Trend Micro
Global Secure Systems are an authorised reseller for Trend Micro and are the UK's largest privately owned and most experienced IT security organisation.
Our award-winning solutions (including Trend Micro) have been helping businesses secure their data and achieve regulatory compliance since the mid-nineties by providing cutting-edge technology alongside accredited consultancy and testing services. GSS has a single aim; information assurance. delivered.
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About Trend Micro
With over two decades of expertise in Endpoint, Messaging and Web Security, Trend Micro provides individuals, and organisations of all sizes, with smarter security solutions that protect against a wide range of insidious threats and combined attacks including viruses, spam, phishing, spyware, botnets and other Web threats, such as data-stealing malware.
Trend Micro develops, delivers, and supports proactive solutions designed to safeguard critical information and protect personal and corporate reputations. As an industry leader in security intelligence, Trend Micro’s mission is to secure the exchange of digital information by providing the most flexible and customisable Internet Content Security solutions available.
Continuous innovation, including new behavior-based technologies and managed services, and enhancements to our traditional products that offer comprehensive secure content management solutions such as antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, anti-phishing, content filtering, information leakage prevention, and compliance capabilities.
Continuous growth - with new programs and deepened engagements with valued channel and technology development partners we will continue to seek new avenues for extending our expertise into new markets and new ways of serving our customers.
Continuous leadership in core markets such as messaging and Web security, and expert knowledge to provide customers guidance on managing security issues in the current environment.
Continuous commitment to stay one step ahead of new threats and provide our customers with the freedom to use their computers as they desire without worrying about protecting their systems and data against a growing range of Web threats.
Trend Micro Products
Protect your desktops, laptops, servers, storage appliances, and smartphones - on and off the network - with an innovative blend of world-class anti-malware and in-the-cloud protection from Trend Micro Smart Protection Network. New File Reputation frees endpoint resources by moving pattern files into the cloud. And Web Reputation blocks access to malicious websites. A flexible plug-in architecture, new Device Control, HIPS functionality, virtualization, and extended platform support all help lower management costs and increase flexibility.
Prevent viruses from spreading through your network by blocking them at the storage subsystem. Trend Micro ServerProtect for EMC Celerra detects and removes virus from files and compressed files in real time. ServerProtect delivers 24x7 antivirus support and protection with automatic, incremental virus updates. Centralized management of servers via a Web-based console simplifies network protection.
Protect your Linux file servers from becoming unwitting hosts for viruses, trojans, bots and a full range of other malware. Trend Micro Server Protect for Linux offers real-time protection, high performance and low processing overhead, and supports all common Linux distributions. Server Protect for Linux adds another powerful solution to your enterprise's security and compliance strategy.
Prevent viruses from spreading through your network by blocking them before they reach the end user. Trend Micro ServerProtect for Microsoft Windows and Novell NetWare scans, detects and removes virus from files and compressed files in real time. ServerProtect delivers 24x7 antivirus support and protection with automatic, incremental virus updates. Centralised management of servers via a Web-based console simplifies network protection.
Prevent viruses from spreading through your network by blocking them at the storage subsystem. Trend Micro ServerProtect for Network Appliance filers safeguards your file storage systems with single or multiple scans in real time. Automatic, incremental virus updates and centralized management of servers via a Web-based console simplify network protection.
Trend Micro Deep Security provides advanced protection for servers in the dynamic datacenter, whether physical, virtual or in the cloud. Brought to Trend Micro through the acquisition of Third Brigade, Deep Security combines intrusion detection and prevention, firewall, integrity monitoring and log inspection capabilities in a single, centrally managed software agent.
Trend Micro Email Encryption Gateway provides policy-based encryption to protect intellectual property and to help achieve regulatory compliance. Enterprise gateway encryption augments email security by providing policy-based encryption and integration with messaging security infrastructure.
Trend Micro Email Encryption efficiently secures email delivered to anyone with an email address. Client-based encryption allows the end user to select which emails should be encrypted by merely clicking a button on the desktop.
Protect your Internet gateway, mail and file servers, desktops, laptops, and mobile devices with this fully integrated, centrally managed security solution. Multilayered security provides maximum protection from viruses, spyware, spam and blended threats, including web-based attacks.
Choose a single, integrated solution to protect mail servers, file servers, desktops, and laptops against viruses, spyware, spam, phishing, inappropriate content, and blended threats. Enterprise Security for Endpoints and Mail Servers minimises complexity and lowers your costs with centralised management, broad platform support, and flexible configuration options.
Protect your desktops, laptops, servers, and smartphones - on and off the network - with an innovative blend of world-class anti-malware and in-the-cloud protection from Trend Micro Smart Protection Network. New File Reputation frees endpoint resources by moving pattern files into the cloud and Web Reputation blocks access to malicious websites. A flexible plug-in architecture, new Device Control, HIPS functionality, virtualization, and extended platform support all help lower management costs and increase flexibility and deliver industry-best protection from today's threats.
Email, instant messaging, and collaboration systems connect your employees, partners, and customers, but they also open doors for cyber-criminals. In this real-time environment, attackers can spread malware, hijack systems, and steal data in a flash. To prevent this instant exposure, instant protection is critical.
Keep your data confidential and your employees safe while interacting with rich Internet content. Trend Micro Enterprise Security for Gateways integrates virtualized web and messaging gateway security - proven to maximise protection while minimising complexity and lowering total cost up to 40 percent.
Trend Micro Mobile Security protects smartphones and PDAs from data loss, infections, and attacks from a central enterprise console that can also manage desktop protection. Encryption and authentication defends data integrity on lost or stolen devices. The anti-malware features block viruses, worms, Trojans, and SMS text message spam. Built-in firewall and IDS protects against hackers, intrusions, and denial-of-service attacks - potential threats to the increasing number of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices.
Trend Micro Product Families
With over two decades of expertise in Endpoint, Messaging and Web Security, Trend Micro provides individuals, and organisations of all sizes, with smarter security solutions that protect against a wide range of insidious threats and combined attacks including viruses, spam, phishing, spyware, botnets and other Web threats, such as data-stealing malware.
Trend Micro Industry News
International body ICSPA to fight cybercrime globally The International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA) has been set up to fight cybercrime on a global scale. Launched in London on Tuesday, the new body unites governments, international businesses and law enforcement agencies, including Europol. Major security companies such as McAfee and Trend Micro have also signed up. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has welcomed the alliance."Our government has already injected an additional &......
[more] Trend Micro spots Android malware acting as SMS relay A Trend Micro security researcher claims to have discovered a new type of malware infection on the Google Android platform that acts as an SMS (text message) relay. According to Mark Balanza, the security vendor's threats analyst, the new type of Android malware - unlike previous Android-specific threats he and his team have seen - does not piggyback on legitimate Android apps. Once installed, he says, ANDROIDOS_CRUSEWIN displays a blank wind......
[more] Trend Micro takes aim at stealthy hackers stealing secrets Trend Micro says it can catch hackers in action breaking into networks and trying to steal secrets with a new line of line of network-analysis tools and security services. Branded Real-Time Threat Management Solutions, Trend Micro's approach includes network appliances monitor network traffic for telltale signs of hacker entry or malware, such as outbound botnet traffic calling back to its master control point. One appliance, called the......
[more] Hotmail and Yahoo users also victims of targeted attacks Web mail users at Yahoo and Hotmail have been hit with the same kind of targeted attacks that were disclosed earlier this week by Google, according to security software vendor Trend Micro. Trend Micro described two similar attacks against Yahoo Mail and Windows Live Hotmail in a blog post, published Thursday. "It's an ongoing issue for more than just Gmail," said Nart Villeneuve, a senior threat researcher with Trend Micro. Ville......
[more] Scammers take advantage of ticket allocation to craft Olympics scams Fraudsters have begun ramping up the production of scams ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games in London next July. The ticket allocation lottery process has been accompanied by two email-borne scams, with more surely to follow, Trend Micro warns. The first of the scam messages comes with a .DOC attachment that asks for personal information such as mobile number, PIN number, and security code among others. The use of an attachment is......
