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Amendment to VB’s June Windows XP comparative review. In Virus Bulletin’s June 2006 Windows XP comparative review (see VB, June 2006, p.11 ), VB reported that Alwil’s product avast! had generated three false positives during scanning of the clean test set. After discussions with the developers and further investigation of the files, VB now considers…

Watch out for fake SMS messages. A sneaky new phishing technique emerged last month, in which initial contact is made with victims via SMS text message. In the attack, an SMS message is sent to the victim, thanking them for subscribing to a (fake) online dating service. The message informs the victim that a subscription…

VB welcomes new Technical Consultant. VB is pleased to announce the arrival of a new team member. Following the departure of Matt Ham last month, John Hawes is joining us to take over the role of Technical Consultant. John will be responsible for the all-important Virus Bulletin comparative reviews, standalone product reviews, prevalence data and…

AV software revenues increase. Anti-virus software revenues reached $4 billion worldwide last year – an increase of 13.6% on the previous year – according to industry analyst Gartner. The report revealed that, in 2005, enterprise and consumer sales accounted for 51.5% and 48.5% of revenues respectively, and that the top three vendors in terms of…

The June issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download. The June 2006 issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to browse online or download in PDF format. Just a few of the things this month’s issue has in store are: Yet another first : Vesselin Bontchev provides full details…

Bank signs deal with AV vendor in an attempt to stop phishers in their tracks. In an attempt to prevent online banking fraud, a British bank has signed a deal with Finnish anti-virus vendor F-Secure to provide anti-virus software for each of its online banking customers. Barclays bank signed a deal last month for 1.6…

Open source project to create anti-spam opt-out tool based on the defunct Blue Frog service. Last month, Blue Frog , the anti-spam service offered by Blue Security , was forced to roll over and accept defeat after suffering a retaliatory attack from a spammer. Blue Security championed a DIY-style anti-spam campaign in which the company’s…

Microsoft anti-virus goes on general release. Microsoft ‘s anti-virus software Windows Live OneCare is due to go on general release this month. OneCare , which has been available free of charge in beta form since November 2005, will be available in its final, fully supported version, for $49.95 per year. The cost will include licences…

Buffer overflow vulnerability found in corporate AV software. Symantec was quick to respond late last month to the discovery of a potentially critical vulnerability in the latest versions of its corporate anti-virus software. The stack overflow vulnerability, which was discovered by researchers at eEye Digital Security in Symantec Client Security 3.x and Symantec AntiVirus Corporate…

Japan’s first crackdown on organized phishing. Police in Kyoto have arrested eight men in Japan’s first crackdown on organized phishing. The men are suspected of belonging to a phishing ring which stole personal information from some 1,000 visitors to a fake Yahoo! auctions site. Visitors were lured to the fake site through emails which were…