malware
Osama Bin Laden death video and picture scams
There is a few scams going around at the moment to peak peoples curiosity at the death pictures or video of Osama Bin Laden. Dont be fooled by these malicious scams.
The first one is related to Facebook which allows you to view a video of the death of Osama. It has been reported that users walls have been filled up with invitations to watch the death video of Bin Laden as you can see in the image below.
Once you click these links you will get redirected to several pages and then end up at this page. The danger happens when you click the “Watch Video” from this page. Once you click the browser will install malicious code on your computer. You shouldnt have been using Facebook anyway, but count this one as a freebie from us to you.
The 2nd scam is email claims to have the exclusive death pictures of Osama Bin Laden. The emails contain a zipped attachment called Fotos.exe which when extracted installs a banking trojan. You can view a sample of the email below in Portuguese which in English translates too:
After the pronouncement of the death of Osama Bin Laden several pictures of the body were released on the internet. According to American newspapers not all are real.
The real photos are available on the link below.
The 3rd scam is related to Twitter. There was a Twitter account called @ReallyVirtual that tweeted about hearing the raid on Bin Laden while it happened. I’m not sure why but many people ended up at his page and from there is a link to the owners blog which has scareware malware tricking you into running free malware or antivirus programs to scan your computer and of course it then asks you to pay to remove the fake threats found. As mentioned about no one wanting to protect their privacy should be using Twitter anyway so count yourself lucky you have been warned.
How to avoid SMS fraud, SMS Scams and SMS Spam
Below you will find a video recently released by Kaspersky Labs Antivirus, one of the leading Antivirus companies. The video explains the latest SMS fruad, SMS scams and SMS spam tactics the Russian and Eastern Europeans are using with 1 goal, to try and scam you out of your money. If you think you have every got SMS spam in the past or are worried about it, this is a must watch video.
They also go on about SMS trojans, Malware and Ransomware and upcoming threats on mobile phones. They claim that users with Andriod phones are at the greatest risk or attack, hack and spam on their handsets.
Stay tuned for more updates from Hide Yourself Online, and if you are worried about mobile phone security check out page on mobile phone encryption.
New mobile spyware tool
A new mobile phone Spyware tool called ePhoneTracker made by Retina Software is being used by employers, parents and even couples suspecting their partners of cheating. The software that works on almost all of the latest phones (Iphone, Symbian, Blackberry, Andriod and Windows) allows you to track every phone activity made on the mobile device including the location sent by GPS and then sends reports of the activity via email.
“Cellphones are the primary communication tool for affairs. Our software allows you to expose the truth to see whether or not your suspicions are accurate.” VP of Product Development Gerald Carvey was quoted as saying.
But i bet he wouldn’t like his phone to be tracked. If you suspect someone has installed Spyware on your phone than you need to run an anti-virus or Spyware sweeper to check. It might not show up as a virus but will show as a potential problem. While cheating probably shouldn’t be done, you should know that these applications are out there and if you got a jealous or crazy wife (or husband) it might be a good idea to check.
Figures on how many people use this type of software are hard to come by, but evidence suggests that mobile Spyware is becoming more and more popular. In China more than 150,000 people are reported to be infected with an application called Xwodi that allows 3rd parties to eavesdrop on conversations by activating the conference feature without you knowing. It is also capable of switching on the microphone on the phone to record conversations when you are not on a call. It can also relay and interecpt text messages.
Just beware these things are out there.
Protected PCs filled with malware
Despite the fact that many computer users are running Anti Virus and Spyware software, a study by EUROSTAT (European Union statistics agency) found that 31% of PC users are infected with malware, even though 84% have an up to date Anti Virus, Firewall and Malware protection. 4% of the survey’s respondents reported privacy violations and 3% reported financial loss as a result of farming or phishing attacks related to these infections.
The most common types of infections found were Trojans at 59.2 % followed by viruses at 11.7%. A Trojan horse (famous from Greek mythology) is a malicious program disguised as a friendly program, when the user runs or installs the Trojan it steals information or harms the system.
The countries with the lowest infected users were Ireland and Finland with 14% and 15% respectively. The countries with the highest infected users were Malta and Bulgaria with 50% and 58% respectively.
Panda Anti Virus also ran a similar study which was published this week. More than half of the computers scanned by Panda in January were infected with malware. Trojans again were the biggest problem accounting for 59.2% of infections. The most affected machines according to Panda come from China, Russia, Turkey, Thailand and Taiwan.
Given the above studies it’s very important to have a good Firewall, Antivirus and Anti Spyware programs installed. F-Secure and GData are amongst the best antivirus software out there, while SuperAntispyware and Webroot Spyware sweeper are also good at fighting malware.
Above is a well known popup trojan which tricks a user to clicking to start the infection.
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