[more] EU admits deep impact cyberattack in run-up to key summit The EU has admitted to having been hit by a deep, penetrating cyber-attack. The admission comes days before an EU summit on economic strategies and the conflict in Libya are due to top the agenda. Official details on the attack are scant. Eurocrats would only say that the Commission and External Action Service had been hit by an attack along the same lines as a recent assault on France's finance ministry in December, which, in turn, came......
[more] What cloud security really means You can look at cloud security in two ways. For customers, cloud security means facing down added uncertainty and risk -- whether you're talking about the public or the private cloud, data moves across virtual machines and shared resources, increasing exposure. For vendors, on the other hand, cloud security means a massively scalable architecture to ramp up security technology in the endless war on threats. Eva Chen, CEO of Trend Micro, makes it her business to a......
[more] Companies scramble to tame the wild endpoint A failure to gather adequate information on endpoint devices is the top security concern for a third of firms, according to a survey of IT managers and chief security officers. The survey, conducted by Zogby on behalf of IBM and supporting Big Blue's announcement of a number of endpoint management products and strategies, found that 90 percent of companies planned to purchase new technologies to help them better manage their endpoints. A major proble......
[more] Next-generation banking malware emerges after Zeus The rumored combination of two pieces of advanced online banking malware appears to be fully underway after several months of speculation. What appears to be a beta version of a piece of malware that has bits of both Zeus and SpyEye is now in circulation, albeit among just a few people, said Aviv Raff, CTO and cofounder of Seculert. Seculert has published screen shots of the new malware, which has two versions of a control panel used for managin......
[more] Lush hackers cash in on stolen cards Cyber thieves are cashing in after stealing credit cards in a hack attack on the website of cosmetics firm Lush. The online shop was shut down on 21 January and its home page replaced with a message revealing the attack. Lush said anyone who placed an online order between 4 October and 20 January should contact their bank in case their card details had been compromised. Many Lush customers have reported that their cards have been used fraudulently.Comments po......
[more] Trend Micro cloud protection boost for Android devices Security vendor Trend Micro has launched an update to its Mobile Security application designed to protect the growing number of Android powered smartphones and mobile devices from cyber attacks. Mobile Security for Android offers users a ‘safe surfing' feature designed to protect against phishing attacks and fraudulent web sites. A recent study by security firm Trusteer found that mobile users were much more vulnerable to such threats......
[more] Hack attack on Gawker spawns Twitter spam An attack on online gossip site Gawker Media has enabled spammers to take over thousands of Twitter accounts. Gawker said on Sunday its servers had been hacked and 1.3 million user account passwords compromised. A file containing those details was then published on a file-sharing site by a group allied to the notorious image board 4Chan. That enabled spammers to break into thousands of Twitter accounts where users had used the same passwords.Gawker publi......
[more] Trend Micro warns of targeted attacks in 2011 Trend Micro is the latest security vendor to release its predictions for 2011, saying unsurprisingly that more of the same is on the way, with social engineering, highly targeted attacks and use of the web as the primary channels for delivery. The security vendor is predicting fewer attacks focused on planting malicious code onto legitimate web sites in 2011, and more malware email campaigns. These typically use social engineering techniques, such as......
[more] Trend Micro issues virtualisation security warning Attacks targeted at datacentres and virtualised environments could represent the next vanguard of threats if cyber criminals begin to shift their attention away from the increasingly well secured desktop, according to security experts. Trend Micro chief technology officer Raimund Genes told V3.co.uk that, despite the many benefits of cloud computing, the back-end virtual infrastructures of many clouds are potentially at risk. "If the deskto......
[more] Trend Micro Boosts Encryption With Mobile Armor Acquisition Trend Micro is making inroads in the mobile space and expanding its data protection portfolio with the acquisition of mobile encryption company Mobile Armor. The deal, signed Monday, will give the Tokyo-based security company another layer of security that will be increasingly relevant as more customers move their IT infrastructure to the cloud and mobile space. The technology garnered from the acquisition will provide encryption on a......
[more] 'How do we make sure we are secure at every step?': Q&A with Eva Chen, Trend Micro Gary Flood talks to Eva Chen, CEO and co-founder of security firm Trend Micro, about the changing face of the security market. Many of our readers will be familiar with your brand, but in your own words, what is Trend Micro all about?We are the world's largest independent security software company, and have been involved in computer-based and information security for 21 years. Right now we are looking at how s......
[more] Malware Infecting Other Malware Can Complicate Antivirus Detection Malware infected with other malware can make life more complicated for antivirus programs. Malware authors don't always get along - in fact, there have been a number of instances where attackers target each other. But sometimes, malware infecting malware can be a good thing for attackers. According to Trend Micro Threat Response Engineer Roland Dela Paz, there has been an uptick of this kind of activity, which he called "hyb......
[more] UK among the top spammers in Europe The UK is among the top 10 western European countries for sending malicious spam, according to the latest threat report from Trend Micro. The report found that 9.77 per cent of spam messages originate in the UK. The most frequently sent type of message is commercial or advertising spam offering work from home schemes or weight loss treatments, for example. Weight loss offers account for a quarter of all scam mails, while 'business opportunities' account for ar......
[more] Trend Micro releases free Stuxnet detection tool Trend Micro has released a tool that administrators can use to scan dozens of computers at a time for Stuxnet, the malicious software program that has raised widespread concern for its targeting of industrial systems made by Siemens. Trend Micro's security products will detect Stuxnet, but the company decided to build a tool that would let other people not using its products detect the malware, said David Sancho, a senior researcher with Trend Mic......
[more] Trend Micro expert warns that cloud data can move under its own volition The economic imperative that is driving many organisations to store their data in the cloud is an understandable one, but now a security expert has warned about the ability of cloud-based data "to get up and move on its own." According to Dan Crowe, a product marketing manager with Trend Micro, there is a problem with cloud data and its propensity - usually driven by the cloud service provider's automatic replicat......
[more] UK web sites to blame for spam epidemic One in 10 UK web firms is sending unsolicited email to customers, contributing to a spam landscape that is spiralling out of control, according to spam monitoring firm Spam Ratings. The firm's 12-month study of 10,000 web sites and 150,000 emails found that spam has increased dramatically, and that the main source of the messages is web sites. The volume of spam coming from web sites rose by 110 per cent between October 2009 and September 2010, according t......
[more] Son of Zeus can sneak past antivirus controls The latest Trojan horse proves difficult to rein in. Trend Micro has reported that a new variant of the Zeus Trojan is unlikely to be detected by conventional antivirus applications. In fact, it has proved to be virtually undetectable. The Zeus Trojan has proved to be a persistent threat and was responsible for the recent £6 million (AU$9.7 million) theft from UK bank accounts by an international gang. This latest evolution of the Trojan means......
[more] Detecting source rather than code is key, says Trend Micro From their Silicon Valley office, David Perry, global education director of Trend Micro, told Infosecurity that it's no longer sufficient to detect code, but instead, it's more productive to detect the source of the code. "Organised crime is now commercially produced. The bad guys are trying to break our methods of protection, and one virus has turned into a criminal enterprise of many components. We can no longer focus on detectin......
[more] Poisoned Angelina flick hits torrents Cybercrooks have begun using booby-trapped QuickTime files to infect internet pirates' computers. Malicious files posing as the recent Angelina Jolie film Salt are now available on file sharing networks. When users attempt to view these poisoned downloads a prompt is generated offering to download "update codecs" - actually fake files loaded with Trojan horse malware. At first the attack was thought to rely on an unpatched flaw in QuickTime, but Apple told......
