Want more friends and followers? Emerging enterprises will create them for you — for a price. An abundance of low-cost, freelance labor online is posing huge challenges for Internet companies trying to combat the growing abuse of their services, and… Read More »
Banks in Azerbaijan that have courted the shadowy trade in spam-advertised pharmaceuticals now have cornered the market for processing credit card payments for fake antivirus software, new data reveals.
In June, KrebsOnSecurity highlighted research from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) showing that Azerigazbank, a financial institution in Azerbaijan, was the primary merchant bank for most major online-fraud pharmacy affiliate programs. By the time that research was published, those programs had moved their business to another bank in Azerbaijan, JSCB Bank Standard.
Microsoft today released updates to fix at least 22 security flaws in its Windows operating systems and other software. The sole critical patch from this month’s batch addresses an unusual Bluetooth vulnerability that could let nearby attackers break into vulnerable systems even when the targeted computer is not connected to a network.
Bluetooth is a wireless communications standard that allows electronic devices — such as laptops, mobile phones and headsets — to communicate over short distances (the average range is about 30 to 100 meters, but that range can be extended with specialized tools). To share data, two Bluetooth-enabled devices normally need to “pair” with one another, a process that involves the exchange of a passkey between the two devices.
Spam may be synonymous with male enhancement drugs, but new research shows that Americans are far more likely than buyers in other countries to turn to spam-advertised pharmacies to obtain pills to treat serious ailments–a trend that reflects differences in… Read More »
Criminals have developed a component of the ZeuS Trojan designed to run on Google Android phones. The new strain of malware comes as security experts are warning about the threat from mobile malware that may use tainted ads and drive-by downloads.
Researchers at Fortinet said the malicious file is a new version of “Zitmo,” a family of mobile malware first spotted last year that stands for “ZeuS in the mobile.” The Zitmo variant, disguised as a security application, is designed to intercept the one-time passcodes that banks send to mobile users as an added security feature. It masquerades as a component of Rapport, a banking activation application from Trusteer. Once installed, the malware lies in wait for incoming text messages, and forwards them to a remote Web server.
Fake antivirus scams and rogue Internet pharmacies relentlessly seek customers who are willing to trade their credit card numbers for a remedy. Banks and financial institutions become partners in crime when they process payments to fraudsters.
Published research has shown that rogue Internet pharmacies and spam would be much less prevalent and profitable if a few top U.S. financial institutions stopped processing payments for dodgy overseas banks. This is also true for fake antivirus scams, which use misleading security alerts to frighten people into purchasing worthless security software.
Information security researchers from academia, industry, and the U.S. intelligence community are collaborating to build a pilot “prediction market” capable of anticipating major information security events before they occur. A prediction market is similar to a regular stock exchange, except… Read More »
First, the good news: The past year has witnessed the decimation of spam volume, the arrests of several key hackers, and the high-profile takedowns of some of the Web’s most notorious botnets. The bad news? The crooks behind these huge… Read More »
