More IT Information

Sophos has just posted a warning about an electronic postcard that is being sent out containing the Trojan Mal/Zapchas-A.
The email's appearance makes one think that it came from a friend and is very similar to any other postcard one might receive asking the users to go the some site to download the postcard. The file is named postcard.exe which should serve as a warning immediately - most e-postcards and e-cards run as a flash animation embedded in the website itself.
Full information and a copy of the actual text of the message can be found here.

Labels: email, microsoft, spam, spyware, trojan, virus, windows

F-Secure has posted a video showing the spread of the so called Storm-Worm.
The Storm-Worm is passing through emails pretending to be a news article about the current storm in Europe. The heading in the email states '230 dead as storm batters Europe'. Attached to the email is a virus and Trojan named Small.damTROJAN. The virus allows the spammer to take control of the infected computer and allows the message to be sent to others. So far it is estimated that this virus has infected over 10,000 computers.

Labels: email, spam, trojan, worm

Spammers have developed a new way of avoiding email filters.
It seems spammers are taking standard newsletters that may be sent by legitimate well-known sources and adding either malware or adware in the message or adding links to malicious websites.
Similarly there are also spam emails emerging with the appearance of breaking news stories to try to get users to open them.
All of these types of spam can carry a Trojan and according to Sophos' monitoring there was a point where up to one in 200 emails contained a Trojan. The spam usually contain files such as Full Clip.exe, Full Story.exe, Full Video.exe, Read More.exe, and Video.exe.

Labels: adware, email, phishing, scam, spam, spyware, trojan

A new email scam has started to work its way around the Internet. Rather than offering you money for a small amount of money sent for fees, this time the scam is threatening people's lives.
An email claiming to be from a hitman who has been hired to kill the person is currently being sent out. This email asks recipients for as much as $80000 claiming that the hitman will ignore his contract to kill the person if he receives the money. The hitman claims to have followed the victim around for 10 days and will produce a tap proving that there is a contract to kill the person after the first payment of $20000. The email also warns users not to go to the police or FBI or the hitman may be forced to kill the person.

Labels: email, scam, spam

People who are tired of all the spam mail they receive can now turn to boxbe for help. This service was recently started to combat spam messages and may actually succeed.
The service allows users to list email addresses of their friends and then charge a fee for others to send you any message. This fee is set to whatever value you decide from a few cents to $99. If the sender pays the fee, you receive the message and after confirming either you or your choice of charity will receive the money from the message. Of course you will have to collect a certain amount before any money is sent. Boxbe allows users to provide information about themselves as a way to advertise yourself to advertisers.
How popular this will become is completely unknown, but if it provides a way to stop unwanted spam or at least charge spammers for annoying us, it is definitely a needed service.

Labels: email, money, spam

Nothing is free these days and that is certainly true of online porn.
It seems the current form of social engineering is to attract Internet Explorer users to sites offering free pornography. Currently, there is a major spam campaign against unpatched versions of Internet Explorer offering free pornography while actually providing the Psyme-DL Trojan. When users open the link, they are taken to a page that automatically installs the Trojan. Firefox users are asked to switch browsers and are unaffected as are fully patched IE users and users of IE 7.
This is just another reminder of why people should practice safe browsing habits, but despite all the warnings many users will find such an email impossible to resist and go to it anyway, which is exactly what the creators of such social engineering schemes are hoping for.

Labels: email, safety, spam, trojan

Spamhaus has published a list of the top spammers world-wide. It make come as no shock that all of them are men. Included in this list are 4 Russians, 2 Americans, 1 Israeli, Canadian and resident of Hong Kong. Topping the list is a Ukrainian man who goes by Alex Blood along with other aliases such as Alexander Mosh, AlekseyB, Alex Polyakow. He is known for spreading child pornography through a host of botnets and is associated with a Russian spam gang known as Pavka/Artofit.
Also revealed in the report was that about 200 professional spam gangs are responsible for about 80% of the spam world-wide.
With so few groups involved, you'd think it would be easy to eliminate spam by just not selling these groups Internet access, but also revealed is a list of ISPs who are responsible for the most spam, some of which also sell these gangs services in order to gain a profit.
Verizonbusiness.com leads the list of networks delivering the most spam. Next comes serverflo.com and in descending order, sbc.com, xo.com, proxad.net, rr.com, tpnet.pl, edu.tw, hinet.net, ttnet.net.tr.
If pressure could be put on these networks to do something about spam and to not provide services to known spammers, we'd see a huge difference in the amount of spam, but these companies would see a difference in their financial outlook so they don't care about the spam so much. After all people can delete it easily enough.