[more] Microsoft schedules emergency Windows patch for Monday Microsoft today said it will issue an emergency patch for the critical Windows shortcut bug on Monday, August 2. The company said it is satisfied with the quality of the "out-of-band" update -- Microsoft's term for a patch that falls outside the usual monthly delivery schedule -- but also acknowledged that it has tracked an upswing in attacks. "In the past few days, we've seen an increase in attempts to exploit the vulnerability,"......
[more] Social Networking Weakens Enterprise Security A new study finds that the use of social networking in the workplace has risen from 19% in 2008 to 24% in 2010, with the biggest surges coming in Germany and Britain. That finding comes from a Trend Micro survey of 1,600 people who regularly use the Internet at work, drawn equally from Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Using social networking tools at work isn't the only quasi-personal-time activity on the rise. Comparing t......
[more] Online crims not just 'speccy geeks', researchers warn Misconceptions about the nature of cybercrime are affecting the fight against online economic skulduggery. Widespread beliefs that e-crooks are likely to be either "geeks with glasses" or digital pranksters are well wide of the mark, according to researchers from Trend Micro, which reckons the majority of cybercrooks would be indistinguishable from the man in the street. Cybergangs are located around the world. Russia, the Ukraine and China......
[more] Trend Micro calls for stronger banking authentication Security vendor Trend Micro has warned of a new botnet doing the rounds in Belgium, which was being used to steal the log-in credentials of online share trading platforms in order to manipulate stock prices. Referencing an article in Belgian newspaper De Tijd, Trend Micro's senior security advisor Rik Ferguson, explained that the bot infected the PCs of customers of the the banks Dexia, KBC and Argenta between April and May 2007.Having stole......
[more] Fifa World Cup spam strikes again Security vendor Trend Micro is warning users of yet another spam campaign using the forthcoming Fifa World Cup 2010 tournament as its bait. The unsolicited mail in question carries a .PDF file attachment which containing details about a lottery which the recipient allegedly won. It also instructs the recipient to give out personal information and send them to the contact person or email sender before the prize can be claimed. "What was interesting about th......
[more] Scammers capitalizing on tax season to spread Zeus Cybercriminals have been capitalizing on tax season by sending messages that appear to come from the Internal Revenue Service but actually lead to the data-stealing trojan Zeus, researchers at anti-virus firm Trend Micro warned Thursday. The messages ask users to follow a link and review their tax statement to fix errors related to unreported or under-reported income, according to Trend Micro. The URL leads users to a variant of Zeus, which ste......
[more] Security companies warn of uptick in new IE attack Criminals are stepping up their attacks leveraging an unpatched flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, using it to install fake antivirus products and malicious back doors on victim's computers. Microsoft first warned of the bug on March 9, saying that it had been used in "targeted attacks." But now, according to researchers, the exploits are much more widespread. By late last week, security vendor AVG was getting reports of......
[more] Trend Micro updates hosted email security platform Trend Micro today announced a new version of its Hosted Email Security Platform, which is designed to deliver cost-effective protection against mail-borne threats and malware. "Email security is mission-critical for our customers," said Trend Micro small business product marketing manager, James Walker. "Trend Micro's new Hosted Email Security 2.0 ensures customers receive 100 per cent service uptime, effective spam blocking and zero email......
[more] Safer Internet Day fights online foolhardiness Young surfers are being encouraged to practise safe computing and use common sense online on Safer Internet Day today. Safer Internet Day is a worldwide user education initiative designed to "promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people". The official theme of 2010's event is "Think B4 U post!", as explained on EU organisation Insafe's website here: http://www.saferintern......
[more] Valentine's Day spam starts to appear Valentine's Day still is nearly two weeks away, but the lover's holiday is already attracting the attention of the web's criminal element. Researchers at Trend Micro said they have spotted two spam campaigns - one promoting a fake gift card promotion, the other counterfeit watches - in the wild. Maria Alarcon, an anti-spam engineer, said in a blog post that as Valentine's Day nears, internet users should expect the scams to get more malevolent. "Every speci......
[more] Europe's spam war hits stalemate Europe's ISPs are just about holding their own against the global spam barrage, a Europe-wide report has found. Put another way, things are not getting better, but are not getting any worse either. Judging from the 2009 ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) spam survey of ISPs across 27 EU states, ISPs spend substantial sums trapping spam before it gets to the end user, mainly because they have to to keep customers. Small providers spend at l......
[more] Cybercrooks getting bolder experts warn Online crime could become more direct and aggressive in the coming months, according security experts. In its annual Future Threat Report, security firm Trend Micro suggested that an increasingly crowded underground market could push cybercriminals to adopt new and more aggressive approaches to parting users and their money. Specifically, Trend suggested that bank accounts themselves will be increasingly targeted. Rather than steal payment information or......
[more] Koobface-like worm targets Skype users Security experts have warned Skype users that new malware similar to the infamous Koobface worm that caused havoc on Facebook is now targeting the popular IP telephony service. Trend Micro said that it detected the Koobface-like variant as TROJ_VILSEL.EA, a piece of malware designed to steal contact lists, phone numbers, locations and other information that forms part of a Skype profile.
"It is also capable of using Skype's built-in instant messaging capab......
[more] Phishing emails featuring Trend Micro logos discovered Phishing emails that claim to come from vendor Trend Micro have been detected. The emails feature the subject line ‘malware blocking tests put Trend Micro on top', and proceed to "inform" users about recent NSS Labs tests which found that new reputation-based anti-virus systems are doing a better job of blocking malicious software than their predecessors. In the tests, Trend Micro's software improved by 23 per cent with the system active. H......
[more] Zeus botnet pushes fake MySpace update Spam has been detected as being sent from the Zeus botnet that prompts users to update their MySpace account. Trend Micro senior security advisor Rik Ferguson claimed that the spam is similar to the Facebook-related spam seen last week, with the user ‘required to update' their MySpace account with a link provided. Ferguson said: "The link in the mail leads to a standard fake MySpace login page, so of course your account details are stolen. Once you have &l......
[more] Trend Micro CEO: hackers hitting AV infrastructure It's become an all-too-common scam: A legitimate Web site pops up a window that looks just like a real security warning. It says there's something wrong with the computer, and click here to fix it. A few clicks later, the victim is paying out US$40 for some bogus software, called rogue antivirus. Rogue AV scams have become a big problem in recent months, but according to Trend Micro CEO Eva Chen, it's part of a more sinister, strategic attack o......
[more] New Halloween-themed spam just the first fright With Halloween nearing, users should be on alert for spam and other attacks exploiting the holiday, and experts expect social network websites to serve as a major vector this year. So far, one Halloween-themed spam campaign offers readers the opportunity to earn money from home, according to anti-virus vendor Trend Micro.
"Happy Halloween!" the message reads. "Make it even sweeter with some EXTRA CASH in your candy bag!"
The message contains a lin......
[more] Commentary: Microsoft can help kill fake antivirus threat Earlier this week, Symantec revealed that 42 million fake antivirus applications were downloaded last year. It seems consumers are being duped into paying between $30 and $100 for software that basically hands full control of their computer over to cybercriminals. The problem, according to Symantec, is that it's almost impossible for a consumer to tell the difference between a legitimate security application and a fake one. There is also......
[more] Rivals mock Microsoft Security Essentials download Although one of the top consumer security vendors welcomed Microsoft's Security Essentials to the market, another dismissed the new free software as a "poor product" that will "never be up to snuff." Earlier today, Microsoft launched Security Essentials, its free antivirus and antispyware software suite, which has been in development for almost a year.
"I think it's a good thing that they're in the market," said Carol Carpenter, the general man......
[more] Malware lingers months on infected PCs Malware stays around on infected PCs far longer than previously thought, according to the latest research from Trend Micro. Previous estimates suggested that a compromised machine remains infected for approximately six weeks. Based on an analysis of around 100 million compromised IPs, Trend Micro concludes that many infected IPs are infected (or repeatedly infected) for more than two years, with a median infection length of 300 days. Four in five compromis......
