tools has settled a lawsuit filed by Washington State’s attorney general. White Plains, N.Y.-based Secure Computer has agreed to pay $1 million to settle charges that it violated Washington’s computer spyware law, the attorney general’s office said in a statement Monday. The case was the first lawsuit under the law. Filed in January, the suit accused Secure Computer of marketing software that falsely claimed PCs were infected with spyware, then enticing consumers

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Symantec unveils beta of Norton 360 service | CNET News.com

Symantec unveils beta of Norton 360 service | CNET News.com For more info click on above link Symantec on Wednesday released the public beta of its bundled security suite of software known as Norton 360. The service combines software to protect against viruses, spyware and fraud, as well as data backup and restoration and computer tune-up tools.

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Banks face growing threat of identity theft from insiders – CNET News.com

Banks face growing threat of identity theft from insiders | CNET News.com For more info click on above link Banks are pouring money into building formidable defenses against computer hackers, but are only just waking up to what may be a bigger threat–the physical theft of client information by people in the office. “You can have a fortress-like security system, but if you are not terribly discriminating with consultants and temporary employees, that is a terrible vulnerability,” said Carmen Oveissi Field, a New York-based consultant on computer crime.

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Security from A to Z: You – CNET News.com

Security from A to Z: You | CNET News.com For more info click on above link You are the weakest link in the security chain, for the simple reason that it’s easier to trick a human than a machine. A system is only as secure as its users are security savvy. And when it comes to computers, something as rudimentary as a poor choice of password can create a flimsy door into a corporate network that even the most amateur of hackers can kick down.

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Google flaw adds phishing hole to Web sites – CNET News.com

Google flaw adds phishing hole to Web sites | CNET News.com For more info click on above link A security flaw in Google’s search appliances could expose Web sites that use the products to information-stealing phishing attacks, experts warned Monday. The Google Search Appliance and Google Mini are used by organizations including banks and universities to add search features to Web sites. A flaw in the way the systems handle certain characters makes it possible to craft a Web link that looks like it points to a trusted site, but when clicked serves up content from a

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Microsoft lawsuits reeling in alleged phishers | CNET News.com

Microsoft lawsuits reeling in alleged phishers | CNET News.com Microsoft’s antiphishing initiative in Europe and the Middle has led to the filing of 129 lawsuits in the eight months since it began, the company said Wednesday. Phishing has mushroomed over the last few years, with the number of attempts to trick citizens into handing over their bank or credit card account details almost doubling in the first half of 2006 to 157,000, according to a recent report from security software vendor Symantec. One court case in Turkey has already led to a two-and-a-half year prison sentence for

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‘Tis the season to send spam | CNET News.com

‘Tis the season to send spam | CNET News.com For more info clcik on above link In addition to plenty of turkey, a record amount of spam will be served up this holiday season. Mass e-mailers traditionally bump up their activity as the year winds down. But this year, the amount of junk messages could be unprecedented, companies that make spam-busting tools say. And senders of unsolicited ads are already celebrating the close of the harvest season and the approach of Christmas.

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FBI nabs phishers in U.S., Eastern Europe | CNET News.com

FBI nabs phishers in U.S., Eastern Europe | CNET News.com For more info click on above link The FBI plans on Friday to announce the arrest of at least 16 individuals in connection with a global cybercrime investigation. More than 20 FBI offices participated in the probe into a series of phishing attacks against a “major financial institution” that occurred in 2004 between August and October, according to materials provided by the FBI ahead of the announcement. Agents conducted investigations inside the U.S. and other countries to identify a ring of identity thieves who were acquiring and

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McAfee: Watch out for ‘island-hopping’ spam | CNET News.com

McAfee: Watch out for ‘island-hopping’ spam | CNET News.com For more info click on above link McAfee’s antispam researchers have been tracking a trend they’ve nicknamed “spam island-hopping.” Some spammers are using the domain names of small islands for Web site links in their junk e-mail campaigns, the security company said. McAfee has traced spam activity related to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea and the tropical island of Tokelau, amongst others. Traditionally, spammers have used well-known top-level domains such as .com, .biz or .info in their campaigns. By using top-level domains from small island

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Microsoft among targets in online privacy complaint | CNET News.com

Microsoft among targets in online privacy complaint | CNET News.com For more info click on above link Technologies used by Microsoft and other online advertising outfits to analyze user behavior threaten privacy and must be curbed, a pair of advocacy groups said Wednesday. The Washington-based U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the Center for Digital Democracy have asked the Federal Trade Commission to review–and ideally restrict–what they describe as a growing online business model dependent on technologies that “aggressively track us wherever we go, creating data profiles to be used in ever-more sophisticated and personalized ‘one-to-one’ targeting

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Spoofing bug found in IE 7 – CNET News.com

Spoofing bug found in IE 7 | CNET News.com For more info click on above link Security experts have found a weakness in Internet Explorer 7 that could help crooks mask phishing scams, the type of attack Microsoft designed the browser to thwart. IE 7, released last week, allows a Web site to display a pop-up that can contain a spoofed Web address, security monitoring company Secunia said Wednesday. An attacker could exploit this weakness to trick people into believing they are on a trusted Web site when in fact they are viewing a malicious page, Secunia

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Brokerages lose millions in hacker onslaught | CNET News.com

Brokerages lose millions in hacker onslaught | CNET News.com For more info click on above link High-tech crooks using spyware are costing U.S. discount brokerages millions of dollars to repay clients who have been victimized by fraud, the brokerages said in recent days. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission warned earlier this month that scammers were hijacking online brokerage accounts, using spyware and operating from remote locations. TD Ameritrade Holding on Tuesday became the latest brokerage to confirm the problem. It said it cost $4 million in the third quarter to make whole customers whose accounts had

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Zombies continue to chase Windows PCs | CNET News.com

Zombies continue to chase Windows PCs | CNET News.com For more info click on above link Malicious remote control software continues to be one of the biggest threats to Windows PCs, according to a new Microsoft security report. More than 43,000 new variants of such insidious software were found in the first half of 2006, making them the most active category of malicious software, Microsoft said in a Security Intelligence Report published Monday. In June Microsoft also flagged zombies as the most prevalent threat to Windows PCs. “Attackers, with financial gain in mind, are clearly concentrating a

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Zombies try to blend in with the crowd | CNET News.com

Zombies try to blend in with the crowd | CNET News.com For more info clcik on above link Hackers are trying harder to make their networks of hijacked computers go unnoticed. Cybercrooks are moving to new Web-based techniques to control the machines they have commandeered, popularly referred to as “zombies.” Before, they used to send orders via Internet chat services, but with that method, they ran the risk of inadvertently revealing the location of the zombies and themselves.

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