Labels: ISP, spam

Anyone worried about giving their email out on different websites or to certain people, can worry a bit less.
Without any registration or work a person can give an account that can be later accessed to receive the email, while never giving you're personal account. myTrashMail allows people to make up any name @mytrashmail.com to receive a message at. This can be used when you must enter a email address for contests or for other registrations. It of course is not secure at all, but for such situations it may not matter.
If you do need a secure account, you can create such an account on their site with an address beginning with me. and ending the same as the standard accounts. These accounts can be used to receive passwords and other such information.
All of the accounts are completely anonymous and free.
The accounts are temporary though and the email is stored no longer than 30 days. The minimum time you have to access the account is 12 hours, so it does give enough time so you don't have to panic.
One problem you could face with the non-secure account is if someone else chooses the same name, they can access the email you received and possibly delete it, or you could access it first. Out of curtesy I would suggest not viewing other people's mail in such an account and especially not deleting it. I also strongly suggest deleting your own mail after you read it.

Labels: email, internet, spam

Oh the depths a spammer will go to say he's not a spammer.
Recently an Illinois company, e360 Insight, linked to a spammer filed a lawsuit against the UK-based Spamhaus. Because Spamhaus ignored the case, the court sided with the Illinois company and fined Spamhaus $11.7 million and ordered e360 Insight be taken off their Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO).
Like any intelligent company would do, they have ignored the court completely, as it has no UK jurisdiction and e360 Insight is related to spamming and should be listed on the site. Spamhaus has invited e360 Insight to file lawsuit in England where is says the courts do not accept "'SLAPP' suits and impose penalties for lying to the court."
Spamhaus' full response can be found here.
Spamhaus is a company whose goal is to protect Internet networks by tracking Spammers, Spam Gangs and Spam Services. It provides realtime anti-spam protection and helps Law Enforcement identify and persue spammers.
Their ROKSO list includes 200 "known Spam Operations". The requirements for being listed on the site involve being terminated by at least 3 ISPs for violations. Once on the list all IP addresses being used by the spammers and listed on the Spamhaus Block List. After 6 months of no spam activity, a organization or group will be removed from the list.
This is a very fair list. Anyone who isn't spamming will quickly be removed from the list, but those who continue to spam will stay on the list with as much information about them listed as is known. Other lists are less likely to remove a listing from their lists.
Spamhaus also provides a list of Consumer Alerts which help to educate users on protecting themselves and what not to do.

Labels: email, lawsuit, spam

There's another trojan horse that is on the loose. This one has been reported by SophosLabs and is said to come in a spam email claiming that your credit card has been charged £125. This trojan named Troj/Dloadr-AMA comes in a file called paycheck.zip and when the executable in this zip file is run the trojan is installed. Of course like most malicious software this begins downloading more malicious software to your computer. 
While this trojan tries to get users upset enough to not be so cautious and install it without thinking, people should still try to be calm when reading their messages.
When users are reading spam and messages such as this one, they should always first think if something seems strange about this message. Why would a company be emailing you in this situation? Wouldn't they just call? If you have some message like this that you think might be true, but it's not your bank sending it, maybe you should contact your bank to see if they have any record of such an charge.
Secondly, when you see a message that seems to good to be true, it is. There are no such deals. In the lucrative world of spam and malicious sites and software, the most interesting or shocking messages get the most people to run it or go to the site and give their personal information.
And my last tip for email. Don't trust anything. You wouldn't let just anyone into your house. We've all heard of the person who claims to be from some utility or other company who gains access into your house and then robs your house. Well, consider strangers in email exactly like you would at your front door. It will keep you a lot safer.

Labels: email, safety, spam, trojan

For those who want a little more security at their home or small office, D-Link has a product that includes network protection, a firewall, an anti-virus solution, protection from spyware, identity protection, a pop-up blocker, a SPAM blocker, and parental controls in one device that is smaller than most DSL or cable modems. There are different profiles for different users and each profile can have limits set on the times when it can connect to the internet. Certain websites can be blocked as well to prevent people from viewing unwanted sites.
The Securespot Internet Security Adapter from D-Link connects between your modem and router and works with computers running Windows XP or 2000 or Mac OS X with Internet Explorer or Firefox.
All administration is done through web-based forms and the device is updated automatically as soon as new definition files are available to provide the most protection.
You will need to enter some billing information into the system as some of the features do have a cost. The device itself costs about $100 and includes a one-year license for up to 4 computers. The following years the users must pay $79.99/yr. for the license for the first 4 computers and $19.99 for each additional license. Not so expensive when you consider the cost of Norton or other security systems which are about the same or even a little more for each year's use. Also this device does more than just general security which would involve paying even more for similar features.  