[more] Trend Micro slims down anti-virus systems Security vendor Trend Micro is looking to launch an anti-virus suite designed to keep computers running smoothly while still protecting them from malware. The company said that Internet Security 2010 will reduce the footprint of anti-virus software, allowing systems to run faster and with fewer interruptions. Erik Hutslar, director of consumer product management at Trend Micro, explained that the move addresses a common complaint that anti-virus softwar......
[more] Trend Micro revamps threat resource site Anti-malware vendor Trend Micro has revamped its online threat resource centre to include new free tools designed to boost security and provide IT staff with greater visibility into the threat landscape. The TrendWatch site has had a complete redesign to offer information on current threat activities, educational videos and threat analysis reports, according to the firm.>New to the site is VM Protection, a free software tool designed to help enterpris......
[more] Total eclipse used to bait scareware scam Wednesday's total solar eclipse over India and China has been exploited as a bait for sites punting scareware. Miscreants are using black hat search engine trickery to point geographically-confused users towards websites peddling rogue antivirus software, as explained in an illustrated advisory by Trend Micro. A search term associated with the attack "Solar Eclipse 2009 in America" might appear confusing at first, because the century's longest......
[more] Phone Trojan 'has botnet features' A piece of mobile malware has the capacity to enable a hacker to build a botnet of phones, according to security vendor Trend Micro. The Symbian Trojan, which Trend Micro detects as SYMBOS_YXES.B, poses as a legitimate application called ACSServer.exe and calls itself 'Sexy Space'. It steals the user's subscriber, phone and network information, and connects to a website to send that information back to a hacker. It can also target the victim's contacts with sp......
[more] AV vendors fight 'scareware' with new whitelist Security vendors have decided to take on the plague of bogus anti-virus software circulating on the Internet by creating a public list of legitimate vendors and programs. Run from the website of the Common Computing Security Standards Forum (CCSS), an organisation set up in March of this year by by Comodo CEO and chief security architect, Melih Abdulhayoglu, the purpose is to give ordinary Internet users something with which to check programs and......
[more] Trend spots hole with VMware anti-virus Trend Micro is today expected to announce anti-malware software specifically designed for Windows-based protection in virtual-machine environments based on VMware's ESX, ESXi and vSphere. Trend Micro Core Protection for VMware, slated to ship next month, will make use of VMware's VMsafe application programming interfaces to scan VMs as well as integrate with VMware's management console, vCenter. "The Core anti-malware runs separately in the guest ope......
[more] Twitter Malware Attack Targets Both Mac and PC Why hit one OS with malware when you can hit two? That is the question. The situation is this: The Twitter account of well-known venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki was hacked and used to send out tweets luring users to a site hosting malware. According to Trend Micro, the malware changes the DNS settings of Windows and Mac machines. If Mac users attempt to view the promised pornographic video on the site, they will download a malicious file. "Fo......
[more] Fake Microsoft "critical update" spam propagating trojan A new outbreak of spam claims to be a critical update for Microsoft Outlook, but the message really aims to infect users with the information-stealing trojan ZBot, security firm Trend Micro warned this week. First detected on Friday, the message reads: “This update is critical and provides you with the latest version of Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express and offers the highest levels of stability and security.” The email instru......
[more] Preventing data loss - what's needed Though there are plenty of tools to help businesses shore up data, the lack of policy standards makes the task more difficult than it should be, says Quocirca's Bob Tarzey. The UK's MPs may rue the day a disk listing details of their expenses was leaked to the Daily Telegraph from the House of Commons Fees Office earlier this year, but they were going to be made public at some point anyway, courtesy of the UK's Freedom of Information Act which the MPs themse......
[more] Beladen infections plummet The number of sites infected with malicious code inserted by the Beladen injection has dropped significantly. Websense Security Labs ThreatSeeker Network has detected a consistent decrease of sites infected with the malicious code over the past five days. It claimed that the decrease in infections is highly suspicious, and it believes that the infected hosts are still under the control of the attackers. Websense said that it suspected that those behind the infections......
[more] Trend Micro upgrade for data loss prevention Trend Micro has updated its Windows desktop-based data-loss prevention software. The company has launched two versions of the product: one "Standard" for monitoring users and data, the other "Advanced" to add protections for intellectual property and source code. LeakProof 5.0 is being sold in two editions because two camps of enterprise customers are shaping up that use DLP somewhat differently, says Mark Bloom, global mana......
[more] Phishers hit Twitter again By Robert McMillan, IDG news serviceTwitter users who thought friends were directing them to a "funny blog" got caught up in a phishing scam. The microblogging service was hit by two different rounds of phishing, as criminals tried to take control of user accounts and then use them as a springboard to attack others.Both Twitter and Facebook have been hit with phishing attacks in recent days. "The social networking attacks are becoming increasingly commo......
[more] Trend Micro 'de-lags' SMB anti-virus Trend Micro has released a new version of its ‘Worry-Free' SMB security suite, putting the focus on a design it says will greatly improve the software's updating speed. Worry-Free Business Security version 6.0 can ‘buffer' up to 80 percent of the program's detection engine on a server, freeing up the client PCs from having to run burdensome routines, the company said. As with any anti-virus server setup, it can also buffer updates, feeding them to......
[more] Twitter name game sets off alarms What started out as a seemingly harmless game on Twitter set off security agencies and led to warnings of a massive identity theft scam. Anxiety over the #twitterpornnames hashtag game, in which users made their own “porn name” out of details like the name of their first pet, culminated in a warning in the US Department of Homeland Security daily report of infrastructure threats. British Twitter user Dave Lambs (@pembsdave) started the game on May 12 with the p......
[more] Trend Micro goes shopping for virtualisation security In one of its first major moves in acquiring virtual security technology firms, Trend Micro has bought Third Brigade, a virtualisation security and compliance software company based in Canada. The two companies have been working together for more than a year, and Trend Micro sells OEM versions of Third Brigade's products for its OfficeScan systems. Third Brigade also owns and directs the open-source OSSEC project, which develops a host-based......
[more] Conficker.E set to self-destruct next week The latest version of Conficker is set to self-destruct next week according to security researchers. F-Secure, Trend Micro and SecureWorks are among those that believe Conficker.E - first spotted this April and probably created by the same attackers that since last fall let loose the Conficker.A through Conficker.C variants - has been designed to simply self-detonate on 5 May. "It will simply self-destruct," said Mikko Hypponen, chief researc......
[more] Trend Micro to eyeball malware from cloud Trend Micro has unveiled a major update to its flagship scanning tools that puts your virus signature database online, plus a modular security and system management suite with partner BigFix. Trend Micro's updated OfficeScan Client/Server Suite includes an interesting change to the way its flagship scanning software keeps its list of digital undesirables.The most common method nowadays is letting each individual system store its own virus and malware si......
[more] Conficker begins stealthy update The Conficker worm has started to update infected machines with a mystery package of data. Computer security firms watching the malicious program noticed that it sprang into life late on 8 April. The activity on its update system delivered encrypted software to compromised machines. It is not yet clear what the payload contains. The Conficker virus variants are thought to be present on millions of PCs around the world. Spam connection The......
[more] FCO warns over bogus credit crunch relief phishing email The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has warned Brits and others to ignore a phishing scam currently circulating around the internet. Scam emails attempt to trick users into submitting personal data, in exchange for a chance to benefit from a fictitious "Recession Relief Programme Fund". The bogus emails purport to come from Foreign Secretary David Miliband and feature subject lines such as "Global economic crisis relief aid", as expl......
[more] New ransomware holds Windows files hostage, demands $50 Cybercrooks have hit on a new twist to their aggressive marketing of fake security software, and are duping users into downloading a file utility that holds users' data for ransom, security researchers warned today. While so-called "scareware" has plagued computer users for months, those campaigns have relied on phony antivirus products that pretend to trap malware, but actually only exist to pester people into ponying up as much......
