-
Blogs
-
News
-
Industry
-
Community
-
Topics
Dennis Fisher in ThreatPost reports: "In a rare and sweeping move, Google has removed all of the sites hosted on .co.cc domains from its search results, saying that because such a large percentage of the sites on that freehosting provider are low-quality or spammy, they decided to de-index all of them. The .co.cc domain is well-known in security and anti-spam circles for being a favorite spot for phishing and spam domains, but there also are legitimate domains hosted there." more»
Neil Schwartzman writes to report: "CAUCE reports that the CRTC published long-awaited regulations (a big step towards Canada's Anti-spam Law (AKA C28) coming into force), late June 30, the day before Canada Day. The regulations are, as anticipated, very terse and do little to water down the strong nature of the law; they move to clarify certain aspects of express vs. implied consent, among other things." more»
A project named S-GPS or Spammer Global Positioning System, by Microsoft researchers uses spammer identification rather than spam identification to identify zombie-based spammers. more»
CAUCE Executive Director Neil Schwartzman won the prestigious Mary Litynski award on June 08, 2011 for his contributions to Internet anti-abuse efforts, including the passage of Canada's Anti-Spam Law. more»
New research has uncovered evidence of spammers establishing their own fake URL-shortening services for the first time. According to the latest MessageLabs Intelligence report, shortened links created on these fake URL-shortening sites are not included directly in spam messages; instead, the spam emails contain shortened URLs created on legitimate URL-shortening sites. "Rather than leading directly to the spammer's final Web site, these links actually point to a shortened URL on the spammer's fake URL-shortening Web site, which in turn redirects to the spammer's final Web site." more»
NameSmash has interviewed Garth Bruen, Internet security expert and creator of Knujon, on some key issues under discussion during the recent ICANN meetings in San Francisco. Topics include Whois, DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) and generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) -- issues of critical importance particularly with ICANN's expected roll-out of thousands of new gTLDs in the coming years. more»
IBM today released the results from its annual X-Force 2010 Trend and Risk Report, identifying more targeted phishing, spam and mobile attacks. The report also finds cloud security continuing to evolve. "From Stuxnet to Zeus Botnets to mobile exploits, a widening variety of attack methodologies is popping up each day," says Tom Cross, threat intelligence manager, IBM X-Force. "The numerous, high profile targeted attacks in 2010 shed light on a crop of highly sophisticated cyber criminals, who may be well-funded and operating with knowledge of security vulnerabilities that no one else has. Staying ahead of these growing threats and designing software and services that are secure from the start has never been more critical." more»
Neil Schwartzman writes to report: "The company announced the Yahoo! Mail Anti-Phishing Platform (YMAP) yesterday. The technology is predicated upon the use of both DKIM and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) to identify authentic messages. As part of the initiative, Yahoo! has partnered with email authenticators Authentication Metrics, eCert, Return Path, and Truedomain to provide broad-band coverage of well-known brands." more»
Neil Schwartzman writes: "There is a lot of press on the profound effect the take-down of the Rustock botnet, affected by Microsoft, some U.S. federal agencies, and countless others working in the background to assist in the effort. CAUCE has aggregated a few of the best stories and data-points. A community congratulations, and thank-you to all those involved!" more»
In pursuit of its efforts to improve Google search results, the company on Thursday announced the release of a new feature that enables users to block specific search results based on domain names. more»
Neil Schwartzman writes to report: "Ken Magill covers the current rake fight on the IRTF's Anti-Spam Research Group mailing list concerning anti-spam DNS Blacklist, or Blocklist, (DNSBL) operators charging for delistings, that is well worth a read, he has quotes from many experts and leaders in the industry who are decidedly against the practice." more»
In a major cybercrime turning point, scammers have begun shifting their focus away from Windows-based PCs to other operating systems and platforms, including smart phones, tablet computers, and mobile platforms in general, according to the Cisco® 2010 Annual Security Report, released today. The report also finds that 2010 was the first year in the history of the Internet that spam volume decreased, that cybercriminals are investing heavily in "money muling," and that users continue to fall prey to myriad forms of trust exploitation. more»
Garth Bruen writes to report: "On Tuesday, high-tech heavy hitters -- including Google and Microsoft -- announced support for a new non-profit organization pledged to back the Obama administration's effort to crackdown on illegal internet pharmacies. The group, composed of companies that service 'choke points' on the internet, is being formed in response to the President's call for private efforts to police online drug peddlers, according to Bloomberg/Businessweek." more»
From the Economist on the long life of spam: "The criminal businesses that rely on spam are most at risk in law-abiding bits of the real world, such as America. Just like honest businesses, they appreciate its robust networks, reliable web-hosting. But law-enforcement agencies and internet security companies are also more active in such countries and have started working closely together. When Mr Bruen presents evidence to reputable hosting companies in America that their customers are fraudsters, they unplug them. Police agencies are increasingly interested to hear from him and fellow experts about the others. That, says Mr Bruen, reflects an important point. The word “cyber” in cybercrime obscures real crimes committed in real places." more»
McAfee, Inc. today unveiled its McAfee Threats Report: Third Quarter 2010, which uncovered that average daily malware growth has reached its highest levels, with an average of 60,000 new pieces of malware identified per day, almost quadrupling since 2007. At the same time, spam levels decreased in volume this quarter, both globally and in local geographies. Spam hit a two year low this quarter while malware continued to soar. More than 14 million unique pieces of malware were identified in 2010, one million more than Q3 2009. more»
