It’s a sad day when attackers turn on each other, cannibalizing one another for cheap thrills and easy profits. But that’s the situation now, as phishers have begun going after the weakest among their kind: the lazy, unmotivated wannabe phisher with no skills. Researchers at GFI Labs have stumbled upon a new tool that’s designed …
Cybercrime and the future of botnets
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 crime machines are fighting back — devising new approaches designed to resist even the …
Fake ‘MAC Defender’ antivirus app scams users for money
Security firm Intego announced Monday that a fake antivirus program for Mac OS X has been discovered in the wild. While the threat potential remains low, inexperienced users could be fooled into paying to remove fake viruses « detected » by the software, and in the process, could end up giving credit card information to scammers. The …
Looking for malware? Search for porn
Symantec detected more than three billion malware attacks from 286 million malware variants last year, according to the 2010 edition of its annual Internet Security Threat Report, published today. Web-based attacks were up 93 percent on 2009, and you were most likely to come across a malicious Web site if you were on the hunt …
Malware on the Mac: is there cause for concern?
Malware on the Mac: is it mostly hype or a real problem faced by real people? If you ask John Gruber, the answer might be the former—there are lots of proof-of-concept scenarios and virtually none that manifest themselves beyond a slow news day. If you ask Ed Bott, however, the answer would be the latter—he …
