Spyware Hunter

In creative crookedness, the spammers are genius. This is the stark reminder of recent arrest of Robert Alan Soloway in Seattle, Washington.

27-year old Alan Soloway, the high profile spammer whom Microsoft has portrayed one of top 10 spammers in the world was finally arrested by federal authorities for operating the fraudulent empire of mail fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity and money laundering.

Soloway has been active in the infamous racket since 2003. He used zombies (computers infected with malicious codes) to send millions of junk mails and unsolicited bulk e-mails pursing people to use his internet marketing company to advertise their products.

The notorious spammer continued his illegal business even after loosing a $7 million lawsuit against Microsoft way back 2005. Soloway has the ability to send 20 million email advertisements in 15 days. So far, he has made a hefty amount of $773,000 out of illegal business.

The federal authorities are now planning to forfeit him from the money which he earned from his unfair business. He is kept in the federal detention for a hearing on Monday.

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Social networking sites are supposed to provide us powerful platforms where minds share ideas, but they are now open for online criminals who can access to your sensitive personal information shared on the net.

The security experts have demonstrated the security flaws of Web 2.0 sites at the ongoing Black Hat and Defcon hacker conferences. They have shown how MySpace is vulnerable to online criminals who can play with your personal information.

Rick Deacon, a 21-year-old hacker who attended the conference revealed that he has found out a security flaw in MySpace. It is zero-day flaw that invites online frauds to take away your personal web pages and inject malicious code. However, it does not have any affect on the IE, only Firefox Web browser is prone to this threat, he said.

MySpace did not comment on the Deacon’s revelation saying that they have a powerful security team.

It is the rudimentary problem that the leading web 2.0 sites face today despite their denial.

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Smart PC Solutions recently rolled out a free USB Flash Drive-based anti-spyware and anti-virus solution, which claims to get you rid of making the vague decisions by offering you the better of two worlds: automatic security against all identified threats built-in with definitive performance whilst doing so. The solution is all the time with you. Keep your antivirus flash card always with you for ultimate protection. While traveling, make sure your security and confidentiality by examining Internet cafe PCs for viruses, spyware and keyloggers.

1-2-3 Spyware Free spots and does away with all types of viruses, spyware, Trojan and detrimental modules that may creep into your computer through the usual undertaking of surfing the Net. 1-2-3 Spyware Free is operated from a devoted USB Flash Drive, making it not possible for nasty programs to contaminate or put out of action the anti-virus.

1-2-3 Spyware Free makes downloads of all updates itself on a schedule, offering crystal clear and unattended operation, which is generally overlooked in more difficult and much more costly products. 1-2-3 Spyware Free is trouble-free and out of harm’s way to be utilized. Real-time safety informs you of any wary behavior that could be tried by a nasty program, and lets users obstruct perilous behavior to put a stop to infectivity.

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Symantec recently said to have filed a series of eight civil lawsuits against distributors of bogus Symantec software, looking for a total of over $55 million in damages from the cases caught up. Symantec alleges in filings in US District Court in California that the businesses are guilty of trademark infringement, copyright infringement, fraud, unfair competition, trafficking in counterfeit labels and documentation, plus fake advertising. Symantec has requested the consent of a jury trial in all case and is on the lookout for damages in proceeds from every entity ranging from $4M to $10M in every claim.

The software company is seeking $4 million US and $10 million in damages in individual claims from the following companies: Acortech (California), mPlus (California), Logical Plus (New York), SoftwareOutlets.com (Florida), Rowcal Distribution (California), Global Impact, Inc. (Florida), Directron.com (Texas) and eDirect Software (Canada). Symantec looked for a long-lasting ban in each of the lawsuits to block the companies named above from putting up for sale “unauthorized Symantec products” and to give in all alleged counterfeits of Symantec goods.

Symantec was also reported to have said that maybe fake software did not work well and smash up a user’s system, or it is potential to be laden with ID theft softwares. Bogus software are also not said to be capable of receiving automatic updates and so leave the user open to to new online threats. These software pirates were moving large quantities of counterfeit product and, as a result, numerous unsuspecting users are now at risk for having their information stolen or lost.

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Panda Labs recently claimed to have come across an online app that controls botnets, and not just any app, it is placed pretty good and provides you back certain pretty good info on the botnet, many a PCs, how many are up, where they are, etc. Known as Zunker, it churns out to be a computer management app like no other. Panda Labs has reported that the program can provide botnet creeps easily-accessible graphs of individual botnet performance, like the majority of available compromised “zombies” on every at any one time, and their levels of doings on a daily or monthly basis.

