Ivan Kaspersky, the 20-year-old son of the founder of Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Labs is missing and believed to be kidnapped. According to Russian news organizations, the kidnappers are asking for 3 million euros for his safe return. → 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
This isn’t the best time to be a traveler. Europe is still fighting plumes of volcanic ash—FC Barcelona had to take a bus from Barcelona to Milan for tomorrow’s game against Inter!—and now there’s word that a computer virus has wrecked a Russia-China border crossing. Some 2,000 Russians visiting the Chinese city of Heihe found themselves stranded when the computer virus totally wrecked… → Read More
There’s a pretty hilarious computer virus causing a bit of havoc in Japan right now. It affects users of the P2P program Winny (sorta like a Japanese version of Freenet, so says mighty Wikipedia), users who were looking for a strain of pornography known as hentai. I wouldn’t recommend googling that word while at work, or while in the presence of other human beings unless you’re prepared for a… → Read More
Wha? Apparently the Energizer DUO USB battery charger contains a bit of malware, Arucer.dll, which allows remote system access on port 7777. CERT warns:
An attacker is able to remotely control a system, including the ability to list directories, send and receive files, and execute programs. The backdoor operates with the privileges of the logged-on user. → 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
Here’s a tip for you on this endless Friday: if you don’t want a computer virus then don’t search for lyrics. It turns out that the search term “lyrics” is a dangerous one, and carries a maximum risk percentage of 26.3 percent in McAfee’s little danger-o-meter or whatever. That is to say 26 out of every 100 Web sites that pop up when you search for “lyrics” may contain viruses, browser… → Read More
I have no idea what is going on, but my buddy Mike just sent this to me and I’m hoping to spread the word. Sometime yesterday he received a Norton Program Alert saying, “PIFTS is attempting to access the Internet.” Being the nerd that he is, he did an nslookup on the IP and it came back to SwapDrive, which is a Symantec owned company. He then posted on the Norton/Symantec forums, but had his… → Read More
Microsoft has announced today that it is offering a reward of $250,000 to anyone who can provide information that can help arrest the creator of the Conficker worm.
They stated that this worm is a criminal attack and that citizens from any country can receive the bounty. That’s a lot of cash, it might be worth it for the guy to turn himself in. → Read More
An unidentified hacker has sent a friendly surprise to Microsoft beneath a recent variant of the Zlob Trojan, which a French analyst found and forwarded to Microsoft’s security team. This is the second message that Microsoft has received from this hacker, and apparently the last. Here’s the strangely friendly message for your enjoyment. → Read More
Apparently some sort of relatively aggressive virus is affecting certain embedded YouTube videos. Some are saying it affects IE and Firefox users, while others say it’s only going after IE. The virus is called Actns/Swif.T and seems to contain a redirect to a phishing website embedded within a SWF file. The site apparently installs Antivirus 2009, which is malware. We’ll pull our most recent… → Read More
The MMORPG world is too big a target to resist, I guess. Worm-wranglers in China created a worm falled Frethog, which this new one Taterf is based on. It copies itself around, executes whenever you look at it, and by means of keylogging, packet sniffing, or other methods, determines your online game login info. It’s targeting the big ones, like WoW, Lineage, and even Steam. Once… → Read More
Head’s up. SecureMac has discovered a new Trojan horse floating around that affects users of Mac OS X, versions 10.4 and 10.5. It’s “currently being distributed from a hacker website, where discussion has taken place on distributing the Trojan horse through iChat and Limewire.” Here’s more… “The Trojan horse runs hidden on the system, and allows a malicious user complete remote… → Read More
This isn’t as weird as the girl who got a cryptic, anti-capitalist note instead of her iPod, but it’s potentially far more damaging. This guy bought a refurbished iPod Touch through Buy.com for $99 — what a deal, right? As it turns out, not so much. It was infected/infested with a trojan that quietly installs a backdoor on your Windows system. Nasty. He contacted Buy.com and they… → Read More
The Newton Virus. It’s a virus for fun. It doesn’t harm anything or copy itself. It executes just once, with the results above. It only works on MacBooks, as it uses the motion sensor for the fun effect. It installs quickly and sneakily from a thumbdrive. Friends with MacBooks: Beware my prankster’s wrath. → Read More
I’ve been using VLC for years now and it’s the best player available today. But it appears that users are at risk due to a harmful string of code lurking subtitle files. VLC has a buffer overflow flaw and hackers are taking advantage of that. A new version of VLC came out late last month, but apparently the flaw wasn’t fixed then. Uh oh. Security Advisory [via Info World via Luigi Auriemma] → Read More
It appears some anti-virus software is pinging mootools — a Javascript script that is running on this site now — as a SNZ.A virus. I discovered that this has been happening recently and isn’t a virus but I have some nerds working on it so you won’t get the computer-herp. → Read More
It used to be, back when I was in high school, that it was fashionable to hate Microsoft, or M$ 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
Physics professor K.T. Tsen announced last week that he successfully destroyed common viruses using pluses from an infared laser without harming the surrounding cells. Tsen’s primary focus is to use the technique against HIV, though he states the future of the laser may very well be in treating disease, not viruses. So, how does it work? The laser produces a vibration that shatters the… → Read More
Heads up. There’s another Skype-related virus on the loose. This one pretends to be something called "Skype Defender" and takes on the look and feel of your Skype login screen while trying to get your username and password from you. Most major virus definitions have been updated, so removal shouldn’t be too difficult. You can also search your computer for a file called… → Read More
Trojan virii have been around for years now, yet fools with Outlook still think that they can see Jessica Simpson nude by downloading an attachment. One of the latest Trojans, BotVoice-A, is now taking the concept of a virus one step further. Not only is it going to erase your files, it’s also going to taunt you through your speakers while it destroys your PC. The virus uses Windows Text… → Read More
Dear HP, I’ve been using your printers for years and years now. Since I started using Mac OS X more than 5 years ago, the process for installing a printer I thought would become drastically easier. Unfortunately, I was wrong. → Read More
There’s an iPod virus. Before you encase your Nano in lucite, however, please understand that this virus is merely a proof-of-concept that runs only on iPodLinux and requires manual intervention to begin infecting .ELF files. Let’s just say that there are no iPod viruses, currently, but there are apparently homebrew apps that could be exploited in nasty ways. ‘Nuf said. Kaspersky… → Read More
For those of you who play Second Life, I must warn you: There was a virus going ‘round your world. To be completely specific, a worm manifested itself inside the world of Second Life. Though not incredibly harmful, the worm spawned Sonic The Hedgehog rings while making that “Sonic gold ring sound”. They kept spawning and eventually started to bog down systems and connections for those… → Read More
McDonalds isn’t the only place you can go to get a little extra special sauce with your DAP. Apple, of all people, has accidentally included a Windows-infecting computer virus on “less than 1%” of the 5.5G iPods made after September 12. So if you run Windows and you purchased a new iPod in the past few weeks, you need to run your anti-virus gear stat, and look for RavMonE.exe, a… → Read More
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