Eye on Security: Windows Zombies, ATM Malware, and Trojans
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-04-09 08:46:45 UTC
- Modified: 2010-04-09 08:46:45 UTC
Summary: Bits and pieces from this week's news, shedding light on the undesirable impact of Windows on the desktop
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Vietnam Rejects Google Cyber-attack Charges (
about one in two Windows machines is a zombie)
The Vietnamese government refuted charges of a cyber-attack targeting opponents of a Chinese-backed mining operation, calling Google's comments "groundless." According to McAfee, the attack created a botnet of infected Windows PCs and launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against certain political blogs.
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Bank of America Employee Charged With Planting Malware on ATMs (Bank of America
was blocking Firefox and using Microsoft)
Rodney Reed Caverly, 37, was a member of the bank’s IT staff when he installed the malware. The Charlotte, North Carolina, man made fraudulent withdrawals over a seven-month period ending in October 2009, according to prosecutors, who’ve charged him with one count of computer fraud.
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Trojans continue to hit hard says Sunbelt Software
The latest monthly set of research from Sunbelt Software shows that trojans continue to wreak havoc with business computers far and wide, with two trojans – Trojan.Win32.GenericBT (31.07%) and Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen (4.97%) – making up over a third of all detections during the month.
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Kids’ Choice Awards Exploited to Distribute FAKEAV
The experts commented that this business of fake anti-virus proves extremely lucrative for cyber-criminals as they reap massive amounts of dollars using bogus malware-fighting modules. They note that these criminals have left no region on the globe untouched to target with bogus AV applications
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Koobface makes (another) comeback
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Whole Foods Warns of Facebook Malware
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Whole Foods working to curb Facebook-based scam
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Manila Earthquake Results in Malware Distribution
Experts of Trend Micro, a security firm, stated that on March 25, 2010 a 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit the capital of Philippines, Manila, and subsequently many Web users accessed the Internet for latest development and news on the fateful incident. Without any doubt, hackers left no stone unturned for providing details about the earthquake. Their content was fixed with fake anti-virus applications.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
- I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
-
- How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
- A rough summary
- We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
- For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
- Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
- Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
- USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
- we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
- TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
- Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
- Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
- Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
- Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
- For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
- Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
- Google News is really bad
- Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
- Links for the day
- Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
- Links for the day
- FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
- It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
- Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
- Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
- They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
- Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
- Links for the day
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
- A day later he speaks in Sweden
- 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