A new entrant into the free AV market

microsoft2Today sees the anticipated launch of Microsoft’s free antivirus product, security essentials. So, what is my view on this?

The security industry has moved on from the product Microsoft is launching. Unique malware and social engineering fly under the radar of the traditional signature based technology employed by free security tools such as Microsoft’s. We believe the false sense of security provided by this tool is almost as dangerous as having no security at all.

The latest generation of internet security is real-time and reputation-based, operating in real-time and not relying on a signature being produced and downloaded before the computer is protected. The Norton 2010 range includes game-changing detection in the Quorum technology and is the fastest security suite available with a very light use of system resources.  Users, reviewers and testers will judge the success, or otherwise, of Microsoft.  From the commentary of these groups, the Beta of the Microsoft product suggested that the company needs to do a lot of catching up, to even get close to the latest paid for products on the market.

September 29, 2009 | Filed Under Announcements, Security | Leave a Comment 

Q: How much is a Mac worth? A: 43 cents.

iStock_Virus_1I would contend that the distribution of fake applications has coloured the threat landscape this year. The ‘net is littered with examples of this, with fake anti-virus applications being to the fore. The affiliate networks, that were established in the past to peddle adware and spyware has been repurposed to distribute these rogue and fake applications.

I noticed an interesting presentation coming out of the VB Conference 2009, that was held last week, that provided an interesting insight into a new malware affiliate program, discovered to be offering 43 US cents for every successfully infected Mac machine. ‘Partnernka’ is thought to be a Russian network of spam and malware affiliates that have turned their attention to the Mac platform, using socially engineered tricks to load fake codecs and scareware programs.

It is clear that the Mac community is becoming more interesting to the cyber-criminals. The fact that they are using an affiliate model, that they are prepared to pay to get their rogues applications successfully distributed, shows the level of interest they are prepared to bring.  An unwelcome development for the Mac community.

September 28, 2009 | Filed Under Security | Leave a Comment 

Tax matters.

For the past few weeks, I have had one of those annoying tasks hanging over me – I need to complete my tax return. Oh, the joy of it. With frustrating regularity, at the end of the process, I end up owing HMRC money. So, how good would it be to receive an email, that tells you that HMRC, actually owe you money. You only need to fill-out the handily attached form, provide all the details of the debit or credit card you want the money refunded to and hit the ‘submit’ button.

HMRC

The prospect of getting money back from the Tax-man is so attractive, that I fear that many people may fall for this scam. The email looks very legitimate, the scammers have found it easy to replicate the simple format of the HMRC online look and feel. So, as ever, the old advice holds true: if it looks too good to be true, it is probably a scam.

At this time of year, we do tend to see a number of tax related themed scams. There is one that it doing the rounds in the US at the moment, wherein, a user receives an email from the ‘IRS’ and is asked to download a copy of their tax return to review it. However, the file that they download contains the Zeus Trojan that harvests financial and personal data and also turns the PC into a bot.

Oh well, I had better get back to filing my return, no doubt paying them extra money and not the other way round.

September 15, 2009 | Filed Under Security | Leave a Comment