[more] Koobface wants some face-to-face time on your system The Koobface Worm, a bit of Malware discovered in 2008, has started to crop up again on social networking sites. Ironic as it seems, the Worm was noticed this week on Facebook, but has spread to nine other social networking portals. Propagation remains the same, Social Engineering. Trend Micro researchers are reporting that the newest variant of Koobface is using old tricks, but adding some interesting characteristics. Like previous versions......
[more] Rogue Facebook Application Uses Fake Terms of Service Alert to Target Users For the second time in less than a week, Facebook users have fallen victim to a widespread attack due to malicious third-party applications. The latest attack is sending out notifications that users are in violation of Facebook's Terms of Service. For the second time in less than a week, Facebook has been forced to squelch a rogue application targeting users of the site.In the most recent attack, Facebook users receive......
[more] New attack singles out IE flaw Microsoft warned last week that it would be easy for cybercriminals to build new attacks using bugs it patched in the Internet Explorer browser; now that prediction has come true. On Tuesday, security vendor Trend Micro said that it had spotted the first attack taking advantage of one of two flaws patched a week ago. Microsoft has said that either of these vulnerabilities would be easy to exploit in online attacks. Over the weekend, Trend Micro researchers spotted......
[more] New Windows virus attacks PHP, HTML, and ASP scripts Researchers have identified a new strain of malware that can spread rapidly from machine to machine using a variety of infection techniques, including the poisoning of webservers, which then go on to contaminate visitors. The malware is a variation of a rapidly mutating virus alternately known as Virut and Virux. It has long proved adept at injecting itself into executable files, which are then able to attack uninfected machines through netwo......
[more] Do Smartphones Really Need Stronger Anti-Malware? After several years of experts commenting publicly that the mobile malware epidemic predicted by some security vendors a few years back had likely been far overstated, more and more researchers are now getting back on the bandwagon. I'm left wondering to what extent the problem is real today, or merely something we need to care more about looking forward. I remember sitting down for an interview with F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen - one of the most......
[more] Microsoft sees 'huge increase' in IE attacks Microsoft warned Saturday of a "huge increase" in attacks exploiting a critical unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE), and said some originated from hacked pornography sites. Other researchers confirmed that attacks were increasingly coming from compromised Web sites. Microsoft noted the upswing in attacks on the company's Malware Protection Center blog late Saturday. "The trend for now is going upwards," said researchers Ziv M......
[more] Vulnerabilities play only a minor role in malware spread, says researcher Computer users are their own worst enemies, a security company warned today, as it released data that shows software bugs were the source of just 5% of the past year's infections. The majority of the attacks carried out by 2008's top 100 pieces of malware were caused by users surfing to malicious sites and then accepting some kind of download, Trend Micro Inc. researchers said today. From Jan. 1 to Nov. 25, the top 100 a......
[more] The myth of cloud computing Companies hungry for IT efficiency and cost savings absolutely love virtualization. The idea of reducing racks of servers into smaller and cheaper machine farms is simply irresistible in just about every enterprise. Security vendors have seized on this with an array of products promising "security in the cloud." But the adopters often lack a basic understanding of what virtualization is about, and that's a problem, industry experts say."When you look a......
[more] Rootkit unearthed in network security software Researchers have unearthed rootkit-like functionality in an enterprise security product. Network security software from a Chinese developer includes processes deliberately hidden from a user and, even worse, a hidden directory, Trend Micro reports. Files in the hidden directory could exist below the radar of antivirus scanners, potentially creating a stealthy hiding place for computer viruses that their creators might seek to exploit. Trend Micro h......
[more] Microsoft warns of attacks on recent flaw A vulnerability fixed by the Microsoft late last month has become a target for two malicious programs, the software giant said on Tuesday. The security hole, caused by the flawed processing of remote procedure call (RPC) requests by the Windows Server service, was patched by Microsoft in late October, after the company received reports of limited attacks against customers. At least two malicious programs -- a network worm dubbed Conficker.A and a bot pro......
[more] Flawed AVG antivirus update cripples Windows XP PCs A flawed signature update to AVG Technologies ' antivirus software over the weekend crippled some Windows XP PCs by mistakenly deleting a critical system file, the company has confirmed. According to messages on AVG's support forums and its own support site, an update released late Saturday for the company's security software fingered the "user32.dll" file as a Trojan horse. As per the program's settings, the AVG software, including......
[more] Sophos concludes €217 million Utimaco buy Antivirus vendor Sophos has concluded its acquisition of Utimaco Software, a seller of data encryption software. With the acquisition, Sophos gets a sizeable foothold in the endpoint data protection market, where it will compete with McAfee and CheckPoint Software. Utimaco is dominant in Germany and Western Europe, selling mainly to the type of large-enterprise customers that Sophos covets, said Sophos CEO Steve Munford. The €217 million (US$314 mi......
[more] Trend Micro: Don't buy anti-virus software A Trend Micro security product manager has recommended people not to buy anti-virus products, including his own. But there is a method to his madness, he assures. David Peterson, consumer segment director for Trend Micro\'s ANZ business, said only a handful of the top 10 security threats these days are viruses, with downloaders, Trojans, keyloggers, and phishing scams filling up the list. As such, he believes stand-alone AV software is best suited for......
[more] Broadband subscribers targeted for piracy hoax Security researchers at Trend Micro have stumbled upon a false spam campaign that is conning innocent broadband customers into thinking that they have been accused of illegal activities. Attached to the email is a file that is touted as being a report of illegal activities in the last six months. However, the file is merely malware. This new spam tactic comes after several ISPs agreed with the music industry that they would send out warning letters......
[more] With rise in China's Internet use, more security threats seen Don't look now but the rise in Internet usage in China, the popularity of social networks and the proliferation of mobile phones may soon give rise to new Internet security threats the likes the world has never seen, according to Steve Chang, founder and former CEO of security firm Trend Micro Inc. In a forum for top IT students at UP Diliman, Chang warned that the convergence of viruses, trojans and computer worms is changing the ve......
[more] Olympic ticket scams just the start, says researcher Scammers have duped hundreds of people out of thousands of dollars each, using bogus Olympic ticket-selling sites, reports said today. A security expert warned that more will follow. At least two Web sites -- www.beijing-tickets2008.com and www.beijingticketing.com -- have been shut down in recent weeks after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) filed restraining orders with U.S. federal co......
[more] Renegade Sysadmin Gives Up Secret Passwords to SF Mayor San Francisco's highly publicized case of a teed off sysadmin freezing the city's computer network should not be viewed as an isolated incident. Unless proper background checks are conducted -- and backup systems put in place -- any network could be vulnerable to the same type of mischief. Usually, it's a mayor who hands out the key to his or her city to residents deserving special recognition. In San Francisco's case, it was Mayor Gavin N......
[more] Will you be ditching your antivirus app anytime soon? For the last few months, I've been hearing some well-regarded security people tell me they are considering ditching their antivirus protection all together. They haven't done it, but these individuals feel the days of having a special application scan to remove malware on your desktop are numbered. Malware has changed, but the applications to ferret them out have not. Antivirus programs, as we know them today, are based on 20-year-old techn......
[more] Trend Micro's TrendLabs Identify Malicious Files Spreading in the run up to the Beijing Olympics 2008 Trend Micro's TrendLabs have confirmed that malicious .DOC files have been spreading in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics next month. According to Trend Micro's official Trend Labs Malware blog, malware authors are busy mounting attacks that play on the sporting event. Reports have surfaced about a zero-day MS Word vulnerability affecting Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, and 2003 which is said to a......
[more] Security SAAS Makes Messaging Strides Security in the cloud, also called Security SAAS, is currently focused on messaging security, but expect the concept to include remote vulnerability testing, malware filtering, URL blocking, browser proxy security and other areas as the enterprise work force relies more on mobility and applications in the cloud. Efforts at security in the cloud, also called Security SAAS, are currently focused on messaging security, but expect the concept to expand as the e......
