Posts tagged hackers
Chinese hackers: the root of all evil, or an obvious scapegoat?
Apr 8th
By Claudiu Popa
The Chinese are apparently after our law firms now. They weren’t content to hack Google and the Pentagon. After those hacking attempts on our federal government’s Finance and Treasury Board (considered to have been two of the most secure) departments, denied any wrongdoing.
Claudiu Popa
And now they’ve set their sights on a notoriously low tech industry. But of course, their government vehemently denies it. The nerve! Read the rest of this entry »
Canadians choose WikiLeaks as tech news story of the year
Dec 21st
Julian Assange might be runner-up to Mark Zuckerberg for Time’s venerable Person of the Year, but he is top choice by Canadians as the tech story of the year, according to a new poll.
ITBusiness.ca asked members of Delvinia’s AskingCanadians panel what they thought the top tech story of the year was. We narrowed it down for them to five different choices; WikiLeaks triggers a “cyber war”, Apple releases, Governments threaten BlackBerry ban, Google’s Street View cars steal Wi-Fi data, or Dalai Lama’s computer compromised by Chinese hackers. WikiLeaks was the overwhelming top choice with 52.8 per cent selecting it as story of the year, and Apple’s iPad was the runner-up with 25.6 per cent.
Security Predictions for 2011
Dec 17th
On December 7, we released our MessageLabs Intelligence 2010 Annual Security Report which highlighted the changes in the threat landscape during 2010 and looked ahead to potential trends for 2011. This blog is a snap shot of some of the trends and predictions noted in the report.
Global Spam Trends
In 2011, spam will become more culturally and linguistically diverse. The use of English in spam will fall from approximately 95 per cent of all spam to below 90 per cent driven by economic growth and broadband adoption in emerging economies. For instance, spammers will target Brazil with more than 40 percent of spam in Portuguese. Portuguese and Spanish will become some of the most popular languages used in spam other than English.
It’s mostly tricks not treats with Halloween online ads
Oct 24th
Halloween is drawing near, so the spammers are busy laying out bait in the form of Halloween jackpots, sweepstakes, gift cards, e-cards, personalized gifts, online contests, and even print products and costumes. 
Perhaps this is one of those seasons during which people—both young and old—celebrate with full gusto.
Unfortunately, this type of popular event brings with it a whole host of malicious circumstances on the Internet that people are being enticed to fall for. For it is common knowledge that where people show some vulnerability, spammers are not far behind!
How cyber crooks break CAPTCHAs
Aug 11th
The per centage of spam containing shortened hyperlinks has increased significantly over the last year. As far as spammers are concerned, any tactic that makes it harder to block their spam emails is going to be exploited. These shortened hyperlinks contain reputable and legitimate domains, making it harder for traditional anti-spam filters to identify the messages as spam.
Paul Wood
Analysis in the latest MessageLabs Intelligence Report revealed that URL-shortened spam hit a one day peak of 18 per cent, or 23.4 billion spam emails, on April 30, 2010. This doubled last year’s peak level of 9.3 per cent of spam, or more than 10 billion spam emails, on July 28, 2009.
While botnets are often the source of short URL spam, 28 per cent of this type of spam originated from sources not linked to a known botnet, such as unidentified spam-sending botnets or non-botnet sources such as webmail accounts created using CAPTCHA-breaking tools.
World Cup-related scams
Jul 8th
Buying a fake World Cup ticket isn’t the only scam that awaits the unwary footie fan online. As the tournament in South Africa reaches its climax and excitement mounts in the lead up to the final, fraudsters are continuing to augment their attacks with a variety of World Cup-related email ruses. Supporters will need a sharp defensive line-up to keep them out.
Paul Wood
Despite FIFA’s stringent rules about distribution and resale, there are still World Cup tickets on offer from unauthorized online outlets. Some of these will be old-fashioned touts using new channels to sell tickets at higher than face value. Some will be genuine people who bought tickets and now can’t go, but are unaware of the resale rules (which state that tickets can only be transferred to another named person with FIFA’s permission). And some will be outright fraudulent: the tickets are forgeries or don’t exist at all.
The end result for the ardent fan is the same: they risk flying themselves to South Africa at great expense only to find they are refused permission to the stadium. Read the rest of this entry »
Targeted malware attacks increase around G8 and G20 summits
Jun 24th
Most well-publicized events have accompanying spam runs, like the death of a famous person or large sporting events. Most of you will have seen a news-related e-mail at some point that turned out to be just another spam message trying to sell you a replica watch.
However, some events, though very well-publicized, don’t generate the same kind of rush in the spammers’ world probably because they believe their target audience would not be very interested in the topic, and so would be less likely to fall for any related scams.
Examples of this type of event are the semi-annual G20 summit and the annual G8 summit. These events seem to be of little interest to general spammers. We have not seen any of the usual types of spam referencing it in any way. But even though they are not exploited in the same way as an event like the World Cup, they still do not escape the notice of cyber criminals. Read the rest of this entry »
Canada introduces anti-spam law as spam URLs become pervasive
Jun 9th
The Government of Canada recently re-introduced anti-spam legislation, titled the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act (FISA), in the House of Commons. The goal of the proposed legislation is to deter damaging and deceptive forms of spam and help drive spammers out of the country.
FISA is an important step in the ongoing fight against spam. The May 2010 MessageLabs Intelligence Report indicated that, in Canada, 89.4 per cent of email was spam. The global ratio of spam was 90 per cent.
Analysis revealed that nine out of 10 spam emails now contain a URL link in the message. In May, five percent of all domains found in spam URLs belonged to genuine web sites. Of the most frequently used domain names contained in spam URLS, the top four belong to well-known web sites used for social networking, blogging, file sharing and host other forms of user-generated content. Read the rest of this entry »
Scammers & fraudsters extend Holiday earnings at Haiti’s expense
Jan 19th
As much as consumers look forward to Christmas every year, retailers salivate at the boost in revenue and its positive impact on earnings. No one enjoys the holidays more than criminals however, from petty scammers to organized crime groups whose tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue make up for months of preparation. This year’s windfall stands to be supplemented by an unexpected bonus on account of the Haiti disaster.
There is no shortage to the amount of compassion that such a disaster can bring out in people and the Internet is a great place to reach many, many people. With dozens, perhaps hundreds of individual charities and independent efforts to help Haitian victims, it can be difficult to tell legitimate groups from opportunistic fraudsters. Read the rest of this entry »
The decade of convergence and the (n)ever-changing risk landscape
Jan 6th
A full decade after convergence was hailed as the next big thing, right around the turn of the millennium; this elusive concept is making a comeback. The difference is that we now have a massive infrastructure, a vast audience, and the will to make contact. Indeed 10 years ago, the potential of the Internet to connect people and deliver efficiencies was identified, but the model was unproven and not enough adopters meant an uphill battle for every XML developer, every PDA manufacturer and for eCommerce sites in general. 
Read the rest of this entry »
