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Barack Obama has been on the job for less than a week, but he has already gotten right down to business addressing terrorism, international affairs, domestic affairs, and more. One of the main priorities this week has been Obama's meetings with leaders from both parties to work out a stimulus package to help jumpstart the economy and get unemployed Americans working again. Obviously, for the millions of unemployed and the rest of the country that is employed but slowly falling behind on bills and anxious about when they too will lose their jobs, this is a very important goal. Perhaps you might be interested in taking a look at ObamaStimulusProgram.com. The site looks professional enough and claims to provide information on Obama's stimulus plan as well as offering opportunities to take advantage of free government grants. All you have to do is provide some personal information and credit card data....not! 411-Spyware.com reveals that ObamaStimulusProgram.com is a scam site that is looking to steal your identity and your money- possibly charging your credit card as much as $89 per month. If you want to learn about ObamaStimulusProgram.com and how to avoid it or remove it from your system, check out 411-Spyware.com. If you really want to know about the progress of Obama's stimulus plan, how it might benefit you, and other news of the Obama administration I suggest you stick to the Whitehouse.gov site.
Spam, especially junk e-mails with malicious links or attachments, continues to be a huge IT headache. Spammers are also getting more creative in their attempts to find victims, utilizing popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a report from U.K.-based security firm Sophos this week. The consultancy published its latest spam trend report and said new figures reveal that spam is still causing problems for computer users. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Sophos research found one in every 256 e-mails contained a dangerous attachment in October. In November, that figure improved to one in 384. December saw a huge decline: Just one in every 2000 e-mails contained a spam. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said it is possible the drop-off may be related to the shut down of the McColo, a Web-hosting firm that security experts believe was responsible for three-quarters of the world's spam. "It's hard to say exactly what can be causing this," said Cluley. "Certainly that is possible." Numbers for January have not been assessed yet and Cluley said it is too early to determine if the drop off in spam levels has continued, or if spam is now back at levels seen in earlier months. What is clear, said Cluley, is that more spam is malicious in nature now and often designed to infect users' computers via sophisticated malware attachments or a link to malicious or infected websites, in order to steal sensitive information. Cluley also said social networking venues, such as Facebook and Twitter, are now the hot targets for spammers.
[ Johannesburg, 23 January 2009 ] - IT security and control firm Sophos has published its report on the latest trends in spam, and revealed the top 12 spam-relaying countries for the final quarter of 2008. The investigation reveals that, five years after Bill Gates predicted spam would be eradicated, it remains a major problem for computer users, as spammers veer away from traditional techniques and get creative - with no end in sight. Furthermore, more spam is malicious and often designed to infect users' computers via sophisticated malware attachments or a link to malicious or infected Web sites, in order to steal sensitive information. "The threat remains alive and kicking despite increased legal action against spammers, the occasional takedown of Internet companies, which assist the cyber-criminals, and constantly improving anti-spam software," says Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos South Africa. "Although the latest stats show that the proportion of spam relayed per country may have decreased year-on-year, spammers have turned to more creative and devious methods to ensure their messages reach as many unsuspecting computer users as possible."
Spam, especially junk e-mails with malicious links or attachments, continues to be a huge IT headache. Spammers are also getting more creative in their attempts to find victims, utilizing popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a report from UK-based security firm Sophos this week. The consultancy published its latest spam trend report and said new figures reveal that spam is still causing problems for computer users. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Sophos research found one in every 256 e-mails contained a dangerous attachment in October. In November, that figure improved to one in 384. December saw a huge decline: Just one in every 2000 e-mails contained a spam. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said it is possible the drop-off may be related to the shut down of the McColo Corp., a Web-hosting firm that security experts believe was responsible for three-quarters of the world's spam. "It's hard to say exactly what can be causing this," said Cluley. "Certainly that is possible." Numbers for January have not been assessed yet and Cluley said it is too early to determine if the drop off in spam levels has continued, or if spam is now back at levels seen in earlier months. What is clear, said Cluley, is that more spam is malicious in nature now and often designed to infect users' computers via sophisticated malware attachments or a link to malicious or infected websites, in order to steal sensitive information. Cluley also said social networking venues, such as Facebook and Twitter, are now the hot targets for spammers.
It looks like an e-mail from a friend, who claims to be in a financial jam over seas, but the Better Business Bureau says beware; it’s a scam. The e-mail comes from a friends account. The writer says they’re overseas working for a program called Empowering Youth, to fight racism HIV/Aids and lack of education. And, they claim to have lost their wallet in England and ask you to wire $2,500 so they can sort out hotel bills and fly back home. If you respond, they tell you how to send the money through Western Union. They do it 2 different ways: they can sometimes plant spyware on your computer that actually takes possession of your e-mail address book, and even use their own computer to send the message this way.
