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Spyware Confidential

Jason Perlow

Jason Perlow is a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies.

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is the former Editor in Chief of ZDNET. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNET. Prior to that, he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld

Latest Posts

Zango's continued bad practices in light of FTC's proposed settlement terms

Zango out of compliance with terms in every aspect of FTC proposed settlement per Edelman and Howes. Is the $3 million repayment of ill-gotten gains just a slap on the wrist?

November 19, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Legal

Zango, the FTC, MySpace and You Tube

Using an electric mixer on medium high, beat cream in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gently fold cream into chocolate mixture until thoroughly combined. Divide mousse among 6 dessert bowls or 1-cup ramekins. Cover bowls loosely with plastic wrap and chill at least 4 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead; keep refrigerated.) Serve chilled, garnished with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon, if desired. Using an electric mixer on medium high, beat cream in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gently fold cream into chocolate mixture until thoroughly combined. Divide mousse among 6 dessert bowls or 1-cup ramekins. Cover bowls loosely with plastic wrap and chill at least 4 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead; keep refrigerated.) Serve chilled, garnished with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon, if desired.

November 6, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

Halloween sites tricking users with malware

Update October 27: This morning I contacted the owner of listed sites. The sites were indeed hacked, and the owner has since removed the malicious code from the web pages.

October 26, 2006 by David Grober in Security

Scary malware tricks part 1

In keeping with this Halloween season, I'm starting a series on scary malware tricks, similar to last year's series on spyware tricks. Perhaps my personal focus has changed, but it seems to me spyware tricks are becoming far more devious and destructive.

October 20, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

Edelman on 'Deceptive Door Openers' and Ask toolbars

In a new article posted this morning, Ben Edelman continues his investigation of high-profile companies clogging users' computers with junk. Today's target: InterActiveCorp's Ask.

October 16, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

Is Zango stealing affiliate commissions from adult webmasters?

It seems that Zango, formerly known as 180solutions, the company we all love to hate, has royally ticked off a bunch of adult webmasters. Paperghost, aka Chris Boyd, has the story, complete with links to forums where the adult webmasters discuss Zango allegedly stealing affiliate commissions.

October 13, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Tech Industry

So what about user education on security?

CNET's Joris Evers writes about one security expert who says education users on computer security in the enterprise setting is "pointless". Doctoral candidate Stefan Gorling, speaking at the Virus Bulletin Conference, said:"I don't believe user education will solve problems with security because security will always be a secondary goal for users," Gorling said.

October 12, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

Malware being spammed as PDF from retail stores

Reports surfaced today of spam purporting to be from Dell, Walmart, Circuit City or Sony confirming an order for a Sony Vaio computer with a PDF attachment, but the attachment is, in fact, a very nasty piece of malware named Haxdoor. Text of email:Subject: Order ID : 37679041Dear Customer,Thank you for ordering from our internet shop.

October 10, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

MVP awards, Messenger Plus! and adware -- a good combination?

A controversy has been raging in certain circles the last few days over a MVP award, which has now been rescinded, to an adware pusher known as Patchou, Cyril Paciullo, the author of Messenger Plus!. There's a lot of nonsense going around and I'd like to clear some of that up.

October 9, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

Spyware pushers cash in big on zero day exploit

Nearly 50 malware threats being installed though the VML zero day exploit, including familiar names like Virtumonde, BookedSpace, webHancer, SurfSideKick, Qoologic (also known as Qoolaid), Zenotecnico, TagAsaurus, with some trojan downloaders and a backdoor thrown in the mix. Many of these use affiliate programs where the affiliate gets paid per install, so somewhere affiliates of these adware/spyware companies are making a killing off this zero day exploit, trashing computers with their crapware.

September 20, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

Should anti-spyware programs remove cookies?

Spyware expert Ben Edelman has written a great piece on anti-spyware programs and cookies. He tested eleven different anti-spyware programs against cookies from 50 advertising systems and posted detailed results including which anti-spyware programs detected which cookies and which programs detected the most cookies.

September 18, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

DollarRevenue adware pushed through bot net for huge profits

German Honeynet Project researchers report that adware company DollarRevenue is directly linked to a bot net attack exploiting the MS06-040 server service vulnerability reported last month. Bot net trackers estimate that one malicious hacker alone earned $430 in one day by installing malware/adware programs on infected machines.

September 8, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security

FTC settles with Enternet Media for $2 million

The Federal Trade Commission announced their settlement with Enternet Media for $2 million for putting spyware on users' computers.

September 6, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Tech Industry

The state of spyware according to Webroot

Webroot released its quarterly report on spyware today, claiming spyware infection rates are at their highest since 2004. During the second quarter of 2006, Webroot researchers found that 89 percent of consumer PCs were infected with an average of 30 pieces of spyware – a slight increase from the first quarter of 2006 when infection rates returned to alarmingly high levels after a supposed lull in spyware infections during the second half of 2005.

August 15, 2006 by Suzi Turner in Security