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Avast Calls Internet Malign, Internet’s Feelings Hurt
by Jonathan Strickland | April 12, 2011
To paraphrase Batman, some days you just can’t avoid a malicious Web site. At least, that’s how it seemed to people using Avast’s antivirus software. An error — or perhaps some wry commentary on the state of the Web — in a recent Avast update misidentified any Web site running scripts or frames as malign, according to The Register. Depending upon the individual user’s settings, it may have been impossible to visit most Web sites without creating exceptions manually using Avast’s interface.
Do you find yourself employed in a workplace that forces you to change your password every so often? It turns out (according to Cormac Herley, “a principal researcher for Microsoft Research”) that the practice of regularly changing passwords does not really improve security very much: Please do not change your password Why does a password-changing [...]
If you have a computer running Windows, the threat of viruses and other malware is real. Every day there is a new story about an email virus or a botnet or some trojan on Facebook or something similar. There are many for-pay products from companies like Norton and Symantec, but they tend to be: a) [...]
Are you evil or willing to learn? Do you wish to profit off of the suffering of others? Do you have no scruples, morals, ethical boundaries or decency? Then come on down to CyberCrime Incorporated!
I’m guessing that the actual ads targeting potential cyber criminals aren’t quite that transparent. But according to this report in Reuters, at least two companies that promote criminal activities are placing ads for work-at-home jobs. Employees must take company-provided code and link it to something — anything — on the Web that will guarantee lots of clicks. The employee receives a payment for every 1,000 downloads generated by the link.
There are lots of different kinds of malware out there, most of which are interested in hiding behind the scenes. After all, the point is to avoid being discovered and removed. The longer they stay on your computer, the more information these programs can send back to their creators. Or the malware can continue sending out spam or creating denial-of-service attacks.
Bob Sullivan wrote a post in MSNBC’s The Red Tape Chronicles that discusses a particular type of malware that fully intends to get your attention.
Companies protect their branding fiercely, often writing a complete set of rules on how their logos can be used. That could include what’s around them, what colors they can be reproduced in, and a lot of other minutiae that are supposed to ensure that people know exactly with whom they’re dealing. So in a way, it’s a little surprising that Google not only allows its logo to be modified at all, let alone gussied up for special events. But the Google Doodle, the modified logo that appears on special occasions and dates of note, has been used more frequently as of late, probably because it attracts users’ attention.
Unfortunately, it’s also attracting the attention of malware authors, who are watching for the creative logo modifications to engage in SEO poisoning, or using search engine optimization techniques to convince users to download and install malware. So said Elinor Mills in her post on CNET’s InSecurity Complex blog yesterday.
Mobile devices aren’t usually the first targets you might think of when it comes to viruses, worms and Trojans. In fact, you could probably be forgiven for not knowing they exist at all. But I think that the recent popularity of smart phones with the consumer market may bring with it an interest in programming malware for those devices, as well.
And for a hacker who wants to make his or her mark on the consumer smart phone world, what better place to start than with the little machine that helped start the whole craze? Though certainly not the first smart phone, Apple’s iPhone was arguably the first smart phone that people found a reason to embrace for their personal use. And it’s sold millions for Apple.
Chet Wisniewski of security provider Sophos posted Saturday about a new worm that affects the iPhone. An Internet service provider in the Netherlands identified the malware.
When I first got a chance to check out the World Wide Web (and this would be either in 1992 or 1993), I was convinced it would be huge. Today, I see that I was thinking too small. The Web has become an indispensable part of my life. I wouldn’t have a job without it. But the Web also creates opportunity for unscrupulous people to prey on victims.
The Web has injected new life into the world of con artists and snake oil salesmen. It’s easier than ever to cast a wide net (no pun intended) over thousands of potential victims. And while the technology is relatively new, the tactics are ancient.
To con someone, you have to convince your victim that he or she needs whatever it is you’re providing. You do this by playing upon the victim’s vulnerabilities. Usually this involves triggering some very basic emotional responses. The big three are fear, greed and hope. Humans happen to respond pretty handily to those three feelings.
So the Black Hat security conference just wrapped up, and there are still lots of security news stories floating around, like this one from CNET posted this past Saturday. Elinor Mills wrote about two Israeli researchers, Itzik Kotler and Tomer Bitton, who have figured out a method by which your computer can become infected with malware by attempting to install software updates. In fact, their company, Radware, is going to be releasing a software tool that will help people see a 3-D view of other computers on a Wi-Fi network and help trick them into downloading dangerous programs instead.
The program is called Ippon, Mills said, and attackers can use it to see all the computers on the wireless network that are trying to find updates using the hypertext transfer protocol (that’s the HTTP at the beginning of Web addresses — Web pages use this method).
Call it the little malware that could.
An article in The New York Times this morning describes the efforts of a plucky cracker (that’s a malicious hacker) as he — or she — attempts to fight off the entire computer security industry. How is he or she doing it? By modifying Conficker, a malware program that’s attempting to turn the free computers of the world into a botnet.
If you were to have Conficker on your computer, it would turn your machine into a zombie, giving the crackers remote control over your computer and letting them use it to send spam messages, launch denial-of-service attacks and other nefarious deeds.
John Markoff, the author of the article in The Times, said that the program has been spreading since last year. Some members of ICANN, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, have been working to stop the group responsible for the malware.
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