[more] Ameritrade Hack Settlement: $2 Per Victim, $1.8 Million for Lawyers A proposed agreement to settle a class action lawsuit to compensate as many as 6.3 million TD Ameritrade customers whose data was stolen by hackers would cost the Nebraska online brokerage firm less than $2 per victim and at least $1.8 million in fees to the attorneys who brokered the deal, according to an analysis of federal court documents filed Friday. "The settlement provides the class members with fair, reasonable and......
[more] Cybercriminals in Web 2.0 goldrush Cybercriminals are not only using new technologies to propagate cybercrime, but are also turning to social engineering to snare victims. According to Trend Micro's latest threat round-up and forecast report, the first six months of 2008 saw an upswing in web threats, but steady decreases in adware and spyware. The tools and technologies used to create popular social networking sites have become a goldmine for cybercriminals, said Trend Micro.In March, Trend Mi......
[more] Trend Micro proposes better mousetrap: cloud-based I've been using the tag line "information security is worse than you think" for several years. Every once in awhile, I meet with a security vendor who backs up my words with scary metrics. Last week in New York, Trend Micro filled this role. According to Trend Micro's Chief Technology Officer Raimund Genes, the volume and potency of Web-based threats is now exceeding the industry's capacity to fight back. For example, Trend Micro says that it a......
[more] Organised e-crime targets students for recruitment As organised criminals move from more traditional crimes, such as armed robbery, towards e-crime, there is evidence that they are targeting university students, graduates and the tech savvy for recruitment, according to security experts and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. "We are aware of anecdotal evidence of organised criminals [who are] moving into e-crime targeting people at an academic level," a Serious Organised Crime A......
[more] Trend Micro gambles on 'in the cloud' technology On Wednesday, Trend Micro CEO and co-founder Eva Chen unveiled a new vision for her company that includes "in-the-cloud" malware analysis. Unlike the computer viruses of 20 years ago, which were slow to evolve and infected thousands of systems worldwide, malware today evolves rapidly and infects relatively few systems, creating thousands of new variants each day. Chen admits that traditional signature-based antivirus strategies may seem a bit out......
[more] Browser wars changing security game The re-emergence of the 'browser wars' between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and newcomer Safari is changing the security landscape, say experts. The competition between the browsers, along with a newfound variety, has created both security advantages and new threats as attackers and malware writers adjust to the new landscape. In a recent blog posting, F-Secure researcher Sean Sullivan pointed out that the bevy of IE alternatives is having unexpected ben......
[more] New attacks break 500,000 websites More than half a million websites have been compromised in a new round of attacks that hacked domains in order to infect unsuspecting users' PCs with a variety of malware, a security researcher said today. "This is an on-going campaign, with new domains [hosting the malware] popping up even this morning," said Paul Ferguson , a network architect with anti-virus vendor Trend Micro . "The domains are changing constantly." According to Ferguso......
[more] Microsoft botnet-hunting tool helps bust hackers Botnet fighters have another tool in their arsenal, thanks to Microsoft. The software vendor is giving law enforcers access to a special tool that keeps tabs on botnets, using data compiled from the 450 million computer users who have installed the Malicious Software Removal tool that ships with Windows. Although Microsoft is reluctant to give out details on its botnet buster - the company said that even revealing its name could give cyber crimin......
[more] Security firms split over Phorm classification Security firms are split about whether they will classify Phorm's targeting cookies as adware. Kaspersky Lab, whose anti-virus engine is licensed to many other security vendors, said it would detect the cookie as adware. However, AVG, developer of the most widely used free of charge anti-virus scanner, said it would not detect Phorm's cookie even though the Czech firm's CTO Karel Obluk describes the technology as "borderline".AVG has decid......
[more] Security vendors prep anti-virus software for Mac OS X Russian security vendor Kaspersky Lab has a prototype version of its virus protection software waiting in the wings in case Apple Mac OS X suddenly becomes a target of choice for hackers. Kaspersky, based in Moscow, has no plans soon to make it into a product, but one could "be ready in just days," said Timur Tsoriev, spokesman, at the Cebit technology trade show in Germany on Tuesday. Kaspersky's anti-virus technology is flexible......
[more] Gooner fan site nobbled by malware An Arsenal fan site has been compromised to serve up sophisticated malware. Malicious code smuggled onto Onlinegooner.com redirected users to sites in Asia and Russia that download a wide variety of nasties onto vulnerable Windows PCs. The downloaded malware contains a potent cocktail of rootkit, keylogging, backdoor, ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) poisoning, and DNS (Domain name system) spoofing capabilities.An analysis by net filtering firm ScanSafe sugge......
[more] Malware removes rival rootkits Miscreants have created a strain of malware capable of removing rootkits from compromised PCs, only to install almost undetectable backdoor code of its own. The Pandex Trojan stops previously installed rootkits from working by removing their hooks into system calls. Pandex then installs its own rootkit component, detected by Trend Micro as Pushu-AC. Rootkits are a type of malware that hide their presence on infected PCs, making them more dangerous than typical vir......
[more] FBI warns of Valentine's Day 'Storm' The Valentine's Day campaign that the bot-building Storm Trojan horse has been running for weeks is running at such volume that even the FBI issued a warning yesterday. "With the holiday approaching, be on the lookout for spam e-mails spreading the Storm Worm malicious software," the FBI said in an alert posted to the home page of its Web site yesterday. "The Storm Worm virus has capitalized on various holidays in the last year by sending milli......
[more] Expedia, Rhapsody serve attack ads, claim researchers Name-brand Web sites such as Expedia.com and Rhapsody.com have been serving up malicious banner advertisements this week, researchers said today. Later Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Rhapsody questioned the reports, saying that although the service had been pushing attack ads, it had put a stop to the practice last Thursday, Jan. 24. Rigged banner ads built with Flash have worked their way into the popular travel site of Expedia Inc. and into......
[more] New Word attacks pose as news about Tibet New attacks using rigged Microsoft Word documents have been launched, a security company said today as it warned users to be leery of mail touting news about Tibet. Phony e-mails purporting to contain news about Tibet and its government in exile are making the rounds, according to Trend Micro Inc., which explained that the messages carry attachments that are malformed Word documents designed to exploit a vulnerability in parsing the popular word process......
[more] YouTube Dragged Into Spam Runs Again! The most popular name in online video sharing, YouTube, is again being used by phishers. Spammed e-mail messages contain an obscure thumbnail of what looks like intertwining limbs, with the video description, 'A touching tale of how two lovers found their heart'. Trend Micro, a secure content and threat management company, has detected YouTube Spoof Site Serving Malware and advised users to be wary of such spam messages. Should users fall for the social engi......
[more] Microsoft not happy with it's AV software Microsoft is still experiencing growing pains as it brings its consumer and enterprise security products and service up to speed. Microsoft released Windows Live OneCare for consumers in May 2006 and its Forefront Client Security for enterprises earlier this year. Both products entered a saturated security market populated by experienced security-specialist companies such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro. When Microsoft began investing in the securit......
[more] Russian hackers go offline but not out of business The Russian Business Network (RBN), a notorious hacker and malware hosting organisation that operates out of St. Petersburg, has gone off the air, security researchers said Wednesday. According to a pair of Trend Micro researchers, RBN went dark around 10 p.m. on Tuesday. "The routing information for their IP addresses has been withdrawn," said Paul Ferguson, a network architect at Trend Micro. "That's significant because while R......
[more] One in six UK PCs infected with malware One in six PCs have active spyware or malware infections, according to research. A study performed by UK security vendor Prevx looked at 300,000 PCs. The study showed that 15.6% of those PCs had at least one active spyware or malware program installed. These programs, which include keyboard loggers that record keystrokes, information stealers and fake antispyware, are emerging at rates of 5,000 to 10,000 per day, company officials say. Of these 300,000 PC......
