Monthly Archives: March 2009

From Pixels to Phishers

By Andrew Brandt Over the past year, we’ve seen a huge jump in the number of mass downloader spyware. These small executable files have just one job, and they do it very well: They pull down huge numbers of additional installers, which in turn place a large number of password stealing Trojans, ad-clickers, and still [...]

Adware Purveyors Panning for Search Gold

By Andrew Brandt We know most adware companies are shameless in their pursuit of revenue, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen anything as bizarre (or hilariously bold) as the sales pitch from a relative neophyte to the world of adware, which calls itself SnappyAds. On its homepage, SnappyAds posits the hypothetical glee of [...]

New Malware Ruins Firefox

By Andrew Brandt Late last year, we read all the buzz about ChromeInject, a malicious DLL that was being billed as the first malware specifically targeting Firefox. It was interesting to see that someone built a phishing Trojan for a different browser platform, but ChromeInject was also clearly an early phase in Firefox malware development: [...]

As Web 2.0 explodes, does IT security implode?

By Jesse McCabe Social media sparked a revolution in how we communicate. From best friends to business owners, more of us every day are using a social networking site to connect with people. Facebook welcomes 700,000 new members daily, and an estimated 4-5 million people are now reading tweets on Twitter. And cybercriminals are having [...]

Introducing the Threat Blog

By Andrew Brandt Welcome, readers. I’m a member of the Threat Research team at Webroot, and I’ve been asked to contribute to Webroot’s new Threat Blog. I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself, tell you a little about what we do, and explain how we plan to use the blog to keep you [...]

Stepping up to the Loserbar

By Andrew Brandt Last year, we at Webroot (as well as many other people) saw a huge spike in two specific types of malware: Rogue antispyware products — the ineffective, deceptive kind — and the various tricks the companies that sell rogues use to trick you into downloading (and eventually buying) their bogus products, something [...]

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