worm

Storm worm e-mail says U.S. attacked Iran

Recent e-mails stating that the U.S. has already attacked Iran and, in some cases, also offering links to a video purportedly from a soldier, are not to be believed, according to Websense. The security vendor said in an advisory Wednesday that it has linked the provocative e-mails to the Storm worm.

Storm got its name because it first took advantage of a huge winter storm in Northern Europe in early 2007. Since then, it has used a variety of social engineering tricks, including the use of political themes, to get unsuspecting users to open its malicious payload.

This time … Read more

The 404 136: Where Maggie makes her triumphant return to The 404

It's definitely been awhile but we're happy to welcome Maggie Reardon, Senior Writer for CNET News.com, back to the show. Today we talk about waiting in line for useless electronics, beer pong video games, the shaky new PS3 firmware, and Maggie enlightens us on some iPhone alternatives and the benefits of switching to Sprint. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY MAGGIE!!!

EPISODE 136 Download today's podcast

Storm worm version uses China earthquake to lure victims

If you want information about the earthquake in China get it from a news site and not from a link to a video that arrives in your e-mail inbox.

That's the message from the US-CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team) on Thursday.

The group has received reports of a new variant of the Storm worm that targets people interested in the May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people and left 5 million homeless. Some of the e-mails also have subject lines that deal with the Olympic Games that China is hosting.

In the e-mail is a link that … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 711: Cat co-host

Brian Cooley fills in for Molly and Jason (tall order). We also meet his kitten Moneypenny, unfortunately she doesn't say much. Even when we talked about kitten CAPTCHA. Oh well.

--Tom Listen now: Download today's podcast

Episode 711

Version 1.0 of Yahoo’s new platform due later this year http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9928557-80.html?tag=nefd.top

3G iPhone due on June 9, analysts say http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080424/tc_pcworld/145082;_ylt=AiWJ7KalUxL4TjEG6rMYj3AjtBAF

DOD may push back on Apple’s P.A. Semi bid http://eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207401605… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 693: We're not April's Fools

Episode 693

Google does April Fools’: ‘Custom time’ and a Mars trip http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9907571-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Microsoft, Yahoo agree on buyout price http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/01/14FE-april-fool-microsoft-yahoo_1.html

April Fools Day Spam Invades Google http://www.searchenginejournal.com/april-fools-joke-spam-invades-google-news/6637/

No foolin’–Storm worm is back http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9906880-57.html?tag=nefd.only

Windows: A Monopoly Shakes http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/windows_a_monopoly_shakes.html

FORTUNE: Apple 2.0 Analyst: Apple's U.S. consumer market share now 21 percent http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/04/01/analyst-apples-us-consumer-market-share-now-21-percent/… Read more

No April Fools'--Storm worm is back

Don't click on that silly April Fools' Day e-mail, says one security expert.

In a blog, Arbor Networks' Jose Nazario reports that within the last 24 hours he's seeing new releases of the Storm worm designed to take advantage of the first day of April. This new spam campaign is a lure to infect new computers that will become part of the larger Storm worm botnet.

The e-mail body is spartan: the words "Doh! April Fools" followed by a numeric URL. If a user clicks on that URL, the default Internet browser will open to a … Read more

From Storm, with love

The FBI is warning that Valentine's Day e-mails you see this year might be coming not from loved ones, but from the Storm worm botnet. In a press release Tuesday, the FBI warns users to be on the lookout for e-mail that "directs the recipient to click on a link to retrieve the electronic greeting card (e-card). Once the user clicks on the link, malware is downloaded to the Internet-connected device and causes it to become infected and part of the Storm worm botnet."

Dr. Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks said the authors of Storm have launched … Read more

Phishers now leasing the Storm worm botnet

A number of phishing sites have cropped up within the last day using domains previously attributed to the Storm worm botnet. Last fall, Storm was used in a series of pump-and-dump stock spam blasts, including a unique MP3-based spam blast, but researchers at F-Secure don't think the original authors of Storm are necessarily trying something new. F-Secure said Tuesday that "October brought evidence of Storm variations using unique security keys. The unique keys...allow the botnet to be segmented allowing 'space for rent.'" They think phishers are leasing parts of the larger botnet.

F-Secure cites a Halifax … Read more

Predictions for 2008: A massive data meltdown

Remember the panic when the first computer worm hit? We're going to have a crisis like that next year when we get the first data center meltdown, predicted Subodh Bapat, a vice president in the eco-computing team at Sun Microsystems.

"You'll see a massive failure in a year," Bapat said at a dinner with reporters on Monday. "We are going to see a data center failure of that scale."

"That scale" referred to the problems caused by the worm created by Cornell grad student Robert Morris Jr. in 1988. His worm infected … Read more