[more] PC stripper helps spam to spread A virtual stripper is helping to defeat anti-spam security checks. Spammers have created a Windows game which shows a woman in a state of undress when people correctly type in text shown in an accompanying image. The scrambled text images come from sites which use them to stop computers automatically signing up for accounts that can be put to illegal use. By getting people to type in the text the spammers can take over the accounts and use them to send junk mail......
[more] Attackers probing for vulnerable Windows servers Attackers are probing for Windows servers running Trend Micro Inc.'s ServerProtect antivirus software, researchers warned. Early today, Symantec Corp.'s DeepSight threat network monitored a major spike in traffic over TCP port 5168, which is related to the remote procedure call service in ServerProtect. "This may indicate an ongoing mass-scanning and exploitation attempt trying to exploit vulnerable systems for the newly disclosed vulnerabil......
[more] Huge Russian malware attack imminent Trend Micro says a large-scale security attack could be about to launch on the web after its researchers spotted a Russian server loaded with more than 400 different pieces of malware. Chenghuai Lu, a senior threat analyst at Trend Micro, has uncovered a site with several hundred malicious programs and traced the site's server to a Russian IP address. Among the harboured malware were examples of three Trojan families: Dropper.cko, Clicker.qu and Polycrypt.g.......
[more] eBay for hackers launched Swiss security firm called WabiSabiLabi has opened a web marketplace for zero-day security vulnerabilities. The site will sell details on unpatched software flaws. The site is currently offering details on four bugs in products such as the Linux kernel and Yahoo Messenger. No bids have yet been registered, but asking prices for the research ranged between €500 and €2,000 WabiSabiLabi argues that the computer industry's ethical disclosure policies have l......
[more] 'Italian job' Web attack hits more than 10,000 sites The attack, which is primarily hitting Italian sites, has turned the pages into malware distributors Online criminals have launched a widespread Web attack that has turned tens of thousands of legitimate Web sites into weapons, security vendors said Monday. The attack began late last week, and by Monday morning, more than 10,000 Web sites had been compromised, according to security firms Trend Micro and Websense.Although attackers have hit tar......
[more] Is this the end of spam and spoof email? Yahoo!, Cisco: 'We have the DomainKeys... ' Spammers, phishers and other internet fraudsters, be warned.A key internet standards body has given preliminary approval to a powerful technology designed to detect and block fake email messages.It's called DomainKeys Identified Mail, and it promises to give internet users the best chance so far of staunching the seemingly endless flow of fraudulent junk email.Cisco Systems, PGP Corporation, Sendmail and Yahoo!......
[more] Staying safe without anti-virus? For a long time anti-virus software has been in the front line when it comes to stopping malicious programs infecting PCs. But as the creators of viruses and other malicious programs adapt their methods to exploit the weaknesses of anti-virus software, some are looking to other methods to help them stay safe. One such is Brent Rickels, the one-man IT department for the First National Bank of Bosque County in Texas, who has thrown out his anti-virus software and......
[more] Security firms laugh at 'unstoppable Trojan' claims We laugh in the face of Trojans, and tweak the nose of the spindly killer worms Security firms have laughed off claims from Secure Computing that a new Trojan can evade traditional antivirus systems.Secure Computing's TrustedSource labs issued an urgent alert last night that the 'Mespam' Trojan was on the loose and that ordinary antivirus software would not be able to stop it."This threat signifies a trend towards blog, message boards and......
[more] Security tools ready for Vista launch Microsoft is promoting Windows Vista as the most secure version of its operating system yet--but it's still recommending outside help to shield against common cyberthreats. All major security software makers, as well as many smaller ones, will have products available for Vista when the operating system is launched to consumers on January 30, Microsoft said Wednesday. That's a different story from last November, when Vista was released for businesses. At tha......
[more] Malware wars: Are hackers on top? The money made from malware is eclipsing the revenue of anti-virus vendors, a leading net security vendor claims. Raimund Genes, CTO of anti-malware at Trend Micro, cites FBI figures that IT security problems cost the economy $62bn last year against IDC estimates that the anti-malware market was worth $26bn in 2005.The FBI figures include the cost of clean-up operations, not just the profits accrued by the bad guys. Even taking this into account Genes reckons c......
[more] UK firms get the IT security message Virtually every UK company has security measures in place to protect business data communications, and spending has reached "massive" levels, according to new research.A report from Point Topic found that barely one per cent of businesses with data access have no specific security measures, corresponding to only 37,000 workplaces in the UK. Average monthly expenditure ranges from £15 to £134 per month at the smallest sites, but leaps to......
[more] Security firms develop anti-rootkit tools Antivirus firms Trend Micro and Sophos have developed new tools to discover rootkit infections but both are attacking the problem from a slightly different angle. Rootkits are powerful programs that alter the kernel of an operating system, which allows them to hide certain files or applications from the underlying OS. In April, antivirus firm McAfee said the number of rootkits found by its emergency response team in the first quarter of 2006 had increase......
[more] New Windows Trojan causes confusion Trend Micro on Wednesday reported the discovery of a Trojan horse that it said attacked Windows users through an image rendering flaw in Windows, a day after Microsoft provided a fix for the bug. But it isn't so sure anymore. The Trojan is referred to as "emfsploit.a" by the Tokyo-based antivirus company. Initially the antivirus software maker reported that the malicious code would crash "explorer.exe" on unpatched Windows machines. Explorer runs key parts of......
[more] Hacker Spams Huge Quantities Of Trojans, Again For the second day in a row, an unknown attacker Tuesday spammed major quantities of a new Bagle-esque Trojan horse that turns off virtually every known security program and blocks access to security sites on the Internet.
Several variants of the BagleDI-U Trojan -- dubbed Bagle.cd by McAfee, and Bagle.da by Trend Micro -- have been spammed since Monday at approximately 11 a.m. EDT. A second wave hit the Internet around the same time Tuesday, sai......
[more] MSN blogs 'launch' spam, virus attacks Spammers have started using Microsoft's MSN blogging service to host malicious content used during spam and virus onslaughts, Internet security firm SurfControl said. MSN Spaces, which was launched at the end of last year, is a free content sharing and hosting service. Users are required to register for a Hotmail account, after which they can publish a blog and share files.
However, a relatively simple registration system means that spammers are exploiti......
[more] Biggest security holes revealed Media players and anti-virus programs have been named in a list of the most pressing security problems. Drawn up by non-profit security group Sans, the Top 20 names the software most in need of fixing to avoid attack by malicious hackers.
Programs make it on to the list if they are widely used, the bugs widely known and are being actively exploited.
Vulnerabilities are being exploited so fast that Sans is issuing its Top 20 four times as often.
Faster threats......
[more] Hackers turning away from Windows In the first quarter of 2005 software such as iTunes, as well as antivirus applications, came under particularly focused attack Online criminals turned their attention to antivirus software and media players in the first three months of 2005, as they sought new ways to take control of peoples' computers, according to a survey released on Monday.
Hackers continued to poke new holes in Microsoft's popular Windows operating system, but they increasingly exploited......
[more] Site-blocking worm carries phishing risk A new variant of the Crowt worm could block infected browsers from accessing Web sites belonging to some antivirus sellers, Trend Micro has warned. Crowt.D, first discovered Wednesday, opens up the Google News site upon infection, then alters the computer's hosts file to add a list of Web site addresses, the antivirus company said in an advisory last week. When people click on one of those addresses, they are redirected to a local loopback address instea......
[more] E-mail scam directs users to bogus Windows update An e-mail scam making its way around the Internet purports to be a message from Microsoft warning users of the Windows operating system that they need to download a security update -- only to leave their PC infected.
Once users link from the e-mail to a bogus Web site their computers will be infected by a "Trojan horse'' program that allows hackers to control their personal computers, anti-virus software maker Sophos said Friday.
The campaign......
[more] Worm Chatter Escalates on MSN Messenger Anti-virus vendors report an increased chatter of virus activity on Microsoft Corp.'s Microsoft Network messenger Sunday night through Monday. In what appears to be a concentrated attack on users of the MSN instant messaging client, security experts warn that several new worms with unique replication techniques have been launched alongside mutants of the known Bropia virus family.
