Kill me if you can

This is the name of an amazing documentary shown last night on Channel 4. I could try to describe the circumstances that gave rise to the documentary, but The Guardian does a better job than I could, but I will try a very rough description. Mark, a 16-year-old boy from Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

Spyware and identity theft

Spyware is back in the news with some chilling warnings regarding a vicious keylogger spyware application called CoolWebSearch. This program used to be mostly an annoyance, it is a browser hijacker, which installs dozens of bookmarks to porn sites, changes the home page and continually changes it back, which can Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

French Phishing

I have just received my first phishing email in French. Here it is: Monsieur/Madame le possesseur de carte de crédit MasterCard, Nous sommes désolés de vous informer que nous avons dû bloquer temporairement l’accès à votre carte de crédit pour avoir été avisés qu’il avait été compromis par des personnes Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

Nigerian scams go glurge

This is probably not a Nigerian scam, but I don’t know how else to call it. I received it yesterday, and was struck by the change of tactics from scam writers. People are now better informed and will instantly be suspicious of any offer from dodgy bank officials from Ouagadougou, Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

Cybercrime is on the increase

An article in today’s Guardian warns about the growing dangers of cybercrime. From phishing to eBay fraud, organised crime is increasingly using the internet to promote some criminal activities. Although this is a growing development, there seems to be a certain luddite stream running through these articles. It is almost Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

Pharming the net.

Phishing, you ask? Phishing is soo 2004. Pharming is the latest craze amongst the trendy cybercriminals. Pharming is an attack that resembles a virus, it changes the host files in a computer – files that interpret the URL that you input in the browser. The site then takes you to Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

Attack of the zombies

This sounds like a badly written zombie movie. A man in Scotland is being held under suspicion of keeping a zombie network. A zombie is netspeak for a computer that has been hijacked to produce a certain effect, such as serving spam, serving viruses or sending DoS attacks (denial of Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

New virus hits computers

As usual, Windows computers have been hit with a virus. The Sober-I virus has been hitting Windows machines since yesterday. Apparently it replicates itself using Windows mailing programmes, and sends loads of copies of itself. It also deletes and modifies some files, which compromises Windows systems. I am glad that Read more

By Andres Guadamuz, ago

Spammers convicted!

A jury in Virginia has finally decided the first ever spam prosecution, which has resulted in 9 years jail sentence for Jeremy Jaynes, and $7,500 USD fine for Jessica DeGroot. 9 years? They mean business in Virginia!

By Andres Guadamuz, ago