Eye on Security: Windows Botnets and Other New Problems
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-03-21 10:49:24 UTC
- Modified: 2010-03-21 10:49:24 UTC
Summary: Assemblage of security news from recent days
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Spammers survive botnet shutdowns
Victims, typically users of Windows machines, often fall victim via booby-trapped e-mail messages or through websites that slip malware onto computers via software vulnerabilities.
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Don't trust that Web Address!
But, that comes with using Windows. What's more disturbing is that these malware-bearing messages are getting to be timelier and better written. It used to be that malware e-mail was badly written junk. You'd never mistake them for a legitimate message. The three messages I mentioned though all looked like they could have been real ones. I'm about as paranoid as it comes in computer security, but the basketball one almost tricked me.
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Bad BitDefender Update Clobbers Windows PCs
Users of the BitDefender antivirus software started flooding the company's support forums Saturday, apparently after a faulty antivirus update caused 64-bit Windows machines to stop working.
The company acknowledged the issue in a note explaining the problem, posted Saturday. "Due to a recent update it is possible that BitDefender detects several Windows and BitDefender files as infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.5," the company said.
The acknowledgement came after BitDefender users had logged hundreds of posts on the topic. Some complained of being unable to reboot their systems.
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Energizer battery rechargers still haunted by trojan backdoor
Microsoft labels the trojan as Arurizer.A and warns that it installs a backdoor on user machines that allows attackers to upload, download, and delete files at will, install additional malware and carry out other nefarious deeds.
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Naming and Shaming ‘Bad’ ISPs
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Panda discovers malware on HTC Magic phone
A Panda Security employee discovered three malware programs on a recently purchased HTC Magic phone when it was plugged it into a Windows computer.
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Malware Found on Another HTC Magic Smartphone
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Vodafone Spain supplies pre-Mariposa'd smartphone (again)
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Vodafone Spain admits 3,000 smartphones shipped with Mariposa
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Malware Infected Memory Cards of 3,000 Vodafone Mobiles
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How the butterfly botnet was broken
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Drudge Report, TechCrunch hit by ad malware
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Estonia Defense Minister: Cyberattacks Will Grow
Others at the conference agreed. A major cyberattack sponsored by terrorists or a state will happen within the next decade, predicted Jerry Archer, chief information security officer with Sallie Mae. "I think within the next five to 10 years we will have a cyberwar that will turn into a shooting war," he said, speaking during a panel discussion at the conference.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
- Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
- New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
- It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
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- Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
- Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
- "Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
- ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
- Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
- After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
- Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
- Links for the day
- Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
- A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
- Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
- Google itself is a slop pusher these days
- Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
- A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
- XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
- "everyone is ditching the xbox."
- Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
- Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
- There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
- The Slop Song
- The train wreck marches on
- LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
- Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
- Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
- Links for the day
- "Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
- Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
- Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
- We do try to keep on top of those things
- Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
- The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
- Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
- Forking always an option
- IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
- IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
- We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
- Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
- If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
- Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
- Links for the day
- Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
- Links for the day
- Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
- Links for the day
- Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
- Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
- How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
- Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
- UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
- It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
- Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
- GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
- Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
- Links for the day
- Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
- Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
- Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
- If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
- Social Control Media is Sinking
- it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually