malware

Data from a Czech security firm showed that a big slice of infected PCs fall upon machines on Windows XP.

Last week Avast Software released its report that reveals that Windows XP machines are disproportionally infected with rootkits.

Having a 58% share of all Windows systems used XP accounts for 74% of the rootkit infected PCs, says Avast.

In comparison, Windows 7 machines make up only 12% of infected PCs.

In the course of a mass iFrame injection attack, nearly 100,000 web pages for e-commerce sites on the open source OS Commerce platform were compromised with malware, reports security firm Armorize.

As estimated the attacks appear to come from Ukraine and they aim to infect the websites with malware to further attack visitors to these e-commerce websites, says Wayne Huang, chief technology officer at Armorize.

An online scam scheme sends junk email messages telling people that a hotel has mistakenly charged their credit card with a wrong payment. The result of being victimized is an infected PC.

According to reports the messages appeared on the net in recent days and so far there are hundreds of versions already. The main theme is: A hotel wrongly charged a credit card number and the victim is supposed to fill out an attached form to process the refund.

Cyber security experts found a new version of ZeuS Trojan that targets Android users to steal their money from their banking accounts, reports ThreatPost. The malware intercepts SMS messages which are sent to log into online banking cabinets.

The number of Android malware increased 10 times since the beginning of the year, shows recent stats.

Meantime, the number of criminal schemes using ZeuS has also increased since March when the initial code appeared online.
 

Kaspersky Lab has developed an app for the iPhone to allow users to fight blocker programs that restrict the access to PCs and through racketeering require to pay for being unlocked. Kaspersky Deblocker provides users with the code to get rid of the blocking banner without paying any money to cyber criminals. The app can be downloaded from the App Store.

A user of Bitcoin open-source virtual currency project claimed that his 25,000 Bitcoins, technically valued at close to $500,000, had mysteriously been transferred to an unknown user's account. Owners of the project cannot verify or disclaim these allegations.

Allinvain speculated the thieves made off with the windfall after using malware to compromise his Windows-based computer.

"I just woke up to see a very large chunk of my bitcoin balance gone," the user wrote. "I feel like killing myself now."

New updates have been released by Adobe to patch Reader PDF and Flash animation applications. The patches fix the flaws widely used by hackers to penetrate and take control of end user machines.

In the latest patch Adobe fixes a serious bug in Flash that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code on machines that run the software, and there are reports it's being actively exploited, Adobe said.

Microsoft reported that its February security update for Windows XP and Vista has reduced the AutoRun abusing malware infection rates by as much as 82%.

In February Microsoft offered optional update to XP and Vista users, later it was changed to automatically download and install. The update was meant to disable AutoRun.

On Windows 7 system Microsoft changed AutoRun’s behavior to block automatic execution of files on a USB drive.

According to the report provided by Sophos Naked Security blog a new phony anti-virus scam is infecting machines on the Internet in the guise of a Microsoft update. The fake Microsoft pop-up appears only on PCs using Firefox browser.

Sophos says that infected in drive-by downloads from compromised sites receive the scareware that appears as urgent update notifications. These updates are fake and only come to affected machines that use Firefox. Authentic updates from Microsoft come only through the Internet Explorer.

DrWeb anti-virus software provider compiled a report of the most interesting malware for April. Android OS related viruses turned to be the most popular platform for malicious applications among hackers.

Osama bin Laden’s death is widely used today by hackers to lure unwitting people into installing malware. The tricks work because people want to see the photos of a dead Al Qaeda leader, but the alleged pictures of bin Laden’s corps are in fact malicious, warned the FBI.

"It's not really surprising," said Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer of Helsinki-based F-Secure. "We were expecting to see related malware."

New malware is circulating on the Internet that infects Mac machines and tries to trick users into giving away their credit card data. According to Intego the malicious app called MacDefender hides on some webpages that use search engine optimization to spam the results of popular searches. On such infected websites users can see animation of a malware scam followed by a pop-up message telling users that their computer is infected. JavaScript on the page then automatically downloads a compressed ZIP file containing the malware.

Money obtained through phishing in the United States go to China, says the statement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hackers who obtain money from compromised business computers wire them afterwards to Chinese companies located near the Russian border. The FBI says that while various attacks are used, the notice identifies ZeuS, Backdoor.bot and Spybot as the fraudsters’ favorite malware.

Intermediary accounts in New York are typically used as staging points for the final transfer.

Now Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool can detect and clean the fourth-biggest threat in automated program's history, which dates back to at least 2005.

Growing power of Chinese cyber facilities is posing a great concern for the United States, the top intelligence official told a Senate panel.

"The Chinese have made a substantial investment in this area, they have a very large organization devoted to it and they're pretty aggressive," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"This is just another way in which they glean information about us and collect on us for technology purposes, so it's a very formidable concern," he said.