Tag: MALICIOUS

Google Chrome already sports a number of security-minded features, from Incognito mode to a software sandbox which makes exploiting the browser a Herculean task. Now, Google has announced additional protection for Chromium and Chrome users. Built upon the Safe Browsing API, the new feature introduces protection against malicious downloads. If a download link appears in the Safe Browsing ...

Tragedies like the massive earthquake which recently hit Japan are bad enough, and they're compounded online by nefarious types who want to profit from the inevitable increase in search engine queries. It's a common way to trick users into installing malicious programs like fake antivirus or fake system maintenance tools. By getting in quickly on new search terms as the become popular, ...

You may not have heard of G Data, but the German security software developer consistently posts top marks in antivirus tests. Now, we know many of you don't like toolbars, but G Data CloudSecurity for Firefox and Internet Explorer is one that might be good enough to recommend to your friends and family who need help avoiding malware on the Web. CloudSecurity offers functionality much like ...

Over at the Naked Security blog, Sophos Labs' Paul Baccas posted his first encounter with PDF spam using Adobe Reader X -- which Adobe promised would feature an improved set of security features. Baccas was examining a new spam campaign which aims to trick users into opening a malicious PDF, first opening it in Reader 8 and then in Reader X. When opened in the old version, the PDF attack ...

Over at the Lookout Mobile Security blog there's news of a sophisticated new trojan spreading on Android devices. Dubbed Geinimi, the Trojan has been injected into legitimate versions of Android games (primarily) and apps, and distributed via third-party app stores in China. While Lookout isn't certain of Geinimi's intent, the company believes it to be capable of receiving commands from a ...

Once upon a time, rogue antivirus apps were pretty much one-trick ponies. They tried to closely mimic the interfaces we recognize from apps like AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials and use goofily-combined names like Super Windows Antivirus 2010 Gold Pro. However, as Sunbelt reports on their official blog, malware authors are now branching out into other types of bogus apps in order to lure ...

It's a bit more intense reading than Google's Teach Parents Tech series, but Season's Warnings from Trend Micro is definitely something your less-techy friends and family members should read. Trend's guide covers several important topics, like phishing, giveaway scams, and wireless security. While it's only a dozen pages long, there's still plenty of good information inside that will help your ...

Malwarebytes is one of the most trusted and effective tools for removing all kinds of malicious software. Over at the Malwarebytes forums, there's big news today: MBAM 1.5 has been released, and it's faster, smarter, and better than ever. Startup time has been trimmed to just a few seconds and scanning speed improved by as much as 500%. There's also a host of new detection algorithms which allow ...

Panda launched their lightweight Cloud Antivirus app just under a year ago, and it's already received a number of significant updates and improvements. Today, they're announcing the release of Cloud Antivirus 1.3 -- and a few more cool feature additions. Probably the most significant addition is Cloud AV's ability to filter malicious URLs and websites -- regardless of which browser you're ...

A new report from SMobile Systems suggests that almost 20% of the 48,000 apps on the Android Marketplace could be spyware. Now, this is a potential risk -- as in, 20% of apps have functionality that could be likened to spyware. If you've installed apps on an Android smartphone, you'll know that you get a big warning screen that tells you which services and data the app will have access to. ...

Look, Twitter, I know you're busy taking care of things like possible revenue streams and performance glitches, but do you think we could maybe take some time and do something about all the malicious link spam crudding up the joint? When the site redesign was launched a while back, the inclusion of the public stream and trending topics seemed like a good way to show potential Twitter initiates ...

By now, all but the most geriatric Web users know about phishing. Usually it takes the form of a seemingly-official email from a bank or other money-related Web service. Most of the time these attacks are painfully obvious -- but what if you removed the email attack vector? What if you removed those daft give-away URLs? What if the phishing attack was pure, seemingly-benign JavaScript that's ...

Earlier this week, the folks over at Sunbelt noted that Twitter was working on a new feature. While there's nothing posted to blog.twitter.com about the development, it's no secret that their developers have started giving the bird to malicious links. As of now, Twitter's blocking powers are pretty limited. On a good note, the services appears to be tied in to Google's Safe Browsing service. ...

AVG's LinkScanner browser protection isn't a new offering - it's been part of their antivirus protection suite since the release of version 8. Today, however, they have decided to release LinkScanner as a stand-alone plugin so that you can add its protection to your browser even if you don't run AVG as your Windows antivirus app. The concept is similar to Web of Trust (which was one of my ...

Bad news for anyone that utilizes Adobe's Acrobat software, or Adobe reader to view PDF files. A critical vulnerability has been identified that can cause the applications to crash and allow an attacker to control the affected system. All versions from 7 forward on all operating systems are suspected to be at risk. According to the announcement from Adobe, this isn't just a possibility, it's ...