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A top U.S. air force brass has recommended that the U.S. military create their own super bot-net to attack other bot-nets that are attacking U.S. military computer networks. One of the main problems with this idea, among others, is that it will fry thousands of computers belonging to innocent end-users around the world - users who have no idea that their home computer has been controlled remotely as part of a bot-net ring. Paypal has announced that they are going to block the Apple Safari web browser, along with a few other browsers. The online payment service, purchased by eBay for $1.5B back in 2002, in the good old days of rampant Internet mergers and acquisitions, has become a frequent target of phishers and hackers. Anxious to recapture their good name and to offer to sellers and buyers alike a more secure environment, PayPal plans to discontinue support for web browsers that do not include anti-phishing capabilities. If this plan goes through, PayPal will block Safari and older versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Netscape. The way in which some of the US' largest ISPs handle domain name typos, monetizing them through Barefruit, has opened a vulnerability that if exploited by phishers and hackers could be an open and unfettered conduit for the injection of their malicious payloads onto the Internet. Reported late last week by Dan Kaminsky, this particular security hole has been patched. The fundamental danger, though, remains. It's long been apparent to our readers that we at the Internet Patrol are not exactly blind fans of online gaming. And we don't exactly holding up gambling sites as paragons of Internet virtue, either. So news from last week's e-crime congress in London, bringing to light a case of the bad (a gambling site) being brought to its knees by the worse (a botnet), has us pondering the larger implications. Microsoft has announced this week a security hole in MS Word - well, actually it's in the Jet Database engine, but that creates a vulnerability in MS Word, which attackers can exploit to gain remote access and control of your computer. Nearly all versions of Windows, including XP, 2000 (2K) and many Windows Server editions, are vulnerable. In fact the only versions of Windows not vulnerable to this attack are Vista, and Windows Server 2003 SP2. Reports emerged this week from a Holland-based internet security consultant, Dancho Danchev, of a new technique - known as poison Google links - being used by hackers attempting to use legitimate Google searches as a vector to smuggle malware onto the machines of unsuspecting users. So far the poisoned Google links all contain the string "IFRAME SRC=//" followed by an IP address, most recently and commonly 72.232.39.252, but that could change in a heartbeat. According to a tip received by the Internet Patrol, the resident evil behind the throngs of social networking and other sites that are tricking people into logging into their AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail accounts, and scraping their address book, has a name, and that name is Sigma Visual Technologies. Sigma Visual Technologies provides software that allows sites to get their users to import and email all of their contacts in their address books. Put another way, it lets these sites scrape and spam your contacts. In your name! Those Valentine greetings that you are receiving, often in the guise of free e Valentine cards, may be sending you more than "Happy Valentines Day" greetings. In fact, they may contain a virus or two. Phony trojan Valentine greetings include subjects such as "Sent with Love", "Our Love Will Last", "Our Love is Strong", "You're the One", "A Toast My Love", "Falling In Love with You", "Special Romance", "Your Love Has Opened", "Heavenly Love", and "You're In My Thoughts". A Salesforce.com security breach has lead to an untold number of Salesforce.com's customers' data being put at risk. According to sources, "the information in the contact list included individuals' names, company names, email addresses, telephone numbers of Salesforce.com customers," and the like. A former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, has come forward saying that the government has a machine called a NARUS STA installed in a "secret room" at ATT, and is getting a carbon copy of all Internet traffic that goes through AT&T's Internet servers. Not just some as defined in a warrant or as necessary for national security - but an exact duplicate of all traffic. The NARUS STA 6400 is a device designed to monitor, capture, and analyze Internet data and traffic (STA stands for "semantic traffic analyzer"). Internet security company LinkScanner.com has reported that Alicia Keys' MySpace page has fallen victim to malware. When you visit the Alicia Keys page, say, to look at Alicia Keys pictures, the malware attempts to download malicious software onto your computer. Such malicious efforts such as this against MySpace's page for Alicia Keys fall in line with similar attempts againt other musicians on MySpace. In a new twist, web spammers are