The Internet Threat Landscape

Swine Flu Outbreak Hits The Web Through Spam

Swine Flu updates became the top reported news for the last few days. Mexico is the epicenter for the swine influenza virus outbreak. More than 150 deaths in Mexico are being investigated as possibly tied to the outbreak. Today, the World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert level to five on a scale of six in response to the outbreak of swine flu that originated in Mexico. All countries are advised to activate their pandemic preparedness plans immediately. While the flu virus spreads rapidly, spammers leverage on the topic and wastes no time as well.

Cybercriminals Home in on Twitter

Twitter, being a successful technology platform, draws the attention of hackers who aim to leverage on its popularity for malicious intent. Exploiting a vulnerability in Twitter, a 17-year-old hacker compromised user accounts to post “tweets” with his content. 

Is your mobile phone equiped with the latest technology? Is it safe?

Many Hollywood action dramas such as “Enemy of the State”, “Bourne Identity” series etc have given us a preview on how the FBI / CIA are able to utilize state of the art technology to track down their targets. Satellite tracking was seemingly unthinkable, but look at what a commercial freeware like Google Earth is capable of, not to mention the top secret technology of the military. Location-based-services of the mobile industry is one of the next big thing of the mobile industry. However, Location-Based Services (LBS) is not without its loopholes.

Search Engines and Malware

According to InternetStatsToday, 55% of the younger internet users use search engines more than the adult group on a daily basis. Although online search engines are reasonably reliable and convenient, but they are not 100% safe. Hackers can make use of search engines as a tool for their malicious activities. For the past year, we do find several attacks making use of the services provided by search engines. 

Hackers make use of SEO manipulation and SQL injection methods. Once the affected keyword is being searched and the designed search result is clicked upon, the user will get their system infected instead of getting what they intended to search for.

If you are using Internet Explorer to search, you can consider using free tool like TrendProtect where it will warn you if the link is malicious.

Boy, 13, owes Loansharks S$30,000

A 13 year old boy borrowed S$30,000?? This may sound ridiculous but it is a true story (as reported in my paper today). The editor has shared that the teenager has indulged himself in internet soccer betting and eventually raking up debt, becoming the youngest loanshark victim. Started with S$50, he has eventually moved on to S$1,000 wagers, chalking up a S$30,000 debt.

Fake Windows Support Spam Brings Forth an Info-Stealer

There are 2 phishing incidents recently, both targeted at stealing personal information. The first is a so-called Microsoft Service Pack download notice, while the other is a fake DHL webpage. Another item worthy of parental attention is that school children are writing Obama-related computer virus. The infected webpage not only contain the virus, but also tools for hackers to create their own viruses. Even if you are not the least worried of an infection, you will not want your child to be a hacker isn’t it? You can prevent all these from happening by using WTP_Add_on which is capable of blocking such rouge websites.

12 common threats to Facebook

Twitter, Facebook and other micro blog applications are fast becoming the favorite cradle for viruses.

Micro blogs are popular with many who do not have time to maintain a full fledge blog of their own, but still want to pen down their thoughts. Twitter, Buboo, Plurk, Facebook… are good avenues for this and with the increasing popularity, it has also provided a platform for virus to “grow”. From Twitter Clickjacking Hack Released, a Web developer has released a proof-of-concept clickjacking attack targeting Twitter that demonstrates how an attacker could take over a member's "update" function on the microblogging site. All it takes is for the victim to click on a seemingly innocent link on a Webpage while logged into Twitter, and then his or her "What are you doing?" status is under the attacker's control.

The need for In-the-Cloud Technology vs Virus definition update

The trend to blog or uploading their photographs onto the internet has never been hotter. Youtube and similar websites are also gaining popularity. All these are built on the Web 2.0 framework, and make up a significant number of websites. Some of which will inevitably be infected with malware. For example, hackers can trick you to click on some malicious URLs that they leave on chat forums. Or they can also post some interesting pictures online, telling you to “click here” if you would like to see other pictures of the album. Needless to say, you will get infected if you followed their instructions. It is quite difficult to differentiate such threats without an Anti-Virus program. You may not even be able do so with an Anti-virus program as there are so many variants of virus, the number is shocking. This is why you need to constantly update your virus definitions. But are you sure what you have downloaded is really the “latest”?

E-cards Used to Advertise Adult Dating Site

Spams usually appear as irritable emails that flood your inbox with advertisements and many times malicious hyperlinks that download malware into your PC. Such spam advertisements are usually easily identified at first glance and deleted immediately. The following article talks about a different spam concept that uses a legitimate E-card website for advertising.

Xbox Live Losers Resort to Hacking

Ever had a game with a sore loser? While most of them choose to avoid competing with the same opponent again, this one resorts to denying the other players from playing. Hacking are not only restricted to conventional PCs, servers and websites. Xbox Live networks have their own share of hacking and IP sniffing and losing players are using these as tools for revenge.