Security researchers have identified a new Android bug in the wild — this one gunning after your phone calls, NetworkWorld reports. The good news? The recordings seem to just sit on your SD card after installing the malicious app. [NetworkWorld]
Honeymoon’s over, everyone: Antiviral watchdog Kapersky has spotted Android’s first, SMS-based trojan making the rounds in Russia. The devious little “MS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a” masks itself as a media player before invisibly shooting out expensive texts to premium numbers, earning cash for fraudsters. More »
If you are hunting down Erin Andrews’ naked peephole video and you are a dummy, beware: It may be a trick to get you to install a trojan horse, disguised as a video player. More »
The first Mac botnet is already launching DDoS attacks against some website, which penetrated Macs via tainted copies of iWork ’09 and Photoshop CS4. Just like what we told you about in January. Be careful when you pirate stuff. [ZDNet via NYT]
The U.S. Military has spent millions of dollars on counterfeit computer components over the years, according to an FBI report. This not only screws over businesses, but it also makes it easier for cyber-terrorists to hack into our systems by putting trojans and viruses in fake circuitry. An anti-counterfeit initiative by the FBI, led to 15 criminal cases and over US$3.5 million worth of seized products.
Oh Spam, my how you have grown! Thirty years ago, on this day, you came into the world as a little misguided e-mail sent by an equipment engineer over Arpanet to promote a new line of computers. You were quickly shot down by other Arpanet users who called it an “insult… to have an obvious commercial message sent out over a research network.” Yet, at some point in time, people stopped protesting you loudly enough. Now you comprise 80 percent to 95 percent of all e-mail sent, your crafty trojans and pesky viruses have infected millions of computers, and you’ve cost IT departments nearly US$200 billion to combat you. But since it’s your birthday, instead of telling you like we usually do to GTFO, let us sing you a little song instead. It goes something like this:
Spam is horrible. Phishing is evil. Computer Viruses are potentially deadly (to your computer). They’re also exsquisitely breathtaking, if you look at the work of Alex Dragulescu.
Security Firm MessageLabs commissioned the digital artist to create 15 interpretations of different viruses, trojans, spam, worms and spyware code. What you’re looking at above is the MyDoom email worm.
The images were created by inserting part of the actual code from the various online threat into a proprietary algorithm which twisted it, turned it, shook it around and turned it into art. We’ve got more pics, plus the artist’s own explanation below.
Roughly 1,800 external drives manufactured by Seagate were infected with a Trojan horse virus that sent personal information back to China, according to the Taipei Times. The disk drives, sold at retail in Taiwan, were presumably messed with when they were in the possession of one of Seagate’s Chinese subcontractors. The situation has been locked down, but it certainly puts a new spin on security fears, and Seagate itself has got to be pretty freaked out. All we have at the moment is a statement: “All products leaving the factory are now cleared of the virus.” [Reuters] More »
