Charlie Sheen's everywhere this week, but the one place you don't want him is in your computer. Cyber criminals and mischief-makers, realizing the actor is getting lots of online clicks as he's featured on websites, videos and even on Twitter and Twitpic, may try to lure you to click on a search engine website link that could prove to be dangerous.
Virus experts are warning that the next big security threat is on mobile phones and that the attacks have begun in earnest.
For months, security researchers have been tracking how hackers were trying to take their exploits to a new platform and infect smartphones with malware that could remotely control the devices.
Most of the viruses spreading across the Internet in China are the work of just 10 illegal but highly sophisticated groups, according to a report by Beijing-based Kingsoft Co.
The report said that more than 30 groups are in fierce competition for a share in the underground virus market, where customers pay the groups to produce and spread the viruses. But it said just 10 had control of 80 percent of the market.
By some accounts Google's Android Market is uploading as many as a thousand new apps per day. That speaks well to the app market's growing popularity but, as with any popular site these days it seems, it's also made Android Market a target of malicious hackers spreading malware that could compromise a user's security and expose personal information.
Experts who have conducted Stuxnet analysis say the malware's emergence last summer reinforced interest in critical infrastructure protection and imprinted targeted attacks against organizations back into the mindset of information security professionals. Stuxnet went after vulnerabilities in process control systems manufactured by Siemens that were running inside an Iranian uranium enrichment center. It is believed to be a joint U.S.-Israel project, according to published reports.
Visitors to the London Stock Exchange's Web site were hit with malicious ads over the weekend, designed to pop up fake security messages on their computers.
The culprit was an online advertisement that was somehow placed on the Unanimis ad network, which is used by the the Web site, a London Stock Exchange spokeswoman said Monday. "We had an advert on the site that linked through to a third-party website that was hosting this malware," she said. She did not know how many people had been served the malicious ad.
Malware creators are devising increasingly sophisticated ways of compromising their targets, as illustrated by the devilishly clever Stuxnet worm, which has been wreaking havoc in Iraq's nuclear facilities over the past few months.
Windows PCs have been under siege for 20 years. What a difference those two decades make.
Back when Windows was young, viruses scampered from system to system, occasionally deleting files -- which could almost always be retrieved -- and putting up dialog boxes with inscrutable contents, like the numeral 1. Nowadays, Windows malware locks up your data and holds it for ransom. It manipulates your PC into launching attacks, mines files for credit card numbers and passwords, and sets nuclear centrifuges to whirl with wild abandon -- nasty stuff.
Avast the anti-virus developer tracked hackers who contaminated some 5m computers when the systems accessed websites users thought were secure. Said Senior Virus Analyst Jiri Sejtko with Avast, the risk was within the known, daily trustworthy areas across the Net that were as routine-like as one's morning coffee. Securecomputing.net.au published this in news on February 21, 2011.
Whac-A-Mole seems like it could be endless fun. Moles pop out of five holes in the arcade game and a soft mallet is used to force them back into the holes to score points.
Children and adults alike could whack the moles for hours at a time. Or at least they could until a worker programmed a virus into the machines to make them shut down after a pre-determined number of plays, Holly Hill police said.
