Like you, I get masses of spam. I knew it wasn't from jobs.nsw.gov.au no matter how much it pretended to be. I deleted it figuring it was “just another” bit of junk mail, although I was surprised to find one purporting to be from the NSW Government job board; that was definitely a new one on me!
Had I thought about it deeper I might have considered this was no ordinary spam. This time there was a direct relationship between how the spammers got my e-mail address and the organisation they purported to represent.
It turns out the Department of Commerce has taken this whole incident very seriously indeed, and far more than common garden-variety spam would necessitate.
If you visit the site jobs.nsw.gov.au you will see it is inaccessible, and in fact, has been for a week. A message advises that the system is down for “system maintenance.”
Web security firm Websense reports that malicious hackers have registered multiple bogus user accounts on My.BarackObama.com. The site allows legitimate punters to join groups, raise funds, or creates blogs. The griefers have established blogs with fake YouTube clips, ostensibly offering grumble flicks.
AVG is seeing between 200,000 to 300,000 new Web sites per day hosting code that can in some cases result in a PC being infected with malware just by visiting the site, said Roger Thompson, AVG's chief research officer.
The world's top virus hunters are watching every move made by the attacker in control of a nasty new Internet worm — referred to as "downadup" or "conficker."
A virulent computer virus has infected as many as 15 million computers around the world so far, according to various estimates.
The virus -- a self-replicating computer worm known as Downadup, Conficker or Kido -- spreads across computer networks using Microsoft Windows software which have not been patched or updated properly. Microsoft issued a patch that fixes the vulnerability the virus exploits last October.
Computer experts are preparing to respond to further virus outbreaks and security threats posed by the Windows worm, known as Conficker, Kido and Downadup, which has infected more than 15 million PCs worldwide.
--Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive
Comments
Needs Sunlight
2009-01-28 17:12:04
At what point does (has) the point where the majority of traffic is windows malware get passed?
Internet has been good, but is in terminal stage windows infestation. Internet2 died on the vine in part because of MS and probably in part because of Doug. How about Internet3, starting with a flat out ban on closed protocols *and* a prohibition against any Windows or MS products...
Needs Sunlight
2009-01-28 17:15:32
110 years of journalistic excellence my ass.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-28 17:19:18
twitter
2009-01-28 17:47:08
Gentoo User
2009-01-28 18:49:40
Oh no, wait. You didn't forget, of course.