August 18, 2008
Whipping up a Storm
Trend Micro are warning that spam emails alerting computer users about the credit crunch are already circulating. Inevitably the infamous Storm botnet is responsible for these in a trend that is as tiresome as it is threatening.
The main lure used by the bogus emails are that an organisation called the NACU (National American Currency Union) are involved in attempts to create a new joint currency for the US, Canada and Mexico. (Link)
Jake Soriano of Trend Micro said:
“Other than using these rumours to lure curious online users, the other, more effective, social-engineering technique used in this attack is the reference to the financial crisis, which looks like a genuine concern for all, especially now.”
I quite like the sound of a Mexican dollar.
Facebook to become Fedbook?
Continuing on the scaremongering trend, Trend Micro has reported on a junk mail attack that spreads scurrilous rumours about the FBI going through all those wall and picture comments you left on Facebook after a few too many beers.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3 – love that) has warned that another Storm worm mail-out warning about the FBI nosing around Facebook profiles is totally false. Clicking on the provided link will, naturally, download bad things that compromise your computer and hook you up to the ever-growing Storm botnet.
(Link)
You might wonder what day of last week the people who would fall for this were born on. But there is a lot more happening in the world of virtual terrorism than one might expect. Last year it was observed that virtual terrorists are creating horror scenarios on the oddly popular “Second Life” website, practicing their proposed real-life attacks using binary digits and pixels and all that.
I’m having a Matrix Moment.
You’ve got jail!
I do like to think up my own headlines but I did like the one provided by CRN for the story about AOL spammer Adam Vitale.
Brooklyn native Vitale was sentenced to 30 months for sending 1.2m spam emails to AOL subscribers. He was also ordered to pay $187k in restitution. (Link)
U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin said:
"Spamming is serious criminal conduct; this is not a teenager engaging in child's play."
For no great reason I decided to add up how many minutes that is in captivity. It's about 1,281,600. Which is about 1 minute per email. That's hilarious.
MessageLabs bring us absolutely no cheer
It’s yet another tool for the spammers following Google Docs, Google Page Creator and Google Calendar – Google Sites. MessageLabs have discovered that spammers are using the free tool to automatically create web pages with randomly-created names making it hard for anti-spam tools to block them.
(Link)
Their chief security analyst Mark Sunner said:
“While Google Sites spam accounts for only one percent of all spam currently, we anticipate that this technique's popularity will rival that of its predecessors: Google Docs, Calendar and [Page Creator] spam.”
Other news from MessageLabs is not good either.
- The number of new malicious websites blocked daily is up 91% to a record level.
- 83.4% of all malware recorded last month was new.
- Spam levels in the non-profit sector rose by 5.8% to 82.2%.
Yeah, thanks MessageLabs. See you next month.
Not their sweet home, Alabama
If you pop “Birmingham” in to Google Maps it brings you straight to the US State of Alabama, providing you with a picture of the skyline and bronze-looking sculptures. Great, very handy. Unless you are in the employ of the Birmingham City Council in England and your brief is to provide a picture of your local skyline for an information leaflet. You can see where this is going, right?
After printing 720,000 leaflets thanking residents for exceeding recycling targets it was discovered that the council had used the wrong skyline. Rather than looking at the Bullring shopping center and beautiful canals and churches, the English residents were looking at a skyline boasting the Wachovia Tower, University of Alabama buildings and skyscrapers.
(Link)
Kris Kowalewski, Birmingham (England) council spokesman said:
“It’s human error. We accept that the wrong photo was used, but the text and detail contained in the leaflet is wholly correct.”
Melanie Kearns Davis of the Birmingham (US) Regional Chamber of Commerce asks:
"How do you not know the landmarks in your own town?"
Oh, come on Melanie. You’ve seen one tall, brick-like structure, you’ve seen them all. Architecture, shmarchitecture.
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