Practically, Zunker is said to sprint, as would any other PC management system not including that the intention of the app is against the law. Panda Software says that Zunker is being utilized to manage and keep an eye on tens of thousands of computers across up to 54 nations, which would let it be bridled by a rather standard botnet. It is claimed that 54% of the computers infested were controlled by it at the time of its detection.

Panda Software’s Luis Corrons, was reported as saying,

The program has been carefully designed and is easy to use. Zunker organizes the bots by country, and shows how many bots there are along with reports from each one, how much spam has been sent and what software has been used by the bots to send the spam (Gmail, IM, forums, etc).

Zunker is touted to be capable of providing botnetters information on the duration of meticulous botnets — how many bug-ridden computers were still being operated — and let files be downloaded to bug-ridden computers to carry out actions ahead of fundamental spam dissemination, like info thievery.

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An antispyware bill, which was introduced back in March by California Democrat Zoe Lofgren and Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte, has finally been approved by the US House of Representatives

Sponsored by Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, and Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, the bill is reported to make it illegitimate to make access to a PC but for authorization to commit another federal crime, like a PC scam. Such crimes might bring about to up to five years imprisonment, while getting or relaying personal info so as to deceive or harm somebody carries a punishment of up to two years in jail, as does denting a PC.

The bill additional would endow the Department of Justice with US$10 million yearly for four years to handle phishing, or utilizing fake e-mail addresses or Web sites to bait unwary preys to give personal info like credit-card numbers and pharming, which is related with hackers redirecting traffic to bogus Internet sites to deceitfully gain personal data.

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The hackers led a cyber protest at UN’s official website against the US and Israel for killing children in the Middle East. For which, they hacked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s web page.

The self-proclaimed pro-peace hackers have left this message,

Hacked by kerem125 MOsted and Gsy That is CyberProtest Hey Ysrail and Usa dont kill children and other people Peace for ever No war.

The message was found in a UN web page, which is generally reserved for statements from UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon.

The hackers identified themselves as kerem125, Gsy and M0sted. These groups have also attacked some other pages of UN web site.

The latest report adds that UN has repaired the affected pages.

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Italy’s domestic intelligence service recently reported that organized teams of Chinese hackers were burglarizing the PCs of Western firms to pilfer fashion ideas and counterfeit them ahead of the actual articles can strike the streets.

Gnosis, a magazine by Italy’s SISDE counterintelligence agency was reported to have said,

Platoons of seasoned, unscrupulous cyber pirates, crackers and hackers of every kind ... make up an exponentially growing and unstoppable army.

The article claims that in so far as 20% of Internet viruses and spam messages that wedge e-mails worldwide started off in China. It claims that Chinese hackers get a lot out of pornography, comprising sites that put up for sale videos for pedophiles and traffic in date rape-drugs, heroin and counterfeit medicines.

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IronPort was recently reported to have fully given a face-lift to its monitoring website, www.senderbase.org, which was pioneered by it in 2003. This latest website is said to make available email administrators distinctive visibility into the email and Web traffic getting into their networks. Furthermore, the latest graphical user edge at Senderbase.org now makes simplifies it more than before for each member of the Internet community to keep track of virus outbursts, spam trends, spyware and further web-borne threats.

SenderBase.org, a free of charge service, can be utilized as a credit reporting service, giving detailed data that can be used by ISPs and firms to set apart legal senders from spammers and other invaders – providing system administrators an approach to help them take serious security decisions. The sender base can also be utilized by Consumers, media, and other parties to keep an eye on threat goings-on, verify their email reputation scores, and obtain immediate updates on the most recent virus spates.

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You may believe or not, but it is true for McAfee. The security leader has claimed that the online search of latest movies or download of music poses greatest security threat than searching the X-rated items in the websites.

Nearly nine percent of adult sites cause web-security problems such as spyware, adware or spam in comparison to 19 percent of digital music sites or movie downloads.

In a common parlance, the search for nude items (Hot babes, Nude Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan) is not so risky than searching for a latest music or download of a movie. Why?

McAfee says the porn sites are lesser risk because they are doing good business. So, they don’t want to involve in such practices. To the contrary, faced with a sluggish electronics market, the music companies are very much inclined to adopt additional ways to promote their products.

The study has further claimed that the search items like electronic gadgets and background “wallpaper” to decorate computer screens are also risky like music search and movie download.

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