A Russian porn website is infecting people’s computers with malware that overtakes their systems to mine for Bitcoins. (Pretty sure that’s the most Internetty sentence in history.) PCWorld reports that the malware (called “Fareit”) has been circulating for the past six months and only affects Windows computers. Read More
The dirtbags who make malware are at it again. Sophos’s Naked Security blog reports that scammers are already taking advantage of Monday’s bombing at the Boston Marathon, because they have zero sense of decency.
Scammers are sending out emails with subject lines like, ”2 Explosions at Boston Marathon,” “Aftermath to explosion at Boston Marathon,” and “Boston Explosion Caught on Video.” Inside the emails is a link to a website with the promised YouTube videos–plus a Windows virus. ”Clearly, there are no depths to which cybercriminals are not prepared to stoop in their hunt for victims,” Sophos said. Read More
Do you prefer your porn with a side of malware? According to one British researcher, users who visit popular porn sites like PornHub and xHamster have a 42 percent chance of contracting digital STDs (a.k.a. malware) on their computers. Naturally, online porn purveyors sites did not take kindly to the study, which they say overinflated the risk. Read More
Perhaps Binging it too often has some unintended and harmful side effects. According to a new study from a German security firm, the Microsoft-owned search engine is five times more likely to link you to a malware-infected page than Google.
In a high-tech humblebrag, AV-Test Institute reported that its initial suspicions that Google and Bing do a poor job of protecting their users from delivering Trojan-laden websites were correct. But Google isn’t really a winner here: it’s just that it did a less shitty job of indexing infected websites compared to Bing. Read More
How’s that brave new world of connected devices faring so far? It’s going just great if you’re a Russian who drives like a bat out of hell, because some sort of malware infection has got Moscow’s network of speed cameras all screwed up. Welcome to the autobahn, baby!
The report comes from Russia’s Izvestia, via The Register. The city has an extensive system of cameras designed to catch offenders in the act and mail them tickets. It’s supposed to net something like $3.2 million in fines every month, which no doubt buys a whole lot of umbrellas for the meter maids. Read More
The Russian antivirus firm that first fingered Stuxnet as a state-sponsored cyberattack is outing massive clandestine digital operations once more. This time, Kaspersky Lab says they’ve uncovered a massive, years-long cyber-espionage campaign. The perpetrators: unknown. Demonstrating a rather charming flare for the dramatic, the Moscow-based researchers have dubbed the network “Red October.”
We had long Read More
Did you receive an email this holiday season from a kind-hearted woman who just wanted to celebrate Christmas by sending random strangers pictures of herself in skin-bearing bikinis? Free noodz from an anonymous hottie seemed too good to be true! And indeed, it was.
Sophos’ Naked Security reports that malware is currently circulating via screensavers of bikini shots landing in the inboxes of hapless Internet folks. Read More
It's the End of the World as We Know It
Everyone and his brother is chattering away about the Mayan apocalypse, which supposedly happens tomorrow. If you’re just now learning the world might end, you might be tempted to Google around for more info. Just don’t open any sketchy powerpoint presentations on the matter, Naked Security warns.
That’s because there’s one circulating with the SEO friendly title of “Will the world end in 2012?” and it’s brimming with malware. Read More
Dockster is a recently discovered Mac-based malware program that functions as a keylogger, among other things. It’s also a trojan, which means it can hide on a host computer quietly recording every keystroke before it contacts a remote server for further instructions. Dockster is considered “low risk,” but it has been found embedded on gyalwarinpoche.com–a site dedicated to the Dalai Lama.
F-Secure confirmed the infection and reported that Tibetan sites appear to be frequent targets for similar exploits: Read More
