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Microsoft chief confident in new security measures. During a telephone press conference, Microsoft Platform Products and Services Co-president Jim Allchin revealed that he lets his son go online without anti-virus software to protect his computer from malware. While describing some of the new security features included in the forthcoming operating system, Allchin used the example…

Report criticises leaders for election-pushing mass mail campaigns. A report from Sophos has criticised the behaviour of both major US political parties, after numerous emails soliciting support in the US mid-term elections were received by their network of spam traps. The report accuses both the Republican and Democratic parties of ‘adding to the spam problem’…

Bush and Putin still alive, no nuclear war ahead. An email worm is posing as news of global warfare and the death of major world leaders in an attempt to persuade recipients to open the attached malware. The worm, variously known as Nuwar, Dref, Luder or Mixor, carries a frenzied warning of a major news…

MyWife variant mailed to 50,000 video blog watchers. Google has apologised to users of its Google Video Blog , some 50,000 of whom were exposed to an email worm after three postings were infected and sent out to mailing lists. No details of how the incident happened have emerged, and Google claims to be ‘taking…

Chat program remote execution flaw patched. Details of a vulnerability found in AOL ‘s ICQ instant messaging software have been released by TippingPoint . The ActiveX flaw could allow unpatched versions of the software to be targeted and exploited remotely with no user interaction. The bug was first reported to AOL in late September, and…

PhishTank, Sophos stats put US at top of lists. Statistics released by anti-phishing community project PhishTank , launched early last month, have put the US far ahead of the field in phishing sites, with 24% of sites discovered worldwide hosted there. Sophos ‘ quarterly ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of top spamming countries also puts the US…

ActiveX vulnerability in use by attackers. A new flaw in Microsoft ‘s XML Core Services 4.0 is in active use by malicious websites, with attackers using the vulnerability to initiate drive-by downloads of malware. With exploits expected to become more widespread as details of the vulnerability spread, Secunia have rated the flaw ‘extremely critical’. The…

Arrests made in Poland and US, more expected. A large operation carried out by the FBI against a phishing operation has resulted in a string of arrests. Four people are being held in the US and a further 13 in Poland, with searches also carried out in Romania, where more arrests are believed likely. It…

Cash and promises settle deceptive practices case. Adware giant Zango, formerly known as 180Solutions, has settled a case brought by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for $3 million. The firm was accused of using unfair and deceptive techniques to trick users into installing their adware products, which then gathered user data in return for…

Emails used archive function to lend authenticity. Popular online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has been used as a vector for malware, with a spam campaign using the site’s reputation and a fake security threat to lure in readers. Those who followed the chain of links found an as-yet-unidentified piece of malware at the end. The malware was…