using images of a stripper named Melissa to dupe naive Windows users into helping them break CAPTCHAs - those "enter this text" images that websites rely on to keep spammers from posting spam on their site. Dubbed the CAPTCHA.a or Captchar.a virus, an infected Windows computer will display a picture of Melissa, who promises to remove an article of clothing for each "puzzle" that the user solves. The mega popular Facebook site has joined the ranks of social networking sites that trick you into providing your password so that they can steal your AOL , Yahoo, MSN, or other address book, and spam all of your contacts. Only this time it's with a twist - they are actually spamming your AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) contacts in your Buddy List! The spam starts out like this: "According to his Facebook status, Friend's Name (their username) is now "Friend's Nickname". Friend invites you to join Facebook and keep up with what he and your other friends are doing." What we want to know is WHY are AOL, Yahoo, and MSN continuing to let this go on? The security folks who call themselves "creative hackers" over at Gnucitizen have announced that they have discovered a security flaw in Adobe Reader which will allow someone to remotely run programs on your Windows PC. "All it takes is to open a PDF document or stumble across a page which embeds one," they explain. When it comes to computer safety and Internet security issues, even the best Internet security and computer Internet security software may be no match for the enemy within. Because it turns out that Microsoft announces an average of two new threats every week to your Microsoft Windows computer safety! And no, automatic Microsoft Windows updates and having Windows service pack 2 isn't going to protect you. A new online free sex offender search tool allows you to search a list of "sex offenders in my area." The free sex offender search cross-references a list for registered sex offenders with an online mapping system, so that you can find any registered sex offender on the sex offenders list anywhere within a 1 to 20 mile radius of any location (such as your home, your child's school, etc.). We all knew it was heading in this direction, but we didn't think it would come from a relative unknown. Zonbu announces the first computer that has everything - except - storage. You store all of your data - all of it - online, on the Zonbu servers. An independent security research outfit has found a gaping security hole in the iPhone. They have found that someone needs only embed the correct malicious code on a web page, and when an iPhone visits the web page, it will essentially cooperate with any instruction given to it through the code. An article this week by the Wall Street Journal blares out that "Hackers Can Now Deliver Viruses via Web Ads". It's not like the WSJ to go the sensationalist route, so we can only assume that the reporter doesn't usually cover the Internet security beat. Regardless, this type of fear mongering is irresponsible at best, unforgivable at worst. A company called Capgemini has been contracted to build an enormous online database of every single child in England, including their address and the telephone numbers. The database, called ContactPoint, is surely the stuff of which the wet dreams of hackers and online paedophiles everywhere is made. Forget plain old mobile phone tracking. FlexiSpy is a cell phone tapping and spying software that, once slipped on to your cell phone, sends all of the data from your cell phone to the person spying on you. It also allows them to turn on your cell phone's microphone so that they can remotely listen in on what you are doing, and on your calls! It currently works with all Nokia 60, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile phones, and, according to FlexiSpy, more phones are being added all the time. A company called WabiSabiLabi (Wabi Sabi Labi - pronounced 'wobby sobby lobby' or 'wobi sobi lobi') has announced that they have created an auction marketplace where security researchers and companies can buy and sell security vulnerabilities and hacks. Here's what that means (we mean what "buying and selling security vulnerabilities means", not what "Wabi Sabi Labi" means - although roughly speaking the Japanese 'wabi sabi' means respecting things which are authentic - from nature - by acknowledging their authentic beauty with the recognition that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect). The Geek Squad at Best Buy Electronics stores is supposed to help customers with their computers. But some geeks on the geek squad have instead been helping themselves to porn files found on their customers' hard drives, with one Geek Squad member copying the files to his own thumb drive (issued by employer Best Buy .com). A computer sytem within the Pentagon, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, was hacked into, and this time You know you should have a data backup solution to ensure that you have a harddrive backup - and in fact you may already have one or more backup solutions in place. But what about portable backup