Spyware Confidential

Larry Dignan, Jason Perlow, Tom Steinert-Threlkeld

Archive: March, 2006

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Criminal charges filed against spyware company Enternet Media

By Suzi Turner | March 31, 2006, 3:31pm PST

I just found this piece at LAVoice.org — the office of LA City Attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, has filed criminal charges against three officers of Enternet Media for distributing spyware to 18...
180solutions on the move, literally

By Suzi Turner | March 31, 2006, 2:30pm PST

Wayne Porter. blogging at ReveNews, is reporting on speculation that 180solutions, the infamous adware company that’s been under fire by the CDT (Center for Democracy and Technololgy) and...
Spyware in you cell phone -- what next?

By Suzi Turner | March 30, 2006, 3:57pm PST

I just read CNET reporter Joris Evers’ article about new spy software that hides on cell phones. I think it’s outrageous, but I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising since...
How about some Fried Phish?

By Suzi Turner | March 27, 2006, 9:58pm PST

Fried Phish, otherwise known as PIRT (Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination) was officially launched today, as reported by CNET’s Joris Evers and this press release. I’ve been watching this...
SpywareQuake - newest rogue, replacing SpyFalcon and SpyAxe

By Suzi Turner | March 25, 2006, 2:13pm PST

Since I first heard about SpywareQuake, late yesterday afternoon, less than 24 hours ago, I’ve seen dozens of complaints about it already. SpywareQuake is being installed without notice or...
Malware pushers already using zero-day exploit

By Suzi Turner | March 24, 2006, 2:18pm PST

Yesterday the news hit about another zero-day exploit for Internet Explorer with code publicly available and today the malware pushers are already using it.
StopBadware.org issues first reports

By Suzi Turner | March 22, 2006, 8:46pm PST

StopBadware.org, the newest anti-spyware group, promised to name the bad guys and today they issued the first set of reports on 4 badware pushers that consumers should avoid. StopBadware tested 4...
Claria quits adware

By Suzi Turner | March 21, 2006, 1:49pm PST

Claria announced today that the company will be out of the adware business by the end of the second quarter. In April Claria will launch the beta version of PersonalWeb(SM), a “next...
Will Windows Vista make spyware a thing of the past?

By Suzi Turner | March 20, 2006, 11:03am PST

CNET published an article on “Spyware-killing Vista” and why Vista’s security features will put anti-spyware companies out of business. Well, almost out of business. Over at...
Advertisers using badware: who are they?

By Suzi Turner | March 20, 2006, 10:20am PST

The CDT (Center for Democracy & Technology) followed the money trail and they, along with Ben Edelman, are telling names. From the CDT: Large well-respected companies are helping to...
More on botnets

By Suzi Turner | March 20, 2006, 9:17am PST

Botnets in the news again — another in-depth look at botnet, keyloggers and how the combination is being used by hackers to steal massive amounts of personal data.
The sickest thing I've ever seen

By Suzi Turner | March 15, 2006, 7:32pm PST

I just read a couple of news stories about an internaitonal internet child porn ring that was busted today. CNN’s story here and Reuters’s article here. I won’t reiterate the...
Botnet drama: database theft, IM attacks, financial fraud

By Suzi Turner | March 15, 2006, 12:46pm PST

Are you a victim? If not, the guy next door might be. According to the story, two botnets claimed over 150,000 compromised machines, some with RATS (remote administration tools) installed and one...
Take the spyware quiz

By Suzi Turner | March 14, 2006, 8:29pm PST

How good are you are recognizing unsafe websites — sites that have unsafe downloads or sites download spyware and use exploits, sites that collect email addreses to spam? SiteAdvisor has a...
DirectRevenue settles class action lawsuit

By Suzi Turner | March 13, 2006, 11:55am PST

Announced today — adware company DirectRevenue has settled the lawsuit brought last April as a class action in the state of Illinois.
Live in action: botnet, fake Windows sites and keylogger

By Suzi Turner | March 12, 2006, 7:57pm PST

This has been occupying a lot of my attention since Friday. It started off with a message at my SpywareWarrior forum from Adam Piggott of Proactive Computing, about a spam email he received...
This is spooky - virtual machine rootkits

By Suzi Turner | March 10, 2006, 8:14pm PST

This sounds so far out - rootkits are bad enough, but now we have to worry about virtual machine rootkits.
New rogue anti-spyware and SpySheriff clone

By Suzi Turner | March 9, 2006, 9:26pm PST

These rogue anti-spyware programs seem to multiply like rabbits. Just 2 days ago I wrote about Spy-Shield, an anti-spware app that installs adware from BestOffersNetwork Then yesterday SunbeltBLOG...
Anti-spyware program installs adware from BestOffersNetwork

By Suzi Turner | March 7, 2006, 9:42pm PST

Yesterday I found a Google AdWords ad (using the words Spy Sweeper) for a new anti-spyware app called Spy-Shield. It looked suspicious right away because the homepage shows a supposed scan in...
Windows Defender Beta 2 vs. spyware

By Suzi Turner | March 6, 2006, 10:28am PST

As promised a few days ago, I finally got a virtual machine upgraded to Service Pack 2 for testing Windows Defender Beta 2. For the sake of convenience, I’ll refer to it as WD...