Fraud

According to the report by security vendor M86 Security one of the largest botnets which is the Pushdo or Cutwail network was taken down and as a result the amount of spam decreased significantly. But it is believed that the botnet will retrieve in a matter of weeks.

Russian police launched an investigation into a criminal gang that installed malicious "ransomware" programs on thousands of PCs and then forced victims to send SMS messages in order to unlock their PCs. According to local reports that scam may have brought Russian criminals millions of dollars.

Russian police seized computer equipment and detained a Russian "crime family" in connection with the crime. 10 people are expected to be charged. Tens of thousands victims affected by the scam live in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

A flaw found in Apple QuickTime Player can be exploited to remotely execute malicious code on Windows-based PCs, even those running the most recent versions of operating system. The bug was discovered by Ruben Santamarta of Spain-based security firm Wintercore. Before this time an unused parameter known as “_Marshaled_pUnk” remained undetected for at least nine years. The inclusion of this parameter is a backdoor because it is the work of an Apple developer who added it to the QuickTime code base and then, most likely, forgot to remove it when it was no longer needed.

The Merchant Risk Council (MRC), a merchant-led trade association focused on electronic commerce risk and payments globally, is set to host the inaugural European e-Commerce Payments and Risk Conference 1-3 September in Amsterdam.

This conference signifies the beginning of uniting European and global merchants, solution providers, card brands, payment processors, law enforcement and other industry stakeholders in reducing online payment fraud and improving operational efficiencies pertaining to data security risks and payment strategies.

As it became known Tuesday, Adobe Systems patched 20 security vulnerabilities in its Shockwave Player, used to display content created by Adobe's Director program, offering advanced tools for creating interactive content.

These vulnerabilities are in versions of Shockwave Player up to version 11.5.7.609, on both Apple's Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. The patched version is 11.5.8.612, according to an Adobe advisory.

The first exploits have been released targeting programs including the Firefox browser, uTorrent BitTorrent client, and Microsoft PowerPoint, a day after Microsoft affirmed a vulnerability in Windows applications, executing malicious code on end-user PCs. 

On Monday reports surfaced on the Internet about major security bug in iTunes accounts that allowed hackers to drain a lot of money from PayPal. However, in fact the complaints of the problem that was experienced by many iTunes customers has been submitted on the online forums since the beginning of August and even earlier.

Speculations on the Internet reveal that Sony will start preventing gamers who use PS Jailbreak USB dongle from accessing the PlayStation Network. The device sold by OzModChips.com represents an add-on which "tricks your console into thinking that it is a developer unit", a version of the PS3 that is rather more flexible than the one sold to punters, especially when it comes to using third-party software.

As it became known, last week Adobe managed to mend two vulnerabilities in its Reader PDF viewing software. One of the vulnerability was one that went public last month at the annual Black Hat security conference.

A new malware was developed by cyber crooks to lure unwitting users into uninstalling legitimate anti-virus applications and instead using fake and useless software. A bogus package dubbed AnVi Antivirus generates a message that suggest that legitimate apps are “uncertified" and ought to be removed. Further the message threatens that if a user fails to take action his/her computer performance will degrade.

A security researcher Acros reported this week that nearly 200 Windows applications are vulnerable to remote code-execution attacks that exploit a bug in the way the programs load binary files for the Microsoft operating system. While the critical flaw was patched in Apple's iTunes media player for Windows and VMware Tools, for other applications it will be necessary to create an individual patches, said Mitja Kolsek, CEO of application security consultancy Acros Security.

This year Cameron Diaz took the first place in the list of most dangerous search clues to be typed in the search engine query according to an annual McAfee report. Last year the top of the list was occupied by Jessica Biel.

If you look for any of the celebrities in the McAfee's annual list of the most dangerous stars to search for on the Web you risk to have a virus installed on your PC after you press some links in the search results.

A new type of clickjacking was recently noticed and removed on Facebook. The new “Share” attack relied on luring unwitting users into opening a "Facebook fan page" for the “Top 10 Funny T-Shirt Fails ROFL” and other potentially eye-catching content. Once selected these bogus pages load malicious script from an external domain that means the user will unwittingly share the dodgy page on their profile, promoting the scam to a mark's friends and contacts on Facebook.

Over 1 million webpages were infected in the course of an attack that can expose users to malware exploits. Among these websites there are at least two that belong to Apple. The SQL injection attacks bombard the websites of legitimate companies with database commands that attempt to add hidden links that lead to malware exploits.