Softpedia News - Spyware Threats

The Queen Confirms Internet Monitoring Law During Speech (Video)

Softpedia News (Eduard Kovacs) — Wed, 9 May 2012 15:00:00 GMT

During her speech in front of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, the Queen has confirmed that the government intends to introduce the controversial legislation that would allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to monitor the Internet and other types of communications.

“My Government intends to bring forward... (read more)

German Government Lawful Interception Tool Not So Legal

Softpedia News (Eduard Kovacs) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:49:00 GMT

A hacker club called Chaos Computer Club (CCC) got in the possession of a tool that's used by the German authorities to track potential criminals. After a complex analysis, the spyware turned out to lack basic security features, which makes it accessible to almost anyone.

According to CCC, the Quellen-TKÜ is a piece of so... (read more)

Data Stealing Apps Released on Android Market

Softpedia News (Eduard Kovacs) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:55:00 GMT

Smartphone security is once again threatened by hackers or in this case, Android app developers who want to make a profit. Five new tools have hit the internet, ready to be downloaded by any wannabe spy.

Malware City's blog informs us that even though the apps are advertised as being for study purposes only, Bitdefender has identified the... (read more)

Support Forums Reveal Evidence of Infected ICS

Softpedia News (Eduard Kovacs) — Wed, 7 Sep 2011 07:12:00 GMT

Supervisory control and data acquisition systems are already infected with a large number of malware and the proof lies in log files posted all over support forums.

The computers controlling industrial machinery are in many cases used for other purposes, thus resulting in a large number of infections which could compromise the integrity ... (read more)

Tibet Group's Email Attacked Before Dalai Lama's Visit

Softpedia News (Eduard Kovacs) — Tue, 6 Sep 2011 06:51:00 GMT

The official email account belonging to a Tibet organization from Canada has been hit by hackers and malicious emails have been sent from it.
The organization's representatives are convinced that these attacks are "highly targeted”, the general public not being affected by them.

It is believed that the purpose of t... (read more)

DigiNotar Certificates Used to Spy Iranians

Softpedia News (Eduard Kovacs) — Mon, 5 Sep 2011 15:09:00 GMT

Large scale virtual espionage was reveled in a recent post on the TrendLabs blog, which seems to be the true reasons for the fake certificates.

Rumors were circulating all over the web about Iranian involvement in the matter, but now, Trend Micro claims they have discovered more than 40 different ISP networks, the users of which were spied... (read more)

Fernanda Romero-Related Search Results Poisoned

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:30:00 GMT

Security researchers from antivirus vendor Panda Security warn of a new black hat search engine optimization (BHSEO) campaign that targets users interested in finding information related to Mexican actress Fernanda Romero. The poisoned search results lead to websites pushing fake antivirus programs.

Back in April Fernanda Romero and her... (read more)

Localized Twitter Spam Spreads Backdoors

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:57:00 GMT

Security researchers from Trend Micro warn that a new spam campaign circulating on Twitter attempts to infect users with backdoors. The attacks make use of black hat search engine optimization techniques specifically adapted for the micro-blogging platform.

"Over the past two weeks, several Twitter accounts were created for the sole purpose of... (read more)

Google Warns of Malware Targeting Vietnamese Activists

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:57:00 GMT

Google's Security Team warned yesterday that a computer trojan of Vietnamese origin is used to attack individuals voicing their disapproval over recent politics in the country. The malware was discovered during the investigation into Operation Aurora and its creators might have ties with the Vietnamese government.

"While the malw... (read more)

2010 FIFA World Cup-Themed Email Attacks Carry Malicious PDFs

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:22:00 GMT

Security researchers warn of an ongoing targeted email attack, which uses a 2010 FIFA World Cup-themed ruse to trick users into opening a booby-trapped PDF file. The incident targets an arbitrary code execution vulnerability that was patched in February in Adobe Reader.

The FIFA World Cup is the most important football (so... (read more)

Trojan Masquerades as Adobe Reader Updater

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:28:00 GMT

Security researchers from Vietnamese security vendor Bach Khoa Internetwork Security (BKIS) have identified a computer trojan, which copies itself over the update components of popular software. So far, Adobe Reader and Java Runtime have been targeted.

The malware, which Bkis has named the W32.Fakeupver.trojan, is written in Visual... (read more)

3,000 Mobile Phones Shipped with Malware in Spain

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:02:00 GMT

Vodafone's Spanish branch confirmed that as many as 3,000 mobile phones sold to its customers this month carried malware. The problem resides with a batch of infected microSD cards and not the devices themselves.

Last week, security researchers from Panda Security reported having found several strains of malware on a brand new HTC Mag... (read more)

Malware Found on More Vodafone-Issued HTC Magic Phones

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:01:00 GMT

Security researchers who reported last week that a Vodafone-issued HTC Magic phone came preloaded with malware are now in possession of a second infected device. The identical phone was acquired from the same mobile operator during the same period and contains the same Mariposa trojan strain.

Earlier last week, security researche... (read more)

ZeuS Crimeware Toolkit Features Sophisticated Piracy Protection

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:49:00 GMT

The creators of the ZeuS crimeware toolkit are taking unprecedented measures to protect their product from cyber-criminals who don't want to pay up a hefty price for it. Security researchers report that a complex hardware-based licensing system has been introduced with the latest version of the trojan-generating software.

read more)

New Banking Trojan Discovered in the Wild

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:29:00 GMT

Researchers from Atlanta-based security vendor SecureWorks have discovered a new information-stealing trojan facilitating ACH and wire fraud. The trojan has all the capabilities of malware commonly used to steal money from SMBs and non-profits.

