The Last Watchdog

on Internet security by Byron Acohido

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Apple iPhone worm turns phones into bots
November 23, 2009

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iphone_wormA malicious Apple iPhone worm — designed to turn jail-broken iPhones into bots — proves, yet again, that cybercriminal are as predictable as Seattle rain.

This  iPhone worm appeared over the weekend, arriving less than two weeks after a 21-year-old Australian researcher, Ashley Towns, released the Ikee worm — the prototype for this new type of attack.

You may recall Towns cleverly changed the wall paper of iPhones he …More

Finally — a solid measurement of the scale and scope of cyber attacks
September 16, 2009

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katrina3Metrics precisely quantifying the scale and scope of cybercrime activity have historically been hard to pin down. But now comes a milestone survey, buttressed by another report, that defines the degree to which the Web is infested with malicious code.

The SANS Institute’s report on Top Cyber Risks is by far the most comprehensive accounting of ongoing cyber attacks ever made public. SANS is the well-respected Washington D.C.-based tech security …More

SMB2 zero-day flaw could expose Vista PCs to Conficker-like worm attack
September 9, 2009

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Microsoft has just disclosed that the SMB2 zero day vulnerability — for which no patch exists — is remotely exploitable.

The software giant is raising  a bright red flag because this affects all Windows Vista and certain Windows Server 2008 PCs.

I’ve begun polling some top security researchers and analysts about the go-forward implications of advisory no. 975497 just issued by Microsoft.

The backdrop: Independent researcher Laurent Gaffie earlier this week took credit for discovering — and publicly disclosing — the …More

Cybercrime experts keep close watch on Internet worm
January 27, 2009

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By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY

Find original copy of  this article here.

The world’s top virus hunters are watching every move made by the attacker in control of a nasty new Internet worm – referred to as “downadup” or “conficker.”

What worries them most is that the person, or group, controlling the worm could at any time direct the PCs to carry out criminal activities on an unprecedented scale. And there’s not much anyone can do to stop them.

The attackers could use …More

W32.downadup: old-school network worm
January 12, 2009

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Symantec is reporting more than 3 million Windows PCs have been infected by the self-propagating  “Downadup” worm. This Symantec graphic shows infections densely saturated in the USA, Brazil, and especially India.

downadup-map1

This is an old school worm folks. It’s on auto pilot in the wild, searching out Windows PCs unpatched for the latest RPC-DCOM security hole. Ironically, home PC users are much better protected by Windows Auto Update, than corporate …More

Phishers target Twitter
January 5, 2009

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twitter_phish
Phishers unleashed a concerted attack on Twitter users this past weekend, once more underscoring how  cyber criminals invariably transfer  their tried-and- true scams to any Web-based service that attains mass popularity.

A variation of email phishing, the Twitter campaign involved the mass spreading of direct Twitter messages, purporting to come from friends, and directing the recipient to click to  a  Website with funny pictures or with free …More

Mobile banking sure to attract criminals
December 26, 2008

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More Europeans than ever are using their mobile phones to do wireless banking. A comScore M:Metrics survey commissioned by Airwide Solutions found that 5.6 million people in the EU access financial information from their mobile phones – a 23.6 % year- over-year increase.

Seaton

Seaton

It is starting to look like the emerging market for cellphone security products could, indeed, be a robust part of the tech market in …More

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