solutions - what about if you are on a trip, and your hard drive fails (as mine did last week?) Consider an iPod video for your portable backup data storage! Need to do a computer backup? If you are looking for a remote backup program to provide secure offsite backup services - and if it offered free online backup services that would be even better - look no further! Here is the perfect offsite data backup solution - a free online data backup service that lets you do an automated offsite backup for free! That's right, you can do a full computer backup online, using this automatic offsite backup service, and it's absolutely free! How many times have you wished that you had remote access to your computer, say remote access to your PC or Mac desktop, over the Internet, while you were away? Well, with this free remote access software and remote access service, now you can wish no more! Instead you can access your PC or Mac - in fact you can access as many computers as you want - across the Internet, all for free! Talk about the latest detailed news on botnets! The ultimate of an inside look at botnets - it is the real, first-hand account of what happened this week when a zombie botnet woke up, based on some unseen signal triggered or programmed by the botnet owner, and took over hundreds of customer computers at a large US broadband ISP. Microsoft this week issued seven "critical" Microsoft Windows updates and patches, including an Internet Explorer update, and they want to make sure that you update your Windows! Because each of the seven updates and patches are rated as "critical", it really is advised that if you are running a computer with Windows, you pay immediate attention to these. Email was the technology of choice chosen by the Virginia Tech administration to alert students to the gunman, still on the loose, during yesterday's bloodbath at Virginia Tech. Here is the text of that email. Do you think this was the right way to warn students? What about students who didn't check their email? Let us know what you think. Recently I started getting invitations to join Flixster from complete strangers. Obviously, this was spam, but why were these complete strangers sending it to me? And why were they always from AOL and Hotmail? Now people are asking - is Flixstr accessing your AOL and Hotmail contacts list and spamming them in your name? Want to control your car over the Internet? It's possible now, thanks to the Internet-controlled car control system called the "Keplar Security System" just introduced by Inilex! Lock and unlock your car doors, start your car up (great for those cold winter mornings!), disable the engine, and even track your car, all over the Internet! Quite a few people have by now read about AOL's new Skyhook "Near Me" buddys plug-in. That's the plugin for the service which lets you know if any of your buddies are geographically near to you, and puts them in a "Near Me" buddies group. But what far fewer people realize is exactly how it works. How does it know when you are near one of your buddies? The answer may surprise - and concern - you. Does your computer suffer from embarassing data seepage? Does data seep from your wifi-enabled laptop, telling the world a bit more than you'd intended? The folks at Errata Security say "yes", and are offering the code for their Ferret program for free. Ferret tells you just exactly what data is seeping from your computer. Network neutrality, laws requiring dating sites to perform background checks and ISPs to rat out their users, laws banning anonymous posting, and cyber bullying legislation. Is it all part of a move towards a nanny Internet? The Superbowl Trojan, as some are calling it, has been implanted on dozens of Super Bowl related websites, and is installing itself on any Windows computer that happens to visit any of the Super Bowl sites without adequate protection. The Super Bowl Trojan allows the hacker to take full control over any of these infected Windows PCs by connecting the machine to dv521.com, downloading the W1C.exe file, and installing the Wow-PK Trojan. Consumer Reports has released their recommendations for the best anti spam software, the best anti spyware remover, and the best anti virus software. Microsoft has issued alerts and updates this week for both Windows Media Player and Outlook Express, explaining that both are open to serious attack, which could render a user's computer under the control from someone out on the Internet. The Outlook Express update affects Microsoft Outlook Express 5.5 and 6, and the Windows Media Player issue affects both Windows Media Format Series Runtime, and Windows Media Player 6.4 (and even affects people running later versions of Windows Media Player such as Windows Media Player 11). Microsoft has advised that they are working on investigating a vulnerability in Word for Windows and Mac which allows attackers to gain access to a user's home computer. All of the following version of Word are at risk: Microsoft Word 2000, Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Word Viewer 2003, Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac, and