An unprecedented wave of Automated Clearing House (ACH) and wire fraud started in 2009, resulting i... (read more)

New Crimeware Toolkit Threatens Zeus

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:32:00 GMT

Researchers from security giant Symantec are announcing that a new botnet toolkit is threatening the infamous Zeus trojan. Dubbed SpyEye and priced at $500, the crimeware comes with a "Zeus killer" feature.

The Zeus computer trojan, also known as Zbot, is a well-maintained piece of malware that has been around since 2007. Millions of infected comp... (read more)

Infected Extensions Discovered on Mozilla's Add-Ons Repository

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Fri, 5 Feb 2010 15:52:00 GMT

The AMO (addons.mozilla.org) team has announced on its official blog that two experimental Firefox extensions were removed from the repository after they were found to be infected with malware. The add-ons had some 4,600 combined downloads.

According to Mozilla, version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader was infected wit... (read more)

Click Fraud Malware Hides as Firefox Extension

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:56:00 GMT

Security researchers warn of a new piece of malware that functions as an extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser. The rogue add-on intercepts Google search queries and injects advertisements into the results.

The new attack has been reported by analysts from antivirus vendor Trend Micro and seems to be motivated by illegal monetary g... (read more)

Source Code for Skype Spyware Available for Download

Softpedia News (Catalin Cimpanu) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:53:00 GMT

Ruben Unteregger, a 33-year-old software developer from Switzerland, has made public the source code of a trojan that taps into Skype conversations, records all audio data and sends it back to the attacker. This latest development comes after a serious scandal that flamed in 2006 about the usage of a similar Skype wire-tapping piece of softwa... (read more)

Jessica Biel Tops McAfee's Celebrity Malware List

Softpedia News (Catalin Cimpanu) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:56:00 GMT

Security company McAfee made public its recent annual report on celebrity-related Internet malware threats. This year, due to a highly publicized relationship with singer Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel has snatched the number one spot on the list from R&B singer Beyonce. Last year's top threat, Brad Pitt, has dropped down to the number ten ... (read more)

Twilight Star Ashley Greene Subject for Malware

Softpedia News (Catalin Cimpanu) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Hollywood actress Ashley Greene, star of the box-office hit “Twilight,” is the recent focal point of Internet-transmitted malware. After "very personal" pics of the star were leaked a week ago on the Internet, hackers put together several malware-distributing campaigns with Ashley's photos as the main subject.

Graham Clule... (read more)

Brazilian Hackers Use Twitter as Bot Command Channel

Softpedia News (Catalin Cimpanu) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:11:00 GMT

Dr. Jose Nazario, manager of security research at Arbor Networks, has recently discovered that the Twitter channel “upd4t3” has been relaying base64 command messages to a bot network through its tweets. Unnoticed by Twitter, the channel has been broadcasting messages containing encrypted information to a network of bots.

read more)

Flash Cookies Used to Track User Behavior

Softpedia News (Catalin Cimpanu) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:37:00 GMT

Unknown to the general public, Adobe Flash uses local cookies to store various types of user sensitive information. This was the conclusion of a study supported by TRUST (Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technologies) and conducted by various US universities.

Most people already know that Internet cookies are used to store personal data... (read more)

Nine-Ball Distributes Complex Click Fraud Trojan

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 12:21:00 GMT

Analysts from security company SecureWorks discovered one of the most complex and effective click fraud trojans known to date, while analyzing the malware served by the Nine-Ball mass injection attack. The trojan, dubbed FFSearcher, leverages on Google's Custom Search widget to generate income for cybercrooks.

The cleverness of this ... (read more)

Cybercrooks Target Harry Potter Fans

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:15:00 GMT

Security researchers warn that malware distributors have launched a Harry Potter-themed campaign, which promises free access to the latest movie in the series. Blackhat search engine optimization techniques and comment spam are used to attract potential victims.

Malware analysts from security vendor PC Tools advise users interested in downloadin... (read more)

Road Paved for the Great Botnet of China

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:37:00 GMT

One of the security industry's worst nightmares, a gigantic botnet of Chinese origin, might become a reality if the government in Beijing goes ahead with its plan to deploy the Green Dam Youth Escort censorship software on all new PCs sold in the country, starting next month. Security researchers warn that the content-filtering application suffers from c... (read more)

Trojan Advertised as Open Source Antivirus Solution

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:15:00 GMT

Security researchers from antivirus vendor Bitdefender warn of a new malware-distribution campaign that attempts to pass a computer trojan as open source antivirus software. Once installed on the computer, the malware directs browser requests to Paypal, Abbey and Halifax to phishing pages.

E-banking customers should avoid e-mails ... (read more)

ATM Malware Takes Off

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Thu, 4 Jun 2009 11:15:00 GMT

Following a March report from Sophos regarding a Trojan that infects Diebold ATMs and steals credit card data, another similar piece of malware has been analyzed (PDF) by researchers from Trustwave. The malicious application is able to infect Windows XP-based ATMs from multiple vendors and features complex functions.

The file analyzed by Trustwave had a creati... (read more)

Revamped Koobface Version in the Wild

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:24:00 GMT

Virus analysts from Panda Security warn of a new variant of the infamous Koobface worm, which was released on the popular Facebook social network. Its authors have changed the template of the spam messages, but, most importantly, have adopted the scareware model.

Koobface is a computer worm that first appeared during July 2008 and initially tar... (read more)

Brazilian Ransomware Blocks Access to Documents

Softpedia News (Lucian Constantin) — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:13:00 GMT

Trend Micro researchers warn of a new fake antivirus program, which specifically targets Brazilian users. The application displays ransomware behavior, as it locks access to multiple types of documents and asks victims to acquire a license in order to regain control.

The new rogueware, called Byte Clark, is considered to be the first ... (read more)