Continuing our series of Valentine’s Day-related posts, let’s take a moment to talk about security. Valentine’s Day is a particularly onerous time of year when it comes to keeping your computer safe from malware and other maladies. “Hackers” (or whatever you want to call the people who craft and disseminate malware, steal private information, etc.) prey upon people’s emotional… → Read More
Hmm, the following would seem to impugn the efficacy of anti-malware software. New stats show that nearly one-third of computer users in the European Union contracted malware in 2010 despite the fact that most of them had anti-malware software installed. John’s advice would be to “buy a Mac,” but is that really a viable solution? (Hardly.) → Read More
Just a friendly heads-up for those of you looking to stay as safe as possible in your online travels. A post on Kaspersky’s blog has warned of the dangers of trying to watch pirated TV shows online. In this example, an episode of The Simpsons, hosted on DailyMotion, sends the user on a wild goose chase, the end result of which a machine infected with something like MyWebSearch. You don’t want that… → Read More
Oh, dear. Microsoft has revealed a new security flaw in Internet Explorer that, if taken advantage of, could let evildoers take over your computer. That’s nice. The good news is that Microsoft hasn’t heard of any consumer attacks brought about as a result of the glitch, so there’s no reason to freak out just yet. → Read More
Ha, this is too funny. The folks at F Secure went out onto the mean streets of San Francisco to ascertain the average person’s malware knowledge. You know, Q: “You have conficker, what do you do?” A: “I don’t know, take some Advil?” → Read More
Students! As anyone on a Windows machine who has visited good ol’ CrunchGear in the past few weeks knows: the Internet can be a dangerous place. There’s malware everywhere, dumb, time-wasting YouTube videos are embedded all over the place, and Flash advertisements constantly contrive to steal away your processor cycles. Really, if at all possible, you should just avoid the Internet entirely: it’s… → Read More
Sigh. Stories like this make me wonder whether or not it’d be a good idea to license people to use the Internet. A fairly big worm spread around top companies—Disney, Comcast, and AIG were among the companies affected—yesterday. Thankfully, according to McAfee, it wasn’t a terribly destructive worm, but still. “Here You Have,” ideed. → Read More
How many of you have been the victim of cybercrime? And for the sake of argument, let’s just define “cybercrime” as having contracted malware (viruses, trojans, etc), having your identity stolen, or having been the victim of credit card fraud. I’d be shocked if you don’t fit into any of of those three, since 73 percent of all U.S. Web users have been the victim of at least one of those three. → Read More
Many browsers are throwing up some warnings due to potential malware being served up. We are not currently serving up junk and our tech man is working on it. UPDATE – All is well. Our ninja Andy has fixed it. → Read More
While I would love to share with you guys the logic bomb I wrote in high school that moved my floppy drive read head into a corner of the drive that caused massive damage to the disk inside (it never worked) or the “virus” I wrote that randomly erased blocks of my hard drive when I ran it on my Packard Bell 386 back in the ’90s, rest assured that CrunchGear does not serve up… → Read More
Hold onto your hats. A new version of the Zeus trojan, called Zeus3, has wreaked havoc on thousands of bank accounts worldwide, stealing just over $1 million. The best part? There’s pretty much no way to detect the trojan if it’s on your system. Hooray for humanity, right? → Read More
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 1,000 times: the best way to stay safe online is to keep your wits about you and not to venture off into the darker corners of the Internet, if you know what I mean. I bring this up because there’s a nasty bit of kit out there that means to attack unsuspecting Mac users. It sorta makes sense from the malware creator’s perspective: Mac users tend to operate under… → Read More
Matt invited us to a Facebook party last week, something along the lines of “CLICK HERE FOR A FREE IPAD~!” Now, I knew this was malware-related because I know Matt knows I wouldn’t want an iPad—free or otherwise. Clearly something smelled fishy here. The point is, even so-called techies can be the victim of malware. There’s a new scam going around Facebook right now that, while not malicious… → Read More
It was 10 years ago that FC Bayern Munich beat Valencia CF for the UEFA Champions League. (Incidentally, FC Bayern Munich may win again this year when it plays FC Internationale on May 22, but my money’s on Inter; the bookies agree) Also 10 years ago: the Lovebug virus wreaked havoc on the Internet. Where were you during this trying time? → Read More
Google has warned THE INTERNET to be on the lookout for phony anti-virus software. The deal is that malicious software makers have started “hiding” malware inside software that purports to be anti-virus software. But it’s not anti-virus software! → Read More
Uh oh, sounds like the tablet that Steve brought down from the mountain might be susceptible to attack. A recent campaign by malware spammers has been targeting users of the much hyped iPad, inviting users to download an updated and improved version of iTunes. The update promises to provide more compatibility and better performance, and is completely fake. → Read More
It is an absolute miracle that I have never had a virus, trojan, or other form of computer bug on this PC. I mean, if we’re to believe Symantec, then fully 51 percent of the viruses, trojans, and every other form of computer malware ever was spotted in 2009. That means that from 2008 going back to when Symantec first started keeping track of such things, all of those years only make up 49 percent… → Read More
The word for the day is “malvertising”. It’s a linguistic mashup that means “malicious advertising”. Not deceptive, or antagonistic, but actually harmful. You know, the kind of online advertising that delivers a virus payload that jacks up your sister-in-law’s computer and then she calls you and you have to try to troubleshoot it over the phone and she doesn’t listen and just keeps clicking that… → Read More
You know those “have-a-penny/need-a-penny” jars you find at 7-Eleven and whatnot? Here’s a cool way to kill a few hours: go around your town collecting pennies. Then, with said pennies, buy a whole bunch of zombie PCs, then start your own botnet. You’ll be the coolest kid in the neighborhood. → Read More
Well done to Sophos, an anti-virus company (to simplify things a bit). Apparently there’s a new round of malware floating around out there that can infect your Mac. Observe! → Read More
So there’s a longish—the better ones are always longish—post over at Fast Company that details the perils of using Google to find tax documents. (International readers: April 15 is Tax Day in the U.S. It’s a time that drives normally serene men, if I may, batshit crazy.) If you’re pinched for time, the moral of the story is to actually go to http://www.irs.gov for all tax forms and whatnot… → Read More
Two Dutch brothers are charged with operating the Shadow botnet, which infected upwards of 150,000 computers. After the botnet takedown was secured, The Dutch High Tech Crime Unit enlisted the help of Kaspersky Labs to help dismantle the network. The Russian lab not only wrote up instructions for removing Shadow, but used Shadow itself for notifying users that their computers were infected. → Read More
It used to be, back when I was in high school, that it was fashionable to hate Microsoft, or M$ as the company was known. Nowadays, Apple is increasingly the target of silly op-eds, message board rants and, it turns out, malicious hackers. Since October, F-Secure security researchers have found 100-150 variants of a Mac-targeting malware program; last year, only one or two of these programs were… → Read More
McDonald’s recently launched a promo in Japan that gave away 10,000 McMP3 Players loaded with 10 pre-loaded songs. What else was pre-loaded? Why, only a little Trojan horse, the QQPass Trojan horse, to be exact. QQPass grabs your passwords and other personal information and then emails the details to the author of the program. Awesome. McDonald’s says only a “portion” of… → Read More
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