Microsoft Word 2004 v. X for Mac, as well as Microsoft Works 2004, 2005, and 2006. The 2B1 "one laptop per child" initiative, also known as the $100 laptop project, is looking for experienced hackers to try to hack the $100 2B1 laptop, so that they can trouble shoot its security issues. But what I want to know is, how many of those laptops will stay with the children, and how many will get sold by their families for food? Remote XT is a new service which causes a stolen cell phone to emit a loud scream noise, and otherwise completely disables the cell phone. It also puts a text message on the screen which says "this phone is stolen". The only way to stop the screaming noise is to remove the battery, at which point, of course, the stolen phone is completely useless. VaporStream is a new product that offers recordless email that disappears after being read. And, it can't be forwarded, can't be printed, and can't be stored. But here's what I want to know: if you have to go through the trouble of logging in to someone else's server - and paying to do it - in order to not send a regular email, why wouldn't you just pick up the phone? A new report out by online security firm Symantec indicates that the fastest and largest growing sector of online security attacks are attacks against home users and their computers. Is Google eavesdropping? Google researchers recently announced a method to allow them to listen in to your life by listening in through your computer's microphone. Is Google listening? Will they? It is perhaps the logical next step to blogs for whistleblowers. Michael De Kort, a Lockheed engineer, has posted a video of himself on You Tube, blowing the whistle on what he says are serious security issues with Coast Guard patrol boats in the Deepwater project. Now this is a fabulous theft and loss insurance for your phone, PDA or laptop! It's called StuffBak (because it helps you get your stuff back, get it?) and it's kind of like those microchipping i.d. services for pets, only it's for your portable electronic devices, such as your laptop, your PDA, and your cell phone! It's basically loss and theft insurance for your portables! And through a partnership with The Internet Patrol and StuffBak, you can get a 10% discount off their already incredibly reasonable pricing! The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through its United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has warned all Americans running Windows to make haste to apply the MS06-040 patch which was issued by Microsoft this week. The MS06-040 patch corrects a flaw which makes computers running Windows particularly vulnerable. A security hole has hit Microsoft Excel, of all programs. We're used to security holes in our browsers, our instant messenger programs, and even,sometimes, Word. But in our spreadsheet program? In Excel?? A new Yahoo worm being called the "Yamanner worm" is targeting all of Yahoo email; in fact the only version of the Yahoo email program which is at present safe from the Yamanner Yahoo email worm is a not yet fully released beta version of Yahoo mail. Archiveus is the newest of a string of Trojans being dubbed "ransomware" because they lock and hold your files hostage until you either purchase something from the ransomware's author or pay the ransomware's author money outright. Here is the password to unlock your files which have been locked by the ransomware Archiveus. Ginwui.a (also Oscor-B, W32/Ginwui.A.dr, Backdoor.Ginwui, and W32/Ginwui.A) takes advantage of a security hole in Microsoft Word, allowing attackers to infiltrate your computer through email. Check Raised's RBCalc.exe has the Backdoor.Win32.Small.la (Small.la for short) rootkit trojan hiding in it. It contains the following trojan files: utlsrv.exe, comclg32.dll, d3dclsrv.dll and ndsdavsrv.sys. Secure your computer, and take back the net! At least one in every three PCs has been compromised and is being used by spammers and phishers as part of their zombie computer "botnets". And the owners don't even know! Secure your computer for free. We tell you how! The Sprint Family Locator is a new service being offered by Sprint that allows you to track up to four family phones via their GPS coordinates. FireFox security vulnerabilities have been announced this week by parent company Mozilla. Some of them are quite severe, and so should be attended to immediately. Through the unintended publication of some internal notes, Google this week inadvertantly revealed their plans for "infinite storage", a project they call GDrive, and keeping all of your files on their server for you. Microsoft this week, on what has become known as "Patch Tuesday" (the second Tuesday of every month), has issued seven security updates for the Windows operating system, classifying two of them as critical updates. CityWatcher.com is requiring that their employees have RFIDs injected into their arms in order to access CityWatcher's data centers. While the CityWatcher says the RFID implant is not a condition of employment, it is a condition of accessing CityWatcher.com's datacenter. The most recent outbreak of violence connected