Linux news

2007 05 15

SPAM Claims New Victims (But Windows Zombies Not Involved, For a Change)

MySpace users snowed in by new blizzard of spam

In the beginning, MySpace was a place to meet new friends and get to know old ones even better by browsing their journals, photos and network of chums. But soon, Viagra marketers, pedophiles and hackers latched onto MySpace and rendered it as ineffective as most other net-based public forums.

http://s5h.net/u?z3803
MySpace has also turned into a malware turf. E-mail SPAM volume/traffic shows no signs of abatement... Related: Hotmail still riddled with spam

Microsoft has admitted that up to 98 per cent of messages sent to Hotmail addresses are spam. [...] The findings will disappoint Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who predicted at the 2004 Davos World Economic Forum that spam would be "eliminated" within two years.

http://s5h.net/u?z5ab8
Zombies infiltrate US military networks

Support Intelligence, the firm whose research on honeynets revealed that the networks of at least 28 Fortune 1000 companies contained malware-infected spam-spewing PCs, has found evidence of bots running behind military networks.

http://s5h.net/u?z4e74
The feds weigh in on Windows security

"The benefits of this move are enormous: Common, secure configurations can help slow botnet spreading, can radically reduce delays in patching, can stop many attacks directly, and organizations that have made the move report that it actually saves money rather than costs money," Paller wrote.

http://s5h.net/u?z77fd
Plusnet servers stuffed by spam

The Sheffield-based outfit is in the process of migrating email to a new £250,000 server platform, but said its current issues were unrelated to the work, which should be completed within two weeks.

http://s5h.net/u?zbeab
Image spam fattens junk mail

The increased size of spam messages, to say nothing of their volume, might result in higher costs for end users forced to up their bandwidth and storage resources.

http://s5h.net/u?zd5e7
Microsoft is the world's biggest cause of zombie remailers

In China, it would take about one and one-half years wages (for the average Chinese) to buy a legitimate copy of Windows Vista. If you could find it here. Microsoft is the biggest cause of zombie remailers in the world, because they make noises, but do not do anything to address the real digital inequities in the world.

http://s5h.net/u?zabcf5
[Australia:] WA infrastructure dept close to e-mail disaster

Western Australia's Department of Planning and Infrastructure (DPI) has revealed its Microsoft Exchange-based e-mail system is suffering frequent outages that are creating a risk of embarrassing public data loss.

http://s5h.net/u?z2ade

http://s5h.net/u?zc9dd
Pump and dump spam comes to Europe

Earlier this month, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had suspended trading in 35 companies that were found to be commonly referenced in pump-and-dump stock email campaigns.

http://s5h.net/u?zae9d
SEC goes after stock spammers, hackers

The SEC action to freeze the assets is the third filed in as many months involving market manipulation schemes conducted through online account intrusions. In the past the SEC has also taken action against individuals who allegedly broke into financial news Web sites or news release services. [...] "When spam clogs our mailboxes, it's annoying. When it rips off investors, it's illegal and destructive," SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement.

http://s5h.net/u?z43d
Spam Made Up 94% Of All E-Mail In December

"The major event in communications security is the emergence of botnets. This has changed the game, the dynamics, and economics of the Internet security marketplace. When the bad guys can now harness more than a million computers around the world and use them to push an increasing amount of attacks, that's a major change."

http://s5h.net/u?z452

http://s5h.net/u?z15929
Botnet 'pandemic' threatens to strangle the net

Cerf estimated that between 100 million and 150 million of the 600 million PCs on the internet are under the control of hackers, the BBC reports.

http://s5h.net/u?z0676