"We are regularly adding detection for new Bropia worm variants," F-Secure......
[more] Antivirus apps could spread infection A flaw in Trend Micro's software lets attackers run a virus instead of stopping it, in the third such security hole found this month. Internet Security Systems has found a flaw in Trend Micro's virus-scanning software--the third time this month that the security company has picked a hole in an antivirus product.
The vulnerability affects Trend Micro's Antivirus Library, a common set of code used by at least 29 Trend Micro products, according to separate ad......
[more] MSN Messenger hit by double-whammy worm A Bropia variant is using MSN Messenger to spread, and is packaged with a second more damaging worm The latest variant of the Bropia worm was discovered on Wednesday evening. It infects users of MSN Messenger by sending itself as a picture of a roast chicken with tan lines. It also releases a second more dangerous worm called agabot.ajc on the infected user's computer.
Adam Biviano, senior systems engineer at antivirus firm Trend Micro, said that although......
[more] Another Worm Hits Online Tsunami Relief Another worm has emerged in the wild, preying on the generosity of those trying to donate to the Tsunami relief effort.
Multiple security firms, including McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos and Symantec, today are reporting the discovery of the worm. McAfee and Symantec call it W32.Zar.A@mm, Trend Micro calls it WORM_ZAR.A and Sophos calls it W32/VBSun-A.
The worm usually has the subject line "Tsunami Donation! Please help" and includes an attachment named ts......
[more] CyberGuard spiffs up Webwasher to filter adware at the gateway CyberGuard has released a new version of its Webwasher Content Management Suite (CSM), which is designed to proactively filter adware/spyware at the gateway, before it ever has a chance to get inside the network.
Beyond the expense incurred by its simple consumption of bandwidth, adware also poses a security threat to corporate networks. A file downloaded from a spoofed website can contain malicious code that has been scrambled to......
[more] Are Security Vendors Tricking XP SP2? Windows Security Center may not know when your antivirus definitions are out of date. Microsoft says its Service Pack 2 update adds an additional layer of security to Windows XP-based PCs. However, recent PCW tests seem to show that at least two major security suites are crippling SP2's ability to offer users accurate security information.
SP2, which Microsoft rolled out in August, includes the new Windows Security Center. This feature alerts users when the......
[more] Kaspersky has IP doubts about Microsoft's Virus Information Alliance Kaspersky's CEO Natalya Kaspersky has said her company has been hesitant in joining Microsoft's Virus Information Alliance because of concerns that Microsoft would use that information to the advantage of its own antivirus product.
Microsoft's Virus Information Alliance (VIA) was formed to share information on viruses. However, antivirus companies do this already on a monthly basis - more often if necessary - outside of VIA.......
[more] MyDoom seeks to destroy antivirus firms Antivirus companies are perplexed by a spate of recent viruses which contain messages in which the writers threaten to attack them Worm writers have threatened to attack antivirus companies F-Secure, Symantec, Trend Micro and McAfee.
In the latest version of MyDoom – MyDoom.AE – the authors embedded a message ridiculing rival worm NetSky and promising to attack the antivirus companies.
The message has left antivirus companies unsure of what to expect.
"......
[more] Antivirus vendors await first Linux worm Security firms are waiting until Linux gets hit hard by a virus Although some Linux antivirus software is now available, vendors are waiting for a major attack before pushing their wares.
Many have developed Unix antivirus products, but are only now moving to Linux to deal with potential threats to businesses running both Windows and open source software.
Network Associates recently released its first Linux server antivirus software, citing the ne......
[more] Hackers 'recycling code' to spread worms Although less new malicious code appears to be being written, viruses and worms are continuing to cause problems around the world, says Trend Micro Despite worms such as Sasser, Bobax and Wallon wreaking havoc throughout May, security vendor Trend Micro says it detected fewer examples of new malicious coding last month than it did in April.
Trend Micro said it identified around 1,050 new computer worms, viruses, Trojans and other examples of malware i......
[more] Sasser clocked as biggest virus threat in May Anti-virus firms agree Sasser was the greatest threat last month.
Trend Micro's monthly roundup of virus activity placed Sasser as the eighth most prolific virus for the month. But it still marked the first Red Alert the company has issued this year.
However the network-aware worm topped Sophos' chart, accounting for more than half of all reports received.
'Sasser was the major pain in the neck this month, affecting far more users than eve......
[more] Why Are Virus Writers So Tough To Catch? The fight to rout Sasser and its ilk is fraught with ethical ambiguities. "Out of the 75,000 viruses that are written each year, all but 1,000 never infect anybody. So is it a crime to just write a virus?" asked David Perry of Trend Micro. "We are an open society. Do we give up all those [liberties] that make us Americans?" The Sasser worm author has confessed. Great, say many in the beleaguered tech industry. But why don't the authorities responsible for......
[more] Protection busting Bagle virus strikes The latest version of the Bagle virus attempts to turn off nearly 300 antivirus processes it finds running on infected computers.
Sophos alerted users yesterday to Bagle-AA, which is also known as Bagle-AB and Bagle-Z, advising it had already received many reports. Trend Micro had issued a yellow alert for its customers.
In common with its predecessors, this latest Bagle arrives as an email with short texts in the subject and an attachment. If run, the......
[more] Virus alert: Bagle X Back to basics for Bagle The latest manifestation of the Bagle worm has gone back to basics in its attempts to infect computers.
Bagle X entices users to open attachments by claiiming they contain free software, movie clips or pornography.
The worm also copies the domain name in the recipients address, making it appear to come from someone in the same company or at least the same ISP.
Anti-virus company Trend Micro warned that Bagle X any one of the following names:......
[more] Blockage for spam filtering vendors Predicted shake-out in sector to leave fewer than 10 firms in business More than 30 enterprise spam filtering vendors will no longer be in operation or will have changed their focus by 2005, leaving fewer than 10 still in business, according to analyst Gartner.
Its Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Spam Filtering report has claimed the industry will see "dramatic consolidation" during the first quarter of 2005, as various vendors either fail, are acquired or thri......
[more] Rise in virus attacks costs firms dearly More companies suffered extensive virus infections in 2003 than in the previous year and spent on average almost $100,000 to clean up each attack, according to new research. The Computer Virus Prevalence Survey found that last year, almost a third of the hundreds of businesses polled worldwide had suffered a virus "disaster," defined as 25 or more computers infected by a single virus in the same incident. The report was released on Friday by the ICSA Lab......
[more] Confusion reins in naming of viruses that bug computers Early one Monday afternoon, Craig Schmugar, virus research manager at computer security firm Network Associates Inc., was at his desk taking a quick look at the programming inside a new computer worm that his team had just discovered, still in the early stages of circulating the Web.
As Schmugar scanned through the worm's deciphered code, his adrenaline started pumping. This one had ambitions.
The worm disguised itself as a bounced p......
[more] Sophos beats rivals in VeriTest analysis Sophos Anti-Virus provides most frequent virus updates, fastest scanning speed and shortest installation time Sophos, a world leader in anti-virus and anti-spam protection for businesses, today announced that in a competitive analysis of enterprise anti-virus applications conducted by VeriTest, a division of Lionbridge Technologies, Sophos Anti-Virus led competitor solutions in several key areas including most frequent virus updates in both manual and aut......
[more] Worm could be clearing path for DDoS attack The Deloder worm is beginning to spread slowly on the Internet - leaving two Trojan horse programs in its wake A new worm that leaves behind two Trojan horse programs has begun spreading over the Internet, and may be paving the way for a crippling distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
The virus -- dubbed WORM_DELODER.A -- has made its way into a large number of machines in China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US, Trend Mic......
[more] Global Secure Systems supplies security tools (including Trend Micro) to protect both the corporate gateway (particularly the Internet, or other external network connections), and the individual PC (including the roaming laptop user and the desktop attached to the corporate network).
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