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PandaLabs Detects 25 Million New Malware Strains

The past year set a new record for malware creation with 25 million new strains, according to a new report by PandaLabs. The latest surge of activity included new examples of banker Trojans, which accounted for 66 percent of all new samples, as well as a number of fake antivirus programs. During 2009, spam was also highly active, accounting for 92 percent of all email traffic. The tactics used to dupe...

Beware Tiger Woods Accident Information Sources

The Tiger Woods car accident has had the web abuzz over the weekend. Like nearly anything else that creates such buzz, cyber-criminals will find a way to exploit it. This incident is no exception. According to security company Symantec, interest in Tiger’s accident and rumors surrounding its cause has given scareware peddlers "ripe opportunity" to "poison web search engines."...

Spam is Getting More Malicious

Symantec has released two new reports for the month of November – the State of Spam, and the State of Phishing (both PDFs). The reports highlight a dramatic increase in spam that contains malware. On top of that, junk and malicious email now accounts for close to 9 out of 10 email messages. The security firm says that a new generation of "Spam Princes" are rising, and that the Asia...

Stealth Phishing Attack Looks Like Internal Email

Security company Trusteer Research issued a security advisory this week, dealing with a stealth new Zeus/Zbot phishing attack, which is aimed at harvesting enterprise log-in credentials for web banking, financial, HR, and SaaS accounts. "The attack is highly effective because it pretends to be an e-mail from the corporate IT department asking the user to update their Microsoft Webmail (OWA) settings,"...

Google Launches New Webmaster Tools

Google has launched a couple of new Labs features for Webmaster Tools. One is "malware details" and the other is "fetch as googlebot." Google is providing snippets of code from pages it considers malware, in order to help webmasters eliminate the malware on their sites quickly. "To help protect users against malware threats, Google has built automated scanners that detect...

Earthquake and Tsunami Searchers Targeted By Malware

You have probably heard about the Indonesian Earthquake that took place last night, claiming the lives of many. Shameless cybercriminals have not wasted anytime exploiting the disaster targeting people around the world who search for information on the subject. According to Symantec, malware creators have devised malicious software and websites designed to make money from concerned members of the...

Microsoft Gives Out Free PC Security

Microsoft has launched a new free anti-malware tool called Microsoft Security Essentials. The service is designed to protect consumers from viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. The service has two very strong elements going for it. For one, it is from Microsoft, which means it comes from a well-known brand that practically all consumers are familiar with. Secondly, it’s free, and that...

Site Hacking Facebook Accounts for $100 a Pop

Security company Panda Labs has discovered an online service that promises to hack into Facebook accounts for $100. They claim they will provide "clients" with login and password information to access any account on the social network. Do you feel like your information is secure on Facebook? Comment here. "The service’s real purpose may be hacking Facebook accounts as they say,...

Online Banking Threat Bypassing Up-to-Date Anti-Viruses

There is an online banking Trojan out there that is bypassing up-to-date anti-virus programs as much as 77% of the time, according to security company Trusteer. The Zeus Trojan is also known as Zbot, WSNPOEM, NTOS and PRG. It is the most prevalent financial malware on the web, Trusteer says. "When we set out to measure the efficiency of anti-virus products in the wild against Zeus, we had no...

Security Issues Holding Back Social Media’s Potential

Social Media’s rise in popularity has created some very real problems for the Internet and its users. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have seemingly opened the floodgates to security troubles, and over the past few weeks, this has been accentuated by a number of issues and studies. As WebProNews recently reported, based on a study from Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, time on...

Google Shares Interesting Malware Stats

Google is sharing some interesting statistics on malware, such as the number of entries on the Google Safe Browsing Malware List that have occurred over the last twelve months, and search results containing a URL labeled as harmful. "We’re glad to share this sort of data because we believe that collaboration and information sharing are crucial in driving anti-malware efforts forward,"...

Short URL Spam a Big Threat in August

Spammers are taking particular advantage of the heightened interest in health-related issues like swine flu and healthcare reform to distribute large shortened-URL spam runs using the Donbot botnet, according to Symantec’s MessageLabs. "In August, the ongoing abuse of shortened-URLs as a delivery mechanism resulted in a number of legitimate URL-shortening services being forced to close...

Twitter Quietly Takes Step Toward Security

Security firm F-Secure discovered that Twitter has begun blocking links to malicious sites when users try to post them. Twitter has not acknowledged this with an announcement yet, but users (at least some) are getting the following message when trying to post a link to a known malware site: "Oops! Your tweet contained a URL to a known malware site!" Twitter and security are have certainly...

Journalists Not Protecting Themselves Online

BPM Forum and AVG Technologies released some interesting findings from the Protect the Press Poll, a survey of the cyber security habits of the working press. The biggest takeaway is that the supposedly well-informed members of the press are no better at protecting themselves online than the average user. "It is disconcerting to see what in concept is a very informed audience knowingly rolling...

Google Results Polluted By Cybercrooks

UPDATE: Since this post was first published, Google has said an algorithm change is pending to address the problem. Read more about that here. My original intent was to relay a heartwarming/heartbreaking story if you hadn’t heard it already. It’s a narrative you hear periodically in different forms with different details: A man found his long lost daughter via Google. However, in trying...