Monthly Archives: April 2010

NSA on Computer Network Attack & Defense

April 30, 2010

Honeynets and other “deception technologies” are among the approaches discussed in the following document, written by the National Security Agency’s Information Assurance Directorate. A source of mine passed it along a while back, but I only rediscovered it recently. I was surprised to find that it had never been published, so I have uploaded the document here.

A Closer Look at Rapport from Trusteer

April 29, 2010

A number of readers recently have written in to say their banks recently have urged customers to install a security program called Rapport as a way to protect their online bank accounts from fraud. The readers who pinged me all said they didn’t know much about this product, and did I recommend installing it? Since it has been almost two years since I last reviewed the software, I thought it might be useful to touch base with its creators to see how this program has kept pace with the latest threats.

Infamous Storm Worm Stages a Comeback

April 28, 2010

The “Storm Worm,” a prolific strain of malicious software once responsible for blasting out 20 percent of spam sent worldwide before it died an ignominious death roughly 18 months ago, was resurrected this week. Researchers familiar with former strains of the worm say telltale fingerprints in the new version strongly suggest that it was either rebuilt by its original creators or was sold to another criminal malware gang.

To Catch a Mule

April 26, 2010

Much digital ink has been spilled in this blog detailing the activities of so-called “money mules,” willing or unwitting individuals here in the United States who are lured into laundering money for international organized cyber crime gangs. The subject almost always generates fierce debate among readers about whether these mules should be prosecuted, and the debate usually hinges on whether the mules knew that they were contributing to a crime.

Hiding from Anti-Malware Search Bots

April 23, 2010

Malicious hackers spend quite a bit of energy and time gaming the Internet search engines in a bid to have their malware-laden sites turn up on the first page of search results for hot, trending news topics. Increasingly, though, computer criminals are taking steps to keep search bots at bay, particularly with legitimate Web sites that have been hacked and booby-trapped with hostile code.

Rogue Antivirus Gangs Seize on McAfee Snafu

April 22, 2010

Purveyors of rogue anti-virus, a.k.a. “scareware,” often seize upon hot trending topics in their daily efforts to beef up the search engine rankings of their booby-trapped landing pages. So it’s perhaps no surprise that these scammers are capitalizing on search terms surrounding McAfee, which just yesterday shipped a faulty anti-virus update that caused serious problems for a large number of customers.