Approximately six percent of computers scanned by Panda Security are currently infected by the Conficker/Downadup worm, Panda said Wednesday, dubbing the outbreak "an epidemic". The worm, discovered earlier this month, exploits the Windows MS08-067 service vulnerability, a patch for which was released three months ago. It spreads through USB memory devices like USB drives or MP3 players. The Windows option menu that appears after inserting the USB device will disguise the option to run the program as the option to open the folder. Open the file and release the worm. Panda scanned two million computers and found that six percent are infected across 83 countries. Though it originated in China, it is now particularly virulent in the U.S., Spain, Taiwan, Brazil, and Mexico. Panda has identified about 18,000 infected machines in the U.S., though the number could be higher. As is the case with a lot of malware, Conficker appears to launching brute force attacks to extract passwords from computer and corporate internal networks, Panda said. The easier the password, the easier it is for Conficker to decipher it. Once the passwords are detected, cyber criminals can access computers and use them maliciously. "This is no doubt an epidemic and the worst may still be to come, as the worm could begin to download more malware onto computers or to spread through other channels," Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, said in a statement. "The outbreak of this worm really highlights the need for users to establish strong passwords."
Internet users are often encouraged to visit only legitimate Web sites to reduce the risk of malware infections, but distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate Web sites increasingly appears to be meaningless. Seventy percent of the top 100 Web sites either hosted malicious content or contained a link designed to redirect site visitors to a malicious Web site during the second half of 2008, claims Websense's report State of Internet Security, Q3-Q4, 2008. That represents a 16% increase over the first half of 2008. Perhaps more to the point, Websense says that 77% of Web sites with known malicious code are "legitimate" sites, calling into question the utility of any such designation of approval. There are a variety of ways that brand-name sites can be compromised, including online iFrame injection services that rely on stolen logon information or SQL injection attacks. Spam messages with malicious links can also lead to site compromises. According to Websense's report, almost 85% of e-mail messages were spam during the second half of 2008, and more than 90% of spam messages contained links to spam sites or malicious sites.
A malicious worm targeting the Windows operating system is "skyrocketing" and indications are that the infections could "get worse," according to security software vendor F-Secure. The worm, known as Conficker, Downadup, or Kido, is spreading through improperly configured computer networks, USB and other memory sticks as well as Windows PCs without the latest security updates. F-Secure said that the principal target of the malware are corporate Windows servers that have not been patched properly with the latest security updates. The anti-virus and software security company said that an estimate 8.9 million machines were infected with the virus, but other security experts estimate that the number could be much higher than that. A senior technology consultant with anti-virus company Sophos, said in an interview with UK's BBC news that the outbreak was "of a scale they had not seen for some time." Microsoft said that the malware has already infected many computers across the world, with machines in China, Brazil, Russia and India having the most number of victims. The worm is believed to be capable of cracking computers with weak passwords, but is able to infect computers through memory sticks without needing to break any password protection.
January 18, 2009 (Computerworld) Sites claiming President-Elect Barack Obama will refuse to take the oath of office Tuesday are serving up attack code believed to be programmed by the same hackers responsible for the notorious Storm bot Trojan, researchers said this weekend. According to researchers at several security companies, including F-Secure Corp., MX Logic Inc. and Trend Micro Inc., spam campaigns are in gear that try to trick users into visiting malicious Web sites hosting variations of "Waledec," the Trojan horse thought to be the successor to Storm. Sam Masiello, vice president of information security at MX Logic, was one of the first to call attention to the attacks, which begin with one-line spam messages such as "Haven't you heard latest news about our president-elect?", "Barack Obama abandoned sinking ship," and "Obama doesn't wany [sic] anymore to be a president." The links in those messages lead to a legitimate-looking site that resembles the real Obama-Biden campaign site. The fake site contains both bogus and real news stories. At the top of the page is a story with the headline "Barack Obama has refused to be a president," that includes text which reads, "On the Eve of Inauguration Day President-elect Barack Obama made statement. He declared that he is definitely NOT ready for this position."
Scammers are capitalising on worldwide interest about Barack Obama's inauguration via a spam email campaign that claims the Illinois senator turned prez44 plans to turn down the office he fought so long to obtain. The messages falsely claim the President-Elect doesn’t want the responsibility of saving a "sinking ship". This sensationalist message, like many others before it, some of which even claimed that WWIII had broken out in the Middle East, are designed to trick the credulous into visiting a fraudulent website that harbours malicious code. Prospective marks clicking onto sites promoted via the spam campaign are redirected to lookalike Obama campaign websites designed to trick the gullible into downloading malicious code that turns compromised clients into zombie drones on the Waledec botnet, according to security researchers at Marshal8e6. The bogus websites - with domains including "greatobama" or "superobama" - contain links to a file called “barakspeech.exe”, or similar. Users who run this file on an unprotected Windows PC get pwned. The fraudulent emails associated with the campaign come with subject lines such as "Amazing News". "The web site that these spam messages link to looks official and convincing at first glance," said Phil Hay, senior threat analyst for the Marshal8e6 TRACE Labs. "Closer examination reveals numerous spelling and grammatical errors on the site which could alert wary email users that this is a trick.
