malware

A technically savvy gang of East Europeans that has been extorting money from Europeans using 'Police Trojan' ransomware for two years is also responsible for the rush of ransomware in the U.S., after Americanizing its social engineering pitch, according to TrendMicro.

The Flashback botnet was labeled as the big breakthrough that would make Apple and its users realize malware for the Mac was real. Instead it made clear that, whenever Apple users need it to step up and take responsibility for a major flaw, Apple steps back and points fingers instead.

Symantec captured a new version of the module the Stuxnet descendant Duqu uses to penetrate new systems, but not the part that shows where it gets its orders. Kaspersky, meanwhile, cracked the mystery of Duqu's mysterious coding language and identified characteristics of the coding team that built it; nothing's sure, but the profile is consistent with government work.

Everyone falls for malware come-ons occasionally, but most of us learn how to identify and avoid the most obvious traps for the unwary. Anonymous OS, a Linux distro packed with hacker tools, is one of those traps. More than 20,000 installed it and its malware anyway. n00bz!

The International Space Station is the most-obvious symbol of international, first-world cooperation on the exploration of space. It's also a potential death trap for astronauts, a kinetic weapon bomb and indication NASA's security staff and CIO should be replaced.

The Better Business Bureau is warning consumers about an email scam being perpetrated under its name.

A worm written in VB6, with lots of counter anti-virus built in, is spreading through Facebook by posing as a picture sent by a friend or, if you have no friends, as two blonde women.

Researchers at NC State Univ. have found that one of the biggest risks for Android devices stems from outsized permissions phone-makers give the apps they pre-install on phones, which malware can piggyback to access anything the phone can do. Crapware FTW.

Financial-services firm MetaQuotes built a cloud based on agents on the PCs of thousands of customers. Malware writers helped spread the software, but kept for themselves money MetaQuotes paid owners.

Android is, by far, the fastest-selling cell phone OS, which could have known by the speed with which people are creating malware to attack it.

The FBI just took down a criminal botnet that hijacked more 4 million PCs worldwide. Here's how to find out if yours is among them.