Cody Taylor

Scareware has found itself a new flavor in Anti-Virus-1, possibly in response to court cases and investigations launched against Antivirus XP last year. In this case, the program is a bit malware, a bit scareware, and generally bad news. It doesn’t just yammer at the user with false positives, it’ll also hijack your browser and aim it at phony posi

Varzil found an interesting story about some “Rogue Anti-Malware” (which seems to me should just be called ‘Malware’) which modifies your HOSTS file to trick you into reading a fake anti-virus review which is of course for more malware. Modifying HOSTS is an old trick, but this is interesting because it’s actually trying to get you to read fake content: normally this sort of trick is used to prevent you from fixing your computer, but this one is trying to get you to break it even more. I guess friends don’t let friends modify their HOSTS files.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By now you’ve undoubtedly been tagged at least once for that “25 Random Things About Me” Facebook note that has spread across the social networking sphere like some kind of self-revelatory virus. Love it or hate it, its rapid proliferation is unprecedented in social networking’s young history–Facebook reports that nearly 5 million notes were create

It’s always great to have Linux Alternatives to popular applications so here are some of the most useful System tools application for Linux including CD burners, Aniti Virus, FTP solutions and instant messengers that can be downloaded today.

Barence writes “Microsoft’s decision to limit Windows 7 Starter Edition to running only three concurrent applications could force up the price of netbooks as many manufacturers opt for the more expensive Home Premium. The three-app rule includes applications running in the background but excludes antivirus, and the company claims most users wouldn’t be affected by the limit. ‘We ran a study which suggested that the average consumer has open just over two applications [at any time]. We would expect the limit of three applications wouldn’t affect very many people.’ However, Microsoft told journalists at last year’s Professional Developers Conference that 70% of Windows users have between eight and 15 windows open at any one time.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

dfdashh writes “A former Fannie Mae contractor has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Baltimore, MD for computer intrusion. He attempted to propagate a malicious script throughout the company’s 4,000 servers. The DC Examiner has details of the incident: ‘Had this malicious script executed, [Fannie Mae] engineers expect it would have caused millions of dollars of damage and reduced if not shutdown operations at [Fannie Mae] for at least one week. … The virus was set to execute at 9 a.m. Jan. 31, first disabling Fannie Mae’s computer monitoring system and then cutting all access to the company’s 4,000 servers, Nye wrote. Anyone trying to log in would receive a message saying “Server Graveyard.” From there, the virus would wipe out all Fannie Mae data, replacing it with zeros, Nye wrote. Finally, the virus would shut down the servers.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes “The Downadup worm — also called Conflicker — has now infected an estimated 10 million PCs worldwide, and security experts say they expect to see a dangerous second-stage payload dropped soon. ‘It has the potential to infect about 30% of Windows systems online, a potential 300 to 350 million PCs,’ says Don Jackson, director of threat intelligence in the counter threat unit at SecureWorks. The worm, first identified in November and suspected to have originated in the Ukraine, is quickly ramping up, and while Downadup today is not malicious in the sense of destroying files — its main trick is to block users from accessing antivirus sites to obtain updates to protect against it — the worm is capable of downloading second-stage code for darker purposes.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Using security software is more important than ever. Our tests of the latest all-in-one security suites show that good protection can shut down the nastiest viruses, spyware, and adware.