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    • Posts Tagged: twitter

    A Little Sunshine / Latest Warnings — 41 Comments
    9
    Jun 10

    ZeuS Trojan Attack Spoofs IRS, Twitter, Youtube

    Criminals have launched an major e-mail campaign to deploy the infamous ZeuS Trojan, blasting out spam messages variously disguised as fraud alerts from the Internal Revenue Service, Twitter account hijack warnings, and salacious Youtube.com videos.

    According to Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, this latest attack appears to be an extension of a broad malware spam campaign that began at the end of May.

    The fake IRS e-mails arrive with the tried-and-true subject line “Notice of Underreported Income,” and encourage the recipient to click a link to review their tax statement.

    All of the latest e-mails use a variety of URL shortening services. For example, this shortened link (currently live and dangerous, and therefore neutered here)…

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    Other / Time to Patch — 34 Comments
    20
    Mar 10

    Bad BitDefender Antivirus Update Hobbles Windows PCs

    A faulty update  is being blamed for incapacitating an untold number of Microsoft Windows systems running anti-virus software from BitDefender.

    BitDefender says the problem occurred Saturday morning with a faulty update for 64-bit Windows systems that  caused multiple Windows and BitDefender files to be quarantined. The bad update causes the anti-virus program to flag thousands of legitimate Windows and BitDefender program files as a threat called “”FakeAlert.5″.

    The Romanian software firm  said the glitchy update has been removed and that the company is working on a fix for the problem.  BitDefender’s user forum has lit up with complaints from customers, and the company appears to be fielding quite a number of inquiries on the problem via its Twitter page.

    “We are creating a patch that will restore all quarantined files,” the company said in a statement on its site. “The patch will be available shortly. We apologize for this error and we will work to prevent this from occurring again in the future.”

    BitDefender has posted partial recovery instructions for users who are having trouble booting up Windows after this bad update, although several apparent users commenting on the company’s Twitter feed indicated they were still unable to boot after following the instructions.

    Meanwhile, Bitdefender representatives on Twitter are warning users that malware writers already are taking advantage of the situation, and urging users to download the fix — whenever it is made available — only from BitDefender’s Web site.

    Latest Warnings — 226 Comments
    15
    Jan 10

    Would You Have Spotted the Fraud?

    Pictured below is what’s known as a skimmer, or a device made to be affixed to the mouth of an ATM and secretly swipe credit and debit card information when bank customers slip their cards into the machines to pull out money. Skimmers have been around for years, of course, but thieves are constantly improving them, and the device pictured below is a perfect example of that evolution.

    This particular skimmer was found Dec. 6, 2009, attached to the front of a Citibank ATM in Woodland Hills, Calif. Would you have been able to spot this?

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    Latest Warnings — 57 Comments
    14
    Jan 10

    FBI: Beware Haitian Quake Relief Scams

    The earthquakes that have wrought so much devastation and death in Haiti this week are moving many to donate to various relief efforts. But security experts and the FBI are warning people to be on the lookout for ghoulish criminals scams that invariably spring up in the wake of such natural disasters in a bid to siphon funds from charitable organizations.

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