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
- Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
- The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
- For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
- Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
- su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
- Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
- A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
- What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
- Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
- A day later he speaks in Sweden
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- Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
- Links for the day
- Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
- Links for the day
- Microsoft is Losing Europe
- Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
- The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
- New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
- Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
- Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
- What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
- XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
- Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
- not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
- Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
- Links for the day
- Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
- Links for the day
- Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
- Links for the day
- Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
- The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
- After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
- Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
- Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
- The core goal should be freedom
- Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
- Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
- Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
- users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
- IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
- IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
- Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
- In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
- These slopfarms help misplace blame
- Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
- Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October
- Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Motorcycling in Central Oregon, Protocol Styles and the Flag of Sark
- Links for the day
- Links 30/09/2025: Death Sentences, Internet Censorship, and Internet Shutdowns
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Social Control Media and ROOPHLOCH
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman About to Give More Talks in Europe, Some Confirmed Already
- In Göteborg
- Links 30/09/2025: CERN in "Have I Been Pwned" and More Windows TCO Blunders
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Canonical is Selling Mass Surveillance and Back Doors as "Security for Ubuntu"
- If you are looking for a GNU/Linux distro to use, just remember that Microsoft has Ubuntu in the bag
- Justice for Wildlife
- animals cannot speak to humans who hate animals
- Cowboys Gonna Be Cowboys (on the Internet, They're Not a New Problem)
- Boys will be boys
- Cowboys of the "Left" and Cowboys of the "Right"
- Don't believe the lie that this is some "leftist" thing
- When Codes of Conduct Serve to Protect Criminals From Much-Deserved Scrutiny
- CoCs are typically unfit for purpose because enforcement lacks context and suitable understanding of the full background (the "full story")
- It Took the Open Source Initiative (OSI) 4+ Years to Address the 'Data Breach' or Data Protection Violation Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) in March 2025
- We may never know the dialogue or its nature
- Even Microsoft's Biggest Boosters (and Media Operatives) Are Turning Against Microsoft
- Expect many more layoffs before the fake "results" next month
- GNU Was Right 42+ Years Ago
- Since then the abusive, user-hostile technology has spread like mushrooms
- Old Isn't Always Inadequate
- How many gadgets manufactured today (in 2025) will still work in 2075?
- The Monkey Business of Rust People
- Compatibility won't matter
- Almost Half of the FSFE's Money (the Fake 'FSF', Misusing the Brand) Comes From Vodafone
- That money always comes with strings, even if they're invisible to most of us
- Microsoft Lunduke Spreads Deliberate Lies to Incite Online Mobs
- Has he lost his reading comprehension skills?
- Our 19th Birthday (in Just Over 5 Weeks From Now)
- We meanwhile have ongoing, solid plans to cover patent-related issues when the FSF turns 40
- British GNU/Linux Distro FydeOS Tops DistroWatch
- That seems like a decent site and decent effort to keep an eye on
- We'll Soon Have 75,000 GemText Pages
- avoid many perils of today's Web
- Google Used Free Software to Build a Monopoly. Now Google Kicks Free Software to the Curb
- The "G" in "Google" does not stand for GNU. It never did. It's just another greedy company.
- Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Retro Hardware, Federated Fragmentation, and Nex Server Written in C
- Links for the day
- 4 More Days Till "4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users"
- We are now just 4 days away from the rare anniversary
- Two Months After Merging to Hide GitHub Losses Microsoft is Doing It Again (This Time Windows)
- Merging those two together is not a sign of strength but a tightening of budget
- Speculations About the Next Large Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs
- the mass layoffs are likely to happen on week 3 or 4 in October
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 29, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, September 29, 2025