TrustedSource

The TrustedSource Research Team is now part of McAfee Research organization. Our researchers will continue to provide insightful blogs here on www.trustedsource.org and also at www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/. Either site will provide you with all the latest blogs from all the global security experts at McAfee Research teams.

Malicious Web Attack Using Executable With facebook.com in Name

March 11st, 2010
Posted by Paula Greve

As we were working through URLs identified as suspicious due to our GTI technology, one of the URLs that presented itself was an average “.com” site that loaded a php. As we processed this – it was interesting to see that this php actually reached out to download a file that ended with the string [...]

McAfee Labs Publishes ‘March Spam Report’

March 10th, 2010
Posted by Dan Sommer

McAfee Labs today published its March Spam Report. This month authors Adam Wosotowsky and Elan Winkler discuss a possible charity scam in France that takes advantage of sympathy for the victims of the Haitian earthquake, examine a “ham campaign” regarding events in Haiti, and look at another fraudulent attempt to connect “lonely women” with victims’ [...]

Chilean Earthquake Spawns Malware

March 10th, 2010
Posted by Shannon Cole

Most of us are familiar with how high profile news events are used for malware distribution. We’ve seen it many times such as with Tiger Woods’ scandal and the earthquake in Haiti. Now the recent earthquake in Chile is used to prey upon unsuspecting folks interested in what’s going on with the post-quake and tsunami. [...]

Targeted Internet Explorer Zero-Day Attack Announced (CVE-2010-0806)

March 10th, 2010
Posted by Craig Schmugar

Earlier today, Microsoft released Security Advisory (981374). This advisory covers CVE-2010-0806, an unpatched vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. This attack appears to be rather targeted at the moment, but as with other unpatched vulnerabilities in the past, this has the potential to explode now that the word is getting out. McAfee Labs is aware of [...]

Apple Announces iPad Availability: Watch Out for Scams!

March 9th, 2010
Posted by Sam Masiello

Last week Apple formally announced the launch date for the Wi-Fi version of its much anticipated new tablet computer, the iPad. As with most events that generate a lot of media and consumer interest, this one also generated curiosity from the spammer community. They wonder how they can leverage this event to steal your sensitive information. Scams [...]

Wiseguys Botnet First in Line for Concert, Sports Tickets

March 5th, 2010
Posted by Francois Paget

We frequently read stories about spammers who can circumvent CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) authentication. Using bot-infected machines, they can create a vast number of random e-mail accounts for spamming purposes. This week, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, revealed the latest use of a botnet-like network with [...]

On Olympics, St. Patrick’s Day, Screensavers, and Wallpaper

February 23th, 2010
Posted by David Marcus

The combination of search engine optimization with sporting and holiday news continues to fascinate me. Oh, and did I mention malware and malicious websites? They always make for interesting bedfellows. The Olympics have been getting massive coverage, of course, and St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner. We can count on these events to provide [...]

Valentine’s Day Searches Lead to Malware

February 10th, 2010
Posted by David Marcus

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…malware! It’s like clockwork, ain’t it? A popular holiday–such as Valentine’s Day–approaches and malware authors and cybercriminals ready for it. I have done some Valentine’s Day searches for poisoned terms and found some nasty ones very quickly. Screensavers and ecards are always popular: Even Rolex watches on Valentine’s Day are not safe: Some [...]

McAfee Labs Quarterly Threat Report Posted

February 9th, 2010
Posted by David Marcus

Today we unveiled our Threats Report for the fourth quarter of 2009. It highlights many of the most significant spam-generating stories in 2009 as well as the rise of political hacktivism in countries such as Poland, Latvia, Denmark, and Switzerland. The report’s findings also reveal that 2009 averaged approximately 135.5 billion spam messages per day; [...]

Dave Marcus: Ready for an Oscar

February 8th, 2010
Posted by Shane Keats

As a rule, we don’t do product plugs on this blog for obvious reasons. This is the place for research and data on threats and responses. But we’re going to make an exception to bring you a video from Dave Marcus, the guy who keeps the McAfee Labs blog running, and runs a couple dozen [...]

Protecting Privacy by Design

February 2nd, 2010
Posted by Ben Edelman

This guest post was written by Benjamin Edelman, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and an advisor to McAfee. Last week I revealed troubling transmissions by the Google Toolbar: Even when a user specifically “disable[s]” the Google Toolbar, and even when the Toolbar disappears from view, the Toolbar continues tracking users online behavior—including specific web [...]

Hackers Disrupt European CO₂ Market

February 2nd, 2010
Posted by Francois Paget

In recent weeks, various cybercrime attacks have disrupted the computer systems that allow nations to manage their national greenhouse-gas emissions quotas and their possession of carbon assets according to international agreements (the Kyoto Protocol and the European system). One quota is the right to emit the equivalent of one ton of carbon dioxide during a specified period. The [...]

Be careful on help files

February 2nd, 2010
Posted by Shinsuke Honjo

The other day, I came across a malware that attempts to hide its infection not in that technical but in the very unique way. “Muster” is a family of backdoor which has been using help files for hiding themselves. The help files or “.hlp” files are data files designed to be viewed with Microsoft WinHelp browser [...]

Scams Take Advantage of Haiti Relief Efforts

January 22nd, 2010
Posted by Sam Masiello

Never is the heartless nature of cybercriminals more apparent than in the wake of a tragedy. As relief efforts continue and worldwide aid pours in to help those affected by the earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12, cybercriminals have not slowed their efforts. They are eager to get you to donate money that the people [...]

Patch Released for Recent Microsoft Zero Day (CVE-2010-0249)

January 21st, 2010
Posted by Craig Schmugar

Microsoft has released Security Bulletin MS10-002, regarding Internet Explorer vulnerabilities. In addition to patching the flaw exposed by Operation Aurora, the company released patches for seven other vulnerabilities. We are aware of reports of private CVE-2010-0249 exploits impacting Internet Explorer 7 and 8 (though these are mitigated with ASLR and DEP). Historically, the odds of private exploits [...]

Previous Entries

McAfee Research Blog