to the Danish publication of what Muslims consider to be a blasphemus cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed was provoked by rumours spread by SMS text messages. Microsoft has said this week that they are receiving reports of a newly-discovered vulnerability in some versions of Internet Explorer. According to Microsoft, the vulnerability can be exploited in one of four different ways, involving any one of WMF images, email attachments, link poisoning, or getting a user to view an email message in the Outlook Express preview pane. The TeleSpy motion detector phone is like something out of James Bond, only in your home! Haven't you always wanted a motion detecting telephone? People using Yahoo Messenger are receiving Yahoo instant message phishes which are realistic enough to reel in their victims. The phishy Yahoo messenger messages offer up a link to what appears to be a Yahoo Photos website, saying "click on this website." "Bot Herder" Jeanson James Ancheta, the BotNet operator taken down by the Feds, told colleagues of operating the botnet of more than 400,000 infected PCs, "It's immoral, but the money makes it right." The new Nyxem-D worm making the rounds has been dubbed the "Kama Sutra worm", because it arrives in an email offering graphic sex images and videos. Also called Email-Worm.Win32.VB.bi, W32.Blackmal.E@mm worm, or W32/Nyxem-D, the email has such enticing subjects as "Kama Sutra pics!", "Hot Movies", "give me a kiss", Miss Lebanon 2006", "Part 1 of 6 Video clip", "The Best Videoclip Ever", "Arab sex DSC-00465.jpg", "Fw: SeX.mpg", "Fwd: Crazy illegal Sex!", and "School girl fantasies gone bad." Microsoft has released the WMF patch for the Windows Metafile WMF security issue nearly a week early. And you should get the WMF patch right now! The recently discovered Windows Metafile (WMF stands for "Windows Meta File") vulnerability gave rise to not just one 0-day exploit, but several exploits. Also known as a "zero-day exploit", a 0day exploit is an exploit which is already available on the same day, or even before, the vulnerability itself is announced. Sony BMG has settled the first of the lawsuits brought against them over the First4Internet XCP rootkit software and the MediaMax software. Following the Sony rootkit fiasco, some artists, such as My Morning Jacket, are taking matters into their own hands. Microsoft this week issued a critical and cumulative security update for Internet Explorer (IE). They recommend that you apply the security update immediately, and so do I. Sony BMG has just announced that there is a security flaw in the MediaMax software shipped on 5.7 million of their CDs. MediaMax developer SunnComm Technologies Inc. has developed a patch, and Sony BMG urges that you install it. Sony BMG has issued a statement recalling their CDs containing the XCP rootkit software, and offering to exchange any still out there for CDs free of First4Internet's XCP. Following a firestorm of cries of moral and legal outrage, Sony BMG has said that they will pull their DRM software from their music CDs. The DRM software, XCP, behaves like a rootkit when surreptitiously installed on a user's computer by the Sony music CD. Sony BMG has announced that it is temporarily stopping the use of the rootkit technology which has gotten them so much bad press and into so much hot water. Sony BMG has secretly included the First4Internet XCP2 digital rights management (DRM) software on its CDs in order to keep you from using any other media player on your computer with their content. Unfortunately, it has rootkit like properties, and actually exposes your computer to great risk. Hallmark email cards really show that you don't care enough to send the very best. Plus, ecards are bad for the recipient. And ecards are often spoofed and sent as a vector for viruses. A private New Jersey high school has issued a blog ban against its entire student body, and any students not removing their blogs, including at MySpace and Xanga, face suspension. A majority of DNS servers and DNS services are vulnerable to and at risk of DNS pharming, according to a new study. Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and Gmail access is being denied to military personnel in the Navy and the Marines who are stationed overseas. The military has blocked access from all government-owned computers, citing concerns about computer security and viruses. The machine identification code of your printer may be being embedded on every single page you print, including the date, the time, and your printer's serial number. Is our technology spying on us? The DMA has announced that they are requiring all of their members to adopt an email authentication mechanism. According to them, "there are several interoperable, inexpensive and easy to implement solutions available on the market today." The 0x800a0007 Windows update error has pinched a lot of people. Here's what causes it, and what to do about it. Microsoft Windows Updates for this month include three that are deemed critical by Microsoft itself, along with four that they say are "important", and two which are moderate. |