Matthew Hines

Online attackers have been authoring blog posts for the sake of luring end users into downloading their malware files for some time, but Trend Micro researchers have now discovered entire Web forums that appear to have been created with similar intentions in mind. According to blog posted by Trend researcher Loucif Kharouni on Thursday, the […]

Researchers at Panda Security’s PandaLabs have discovered a set of malware-ridden pharming attacks that aim to lure in users by offering video clips of Apple’s popular iPhone mobile handset. Panda reported Sept. 24 that it found the iPhone-themed campaign circulating the Banker.LKCTrojan attack, a malware program designed to lift users’ personal information once it is […]

An aging hacker with an interesting angle on electronic extortion and a taste for expensive European sports cars is awaiting trial for his crimes after getting busted for pulling off the semi-sophisticated scheme. Bruce Mengler, 60, was arraigned in a San Diego federal court earlier this week after being indicted for computer intrusion and extortion […]

As security pundits have been predicting literally since the dawn of the YouTube era, researchers report that they are now finding rapidly increasing levels of malware hidden in rich content formats, including PDF documents and multimedia files. In a report that traces the advancement of code obfuscation and encryption techniques employed by malware authors over […]

After years of predictions that more enterprises would soon begin ceding management of their IT security responsibilities over to vendors and professional services companies, IDC is reporting steady growth in the managed security services sector, and predicting continued expansion of the market over the next five years. According to a report issued Tuesday, IDC analysts […]

A new report published by Osterman Research and sponsored by e-mail security specialists CertifiedMail contends that many enterprises are still struggling to get sufficient messaging encryption technologies into place, to change internal perceptions about the systems as hard-to-use (and worth buying in the first place), or to make them work efficiently once installed. According to […]

People like myself are frequently guilty of blaming crime blocs in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Far East for generating the majority of today’s cyber-attacks, but the truth is that far more threats are being leveled at users from computers based here in the United States than from any other country in the world. In […]

Most malware gangs probably don’t have many members nearing retirement age, but that hasn’t stopped them from targeting people who already have, or at least their Web site. Security and e-mail filtering specialists MX Logic have discovered a section of the official AARP Web site that has come under the control of badware brokers. According […]

Researchers are warning of an emerging malware campaign that advertises itself as airline e-ticket information to lure users into infecting their machines with a set of Trojan attacks. First identified by anti-virus specialists BitDefender, the messages contain a .ZIP attachment that is positioned as e-ticket information, but that instead delivers the malware when downloaded. Many […]

Talk about letting your guard down. Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG, has discovered a compromise in a National Guard site through which one of the agency’s URLs is now being used to distribute spyware. The page in question, which belongs to the Texas National Guard, has been linked to another site somewhere in […]

The fine folks over at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society have added another powerful ally to their Stopbadware online malware filtering project by snaring Mozilla, makers of the Firefox browser and other open source software, to officially cooperate in the effort. Mozilla joins the veritable online “who’s who” of powerful sponsors that […]

Researchers have uncovered an extremely serious security flaw in Adobe’s popular Illustrator graphics program. Found by Ernst & Young vulnerability expert and sometimes blogger Nathan McFeters, the unpatched problem in Illustrator has garnered a “highly critical” ranking from Secunia — among others — Secunia’s most severe vulnerability rating. According to the researchers, the involved vulnerabilities […]