Labels: adware, antivirus, firewall, internet, safety, security, spam, spyware

If you receive an email from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation don't believe it.
There is a new scam to get your bank and other information by instructing you to file for the FDIC protection system. The email that you would receive also says that your bank sent them an application to secure your account.
Think about the situation for a moment, would the FDIC actually email you or would they send a formal letter? Secondly, if your bank sent the application why does the FDIC need you to complete another form? Lastly, as I recall banks in the US all are insured by the FDIC, if they weren't you probably would have chosen a different bank. 

Labels: email, phishing, scam, spam

Two companies are being sued by Michigan for luring children to gamble and purchase alcoholic drinks with spam. In Michigan companies are required to ensure that any products that children cannot buy or do legally are not advertised in emails to children.
RR Media and Data Stream Group both face up to $10,000 in fines and possibly other charges if found guilty.
The charges were brought up after an investigation involving complaints of inappropriate emails for alcohol and gambling being sent to address registered as belonging to children.
Parents living in Michigan can go to the Protect MI Child website where they can register their children's email address, instant message address and fax number or file complaints relating to the Michigan Child Protection Registry Act.
Let's hope more people start fighting against spam using whatever means available even if it's only sending messages to ISPs.

Labels: email, lawsuit, spam

Spam is not only for your email anymore. Spammers have begun sending spam through text messages/SMS. With many mobile-phone users in the States being required to pay for messages received it can become costly.
Verizon Wireless says they are blocking about 50000 spam messages a day, while one California resident told Cingular to block all of his text messages because of spam.
For more information on the issue see this article.

Labels: sms, spam

Spam has been reported to be up by between 1600% and 4000% by CMS on a corporate level.
Spammers have changed their methods using RNDR (Reverse Non-Delivery Report).This method involves a spammer to send a spam to a fake account on their server and to address it from the actual intended recipient of the spam. Then when their server creates and sends the NDR it sends it to the victim. This bypasses most spam filters by making it seem that the message originated at the victim.
In the past email accounts would be harvested from the Internet and then used to send these spams, but currently there is a trend developing to create random strings to generate valid email addresses. The problem with this is that it can greatly overload an email server and can also be used as a DOS attack. This technique does successfully reach valid email accounts, but it creates a huge increase in email volume as well.
Aside from the extra messages and traffic, companies also run the risk of being blacklisted for generating spam that actually never really came from them. 

Labels: email, spam

There is a new technique to get you to download an applicaton that will steal the passwords from your computer. An email is sent that claims to be from Skype. It then takes you to a fake Skype page and encourages you to download Skype. The problem is this is not Skype but malware called skypekur.exe. This file installs password recovery tools that then steal the passwords from your computer and send them back to the person who originally sent the email.
Currently there is one advantage that will prevent many people from falling victim, the email and page is in Turkish. That being said it would take no effort to change it into any other language. Most importantly is to be careful where you download Skype or any application from and to never trust emails asking you to download something.  

Labels: adware, email, skype, spam, spyware

Be warned of a new e-mail scam. This is similar to the Nigerian scam but this one is from a terminally ill KGB officer willing to give you information about the death of JFK. From this point the person will try to trick you into giving them personal information which of course will be used against you.
The best option is to ignore this message and any other similar type of message. The exact message can be found here.

 

Labels: email, scam, spam

Spam has changed drastically in it's function. Originally offering "organ" enlargement or magic cures, spam now is offering free viruses and the such to sit on your computer. Some of these programs can be used to take control of your computer to send more spam or even worse attack computer networks.
The good news is that anti-spam applications are getting better, but the bad news is that the amount of spam being sent is increasing.
For more information I suggest reading this article.
And for those with the time and energy to spend. I'd suggest the possibility of using the spam blockers less and taking action against the spam by reporting it to ISPs. For those who don't know how to use whois to find the information, there is a service from SpamCop.net that allows you to send them the message and message headers and they will pass the spam on to the correct ISP.

Labels: email, internet, spam