I love our Russian cousins (sociologically speaking rather than biological – but if I had Russian cousins then I would love them every bit as much as my Irish or British ones). But I tell you something, they really need to get the spam thing sorted out.
Kaspersky (wasn’t he a chess champion?) Lab reports that the percentage of email traffic in Russia identified as spam increased by almost 2% in September. The figure now stands at 82.2%. (Link)
Other statistics are no less discouraging with eBay (18% share) and PayPal (36% share) once again the brands most frequently targeted by phishing attacks.
To make things easier to understand, Kaspersky (Bishop takes Knight) have classified spam in to the following five categories with my own interpretation of what they might represent alongside:
Adult content (28%) – naughty sites, tips on how to attract women if you are unfortunate looking
Health and medication goods/services (19%) – weight loss tablets, cheap bandages, second-hand dentures
Education (12%) – special offers on mortar boards and made-up diplomas (Sarah Palin might be interested)
Fraudulent designer goods (6%) – Rolox watches and Armane shirts
Travel and tourism (6%) – well the Iraqi Department of Tourism have to get their message out somehow
The Kaspersky (rook to e4) site is pretty good actually. They have just released a paper on the threat to financial institutions which covers phishing, traffic redirecting and man-in-the-middle attacks.
Checkmate.
I don’t condone criminal behaviour…but…
Irritating French President Nicolas Sarkozy - fresh off suing Irish budget airline Ryanair, criticising Irish democracy and critical political decisions of the sovereign Irish State - has had money siphoned from his personal bank account.
(Link)
Sarkozy has filed a complaint after modest sums were withdrawn from his account last month although details on how and how much was taken are scant. It’s thought because of his high profile that an international crime ring outside of France may have been responsible.
Hmm, I wonder what country they might come from…
On another note, they should put this on sale in Ireland. I’ll buy one. Yes, I’m Irish.
Oh, hi! Oh.
Although I love elections in general, I find the US Election more fascinating than any. Perhaps it is because of those colourful pie charts that zip around huge screens on 24 hour news channels on election night. Maybe it’s the news ticker along the bottom of the screen that reports constantly on incidental stuff like “voter turnout in Yuba, Wisconsin slow due to some light drizzle”.
But of course for every story about the 77 voters from Yuba there is probably a more important one about the 11 million living in Ohio. In this case news reaches us that the Ohio voter registration website was hacked last week causing the site to be taken down temporarily.
(Link)
With the State considered a key battleground (what is it with the war rhetoric in politics?) the recent attack did nothing to quell the tension felt in Ohio. New rules on early voting have infuriated Republican voters who, in the name of democracy, have made death threats to office staff including sending a package with an “unidentified white powder” complete with a message wishing the termination of life on anyone who votes for someone who isn’t a Republican candidate.
Only, it should be said, it was a little more succinct than that.
