Monthly Archives: December 2009

A Look Back at the Worst Infections of 2009

December 31, 2009 – 11:29 am

By Andrew Brandt It’s not clear whether the past year will go down in history as a particularly bad year for malware, but one thing is certain: It was bad enough, at times, that fighting infections and cleaning PCs took priority over virtually all other work. Neither home users nor businesses were immune from wave [...]

By mguthrie09 | Posted in Threat Research | Tags: , , , , , | Comments (5)

Friends, Followers, Fans: Be On Guard in 2010

December 30, 2009 – 10:39 am

By Mike Kronenberg Do you use a social networking site? Be prepared, because I predict in 2010 it’ll be a major target for cyber criminals. Among the threat experts here at Webroot, we’ve discussed the ROI opportunity that social networks present an enterprising hacker who strings together the personal information people choose to share on [...]

By Mike | Posted in social engineering, social networks, Threat Research | Tags: , , , , | Leave a Comment

Ron Paul, Beyonce Tease a Drive-By Rogue AV

December 22, 2009 – 11:28 am

By Andrew Brandt Here’s a mind-bender for you to ponder over the holidays: What do diva musician Beyonce, the massively-multiplayer game World of Warcraft, the anime series Naruto, and Libertarian politician (and failed presidential candidate) Ron Paul have in common? I couldn’t guess what you might come up with, but we’ve found a drive-by download [...]

By mguthrie09 | Posted in Blackhat SEO, Rogue Security Products, social engineering, social networks, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Zero-Day Malware Drops Payloads Signed with a Forged Microsoft Certificate

December 15, 2009 – 6:00 pm

By Andrew Brandt Security Websites are buzzing with news that a new zero-day exploit against Adobe Reader and Acrobat is circulating today, causing computers to become infected with malware simply by visiting certain Web pages. While the exploit itself is worthy of note, nobody is talking about the payload it downloads: It installs a trio [...]

By mguthrie09 | Posted in Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Our Twitter Q&A with Threat Research Director Jeff Horne

December 15, 2009 – 12:18 pm

By Jeff Horne On December 11, 2009, users of Twitter submitted questions to Webroot’s Director of Threat Research, Jeff Horne, as part of a live Q&A session. Webroot’s Twitter followers asked questions about connecting safely to the Internet while traveling during the holidays. A variety of questions came in live, with some others through direct [...]

By jeffhorne | Posted in Mobile security, Passwords, Threat Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Visa Targeted (Again) by Zbot Phishers

December 11, 2009 – 10:18 am

By Andrew Brandt The gang of malware distributors who are currently flooding the Internet with bogus Facebook “Update Tool,” CDC “H1N1 Flu Vaccination Profile,” and IRS “Tax Statement” emails and Web pages are at it again — this time, targeting Visa with a fake email alert that leads to a page hosting not only a [...]

By mguthrie09 | Posted in Online shopping threats, Phishing Trojans, social engineering, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comments (9)

New Koobface Creates its Own Malicious Web Pages

December 10, 2009 – 10:24 am

By Andrew Brandt Over the past several months, we’ve seen Koobface steadily progress in its ability to infect systems with malware. In our latest tests, we’ve found that the most recent version of this social-networm has a few new holiday-themed tricks up its sleeve. Among those tricks are a new, improved “captcha breaker” utility; A [...]

By mguthrie09 | Posted in Rogue Security Products, social engineering, social networks, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Tags: , | Comments (4)

Bogus “New Moon” Torrents Lead to Malware

December 4, 2009 – 2:22 pm

By Andrew Brandt A week since the file-sharing clearinghouse Mininova changed its business model and deleted links to copyrighted material being shared over the peer-to-peer Bittorrent network, malware distributors continue to exploit the confusion as people who download movies, TV shows, and other shared files seek out new sources for those files. As a torrent [...]

By mguthrie09 | Posted in Phishing Trojans, social engineering, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Fake Zbot Site Poses as CDC H1N1 Flu Vaccine Info

December 1, 2009 – 1:40 pm

By Andrew Brandt The newest victim of the faux-Web-sites-posing-as-government-pages scam is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the same vein as fake pages supposedly hosted on the Web servers of the IRS, FDIC, and other organizations, we’re seeing a new scam to infect computers with Trojan-Phisher-Zbot that pretends to be a “Personal H1N1 [...]

By mguthrie09 | Posted in Phishing Trojans, social engineering, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (9)
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