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Spam

Accused Kelihos spam botmaster: It wasn't me, Microsoft

Dan Kaplan January 30, 2012

A Russian computer programmer has denied allegations by Microsoft that he was responsible for manning a prolific spam botnet.

Facebook sues Adscend Media for malware and spam

Stephen Lawton January 30, 2012

Facebook and the state of Washington have filed separate lawsuits against Adscend Media, alleging the company was responsible for spreading malware and for stealing personal information from Facebook users.

Spam with QR code targets mobile users

Greg Masters January 11, 2012

Researchers have revealed a new type of spam campaign that appears to be a test run to find out how mobile users will respond to social engineering attempts on their smartphones and tablets.

US-CERT warns about spoofed US-CERT phishes

Dan Kaplan January 10, 2012

Phishers are spoofing email addresses belonging to US-CERT, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security that coordinates information sharing related to cyber threats, to trick users into installing malware.

Stratfor subscribers receive phony emails

Dan Kaplan January 06, 2012

Some Stratfor subscribers received an email on Friday that claimed to come from the breached company's CEO, but actually was designed to publicize the hack and have some fun at the expense of the recipients.

Email from The New York Times meant for 300, sent to 8M

Dan Kaplan December 28, 2011

An email, originally believed to be spam, that asked people to reconsider their decision to cancel home delivery of The New York Times, was intended to reach roughly eight million fewer people than it actually did.

Spam drop, but targeted attack rise, is key 2011 takeaway

Angela Moscaritolo December 20, 2011

Spam volume dropped dramatically from 379 billion messages daily in August 2010 to 124 billion this November, according to Cisco, as crooks opted for more pinpointed attacks that could fly under the radar.

Amazon users targeted with new phishing attack

Angela Moscaritolo December 05, 2011

Attackers have been widely spamming messages - purportedly sent from Amazon - claiming users' accounts are about to be deactivated.

Crooks using Zeus in new Facebook attacks

Angela Moscaritolo November 30, 2011

Variants of the Zeus trojan are being used in new Facebook and banking heists, security researchers and law enforcement are warning.

Cyber Monday scam emails hit inboxes

Angela Moscaritolo November 28, 2011

Spammers have begun trying to capitalize on the Cyber Monday buying frenzy.

Most spam subject lines contain fake order, ticket numbers

Angela Moscaritolo November 21, 2011

Most spam messages sent in recent days have been delivered with subject lines containing fake order or ticket numbers, delivery invoices, payment notices or tax information, according to researchers from security firm Websense.

Facebook identifies porn spam perpetrators

Angela Moscaritolo November 18, 2011

The social media giant is "pursuing the appropriate action" against those behind a wave of pornographic content that showed up on users' news feeds this week.

Phishing, the Slim Jim of cybercrime

Stephen Cobb, security evangelist at ESET • November 03, 2011

Phishing is all grown up and operated on a large-scale by well-funded cybercriminals who use botnets to harvest personal data and sell it on the black market.

U.S, Asian nations dominate spam-sender list

Dan Kaplan November 02, 2011

The United States has maintained the dubious distinction of being the world's No. 1 relayer of spam, but Asian countries are catching up quickly.

Phishers aiming for Apple IDs, passwords

Angela Moscaritolo October 31, 2011

Spam that seemingly emanates from Apple is making the rounds with the aim of tricking users into handing over their IDs and passwords, researchers at anti-virus firm Trend Micro said in a blog post Monday.

Industry remembers security heavyweight Schultz

Angela Moscaritolo October 04, 2011

Gene Schultz, who died on Sunday at the age of 65, is remembered as one of the most accomplished and respected professionals in the field of cybersecurity.

FTC settles with SMS marketer over spam allegations

Dan Kaplan September 29, 2011

A California man is barred from delivering unsolicited text messages after he sent "a mind-boggling" amount for many months, under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

Spam's new intent: Zombies

Greg Masters September 01, 2011

Spam levels dropped last year by nearly a third, but owing to new strategies spammers are making more money than ever before.

Affiliate programs: legitimate business or fueling cybercrime?

Bradley Anstis, VP technical strategy, M86 Security August 30, 2011

Going after the financial middlemen, known as affiliate programs, may be the most effective way to eradicate spam. But one must not forget: Some of these services are legitimate.

Rogue AV masquerading as SC Awards 2011 finalist

Angela Moscaritolo July 25, 2011

A new, "significant" malicious spam campaign making the rounds is distributing a rogue anti-virus (AV) program touting itself as a 2011 SC Magazine Awards finalist.

Microsoft offers $250K reward to find Rustock masterminds

Dan Kaplan July 18, 2011

Redmond remains steadfast in its effort to imprison those responsible for one of history's largest botnets.

Google+ users spammed due to disk space overload

Angela Moscaritolo July 11, 2011

Some users of the new social media service Google+ were inadvertently spammed with email notifications this weekend following a technical malfunction on the site. The error occurred during an 80-minute period when Google+, currently in beta, ran out of disk space on a system that keeps track of notifications, Vic Gundotra, a Google senior vice president of engineering, wrote in a Saturday post. "We didn't expect to hit these high thresholds so quickly, but we should have," Gundotra said.

Hackers steal 1.27M email addresses from Washington Post site

Angela Moscaritolo July 08, 2011

Hackers broke into The Washington Post's jobs website late last month and stole approximately 1.27 million user IDs and email addresses, the newspaper disclosed Thursday. No passwords or other personal information was affected. Attackers leveraged a security vulnerability on the site to break in twice, on June 27 and 28. The newspaper has since fixed the flaw and implemented additional unspecified security measures to ensure a similar incident does not recur. Affected individuals may receive an increase in spam and phishing messages as a result of the hack, The Washington Post warned.

Security firm warns of Google+ spam run

Dan Kaplan July 01, 2011

Google+ is barely a few days old, but the criminal element already is capitalizing on users' interest in joining the new social networking service, according to Sophos. Researchers at the security firm have spotted a new campaign in which junk mailers are blasting out pharmacy spam disguised as invites to the online sharing portal. "[C]licking on the links will not take you to the new social network, but instead...to a pharmacy website set up to sell the likes of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra to the unwary," wrote Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a Friday blog post.

Rustock and Coreflood: a call to arms for strategic offensive action

David LaMacchia and Jamie Tomasello, Cloudmark; Jon Praed, founding partner, Internet Law Group May 19, 2011

Two recent botnet takedowns have demonstrated why going on the offensive is a viable way to cleanse compromised computers. But such tactics may set questionable precedents.

In the midst of Bin Laden death, there is malware

David Harley, ESET senior research fellow May 02, 2011

From fake anti-virus to hoaxes, the internet can always serve up more unpleasantness around a dramatic news item.

Number of reported vulnerabilities spiked in 2010

Angela Moscaritolo April 06, 2011

System flaws and exploits dramatically jumped last year, but the news is not all bad, as many of the bugs were discovered by their creators.

Epsilon aftermath reaches Canada

Danny Bradbury April 06, 2011

The massive email hack that compromised records at email service provider Epsilon has hit customers of Canadian retailers and service providers.

A slew of banks, retailers affected by Epsilon email breach

Angela Moscaritolo April 04, 2011

A growing list of companies, including Capital One, U.S. Bank, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, are notifying customers that their email addresses were stolen by hackers.

Texas ringleader of pump-and-dump scam arrested

Angela Moscaritolo March 22, 2011

Federal agents arrested the alleged ringleader of an international securities fraud racket that used hackers, botnet operators and email spam to drive up the value of stocks.