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NEW DELHI: One of the major trends throughout 2008 is spammers' increased use of cloaking techniques to hide their poor reputation behind someone else's good reputation. This means that instead of sending email from a known spam IP address or -- more commonly -- from an infected bot server, spammers are finding new ways to send messages using valid or known mail servers, mainly webmail accounts, which have a reputation as a legitimate email source. There are several methods spammers use to hijack good reputation, in order to make use of it to deliver their unwanted mail.
Do you receive lots of junk email messages from people you don’t know? It’s no surprise if you do. As more people use email, marketers are increasingly using email messages to pitch their products and services. Some consumers find unsolicited commercial email - also known as “spam” - annoying and time consuming; others have lost money to bogus offers that arrived in their email in-box. If you get spam email that you think is deceptive, forward it to spam@uce.gov. The FTC uses the spam stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive email. Typically, an email spammer buys a list of email addresses from a list broker, who compiles it by “harvesting” addresses from the Internet. If your email address appears in a newsgroup posting, on a website, in a chat room, or in an online service’s membership directory, it may find its way onto these lists. The marketer then uses special software that can send hundreds of thousands — even millions — of email messages to the addresses at the click of a mouse.
Google Trends is being used by hackers as the vehicle to reach more victims with malware payloads. The latest assault on desktop and notebook security prompted security software provider Webroot to alert PC users to the malware, which attempts to bait users into buying destructive software. Webroot's advice? Keep your PCs and Macs secure, your anti-spyware updated and don't download videos from strangers. Security software maker Webroot said hackers are now leveraging Google Trends to lure unsuspecting victims to fake blog Web sites riddled with malware. Launched in May 2006, Google Trends lets searchers enter up to five topics and see how much they've been searched on Google, as well as how frequently those topics have appeared in Google News stories around the world.
Reader Harry writes: Chris, can you please tell me how to get Defender off my Vista PC. It's not in the remove programs area. Thanks. Want to get rid of the mostly useless Windows Defender security tool from your Vista computer? Ha! Microsoft tricked you! You won't find Defender in the Programs and Features control panel because you can't uninstall the tool, at least not without serious (and unnecessary) headaches. Deleting the Defender executables can cause your computer to throw out error messages, so actually removing the code from your machine is not advised.
A lot of Coweta County school board's focus on Tuesday was about safety, including the introduction of ComputerCOP, a new Internet safety program to be implemented by the Sheriff's Office. Dr. Steve Barker, administrative services director, explained the program to be offered to interested parents involves using software on a computer disk to see what their children are doing online. The spyware runs directly off the CD and allows parents to review images, texts, video and capture certain keystrokes with a "chat and e-mail" feature.
The US State of Washington and Microsoft have instituted a number of legal actions against vendors of 'Scareware' under the Computer Spyware Act. Alleged security programs are increasingly bombarding innocent PC users with fake messages detailing putative threats or infections. Advertisement The aim of companies selling scareware programs is to persuade computer users to buy the full version of anti-virus, anti-spyware or similar software. The reported threats are not genuine, and the programs on offer won't provide the promised protection. Attorney general Rob McKenna and lawyers from Microsoft's Internet Safety Enforcement team are currently pursuing actions against Texan company Branch Software, which attempts to encourage sales of its "Registry Cleaner XP" software using targeted popups containing false information. "We won't tolerate the use of alarmist warnings or deceptive 'free scans' to trick consumers into buying software to fix a problem that doesn't even exist," McKenna said.
What's wrong with the screenshot to the left? Ignoring those red boxes added for emphasis, it looks identical to the Windows Security Center... only it's not. In fact it's a spyware hoax designed to mimic the Security Center almost identically, not to mention trick you into purchasing WinDefender 2008 software, a phony security app which will clear up only the phony security alerts its malware component creates. WinDefender is just the latest in a series of malware attacks designed to look like legitimate Windows components. But people have finally started to wise up to those smallish "alert" pop-ups, so malware creators are upping the ante with full-blown knockoffs of real security apps. Computer Associates has the details.
Well, it’s happened. Facebook has been hit with instant messaging spam. Blast saw it first-hand when a friend who we haven’t talked to in a while randomly IM’d us about a “free” “giftcard” she’d “won” at a certain “website”. We’ve gotten used to Facebook spam, with people’s accounts being hijacked to write on all their friends’ walls, but not this.
The FBI released a warning Thursday in Washington that a spam e-mail is circulating that claims to be from FBI Deputy Director John Pistole. FBI officials say an investigation is currently under way into the origin of the fraudulent e-mail message from Pistole. The e-mail, which is attempting to use the reputation of Pistole as a way to appear legitimate, claims the recipient has won a large sum of money. As in the case with many spam e-mails, the recipient of the message will be granted the monies after personal banking information is provided so that a fake transaction fee can be processed.
We are a pretty Twitter-obsessed bunch here at PC Magazine. But while some of us have seen our number of Twitter followers jump into the triple digits, my posts are primarily a collection of nerd-oriented inside jokes aimed at my dozen or so co-worker followers. So it seemed a little odd when I received a handful of e-mail notifications last about random people now following me on Twitter. Did they really care that I was obsessed with the mac and cheese balls at a recent Microsoft event? Sadly, no. It was all a sinister spam scheme that toyed with my Twitter ego. These new "followers" linked only to a profile with links to what I assume are virus-laden sites.
