Sites that pay to have their links pop up on search engine result pages are nearly three times more likely to harbor spyware or adware, or hassle users with spam than URLs generated by the engine’s algorithms, research released Friday claimed.And search engines are cashing in, reported McAfee’s SiteAdvisor service. By its estimate, the search industry made $1.1 billion from risky sponsored links last year.
Researchers from Microsoft’s anti-malware engineering team are working on an automated way to sort through the thousands of malware families and variants attacking Windows computers.
The company unveiled its plans at the EICAR (European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research) conference in Hamburg, Germany, proposing the use of distance measure and machine learning technologies to come up with automatic classification of viruses, Trojans, spyware, rootkits and other malicious software programs.
A spyware distributor noted for an extensive use of rootkits that make its software difficult to delete has closed shop, citing unspecified practices of its distribution partners as the reason.
ContextPlus, which spread spyware and adware, including software that hijacked searches and programs that leveled systems with egregious numbers of pop-up ads, has posted a message on its Web site saying it’s out of the business.
LOS ANGELES—A co-owner of a Hollywood video game store that caters to celebrity clients on Wednesday pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to violate federal copyright laws by selling Xbox video game consoles modified to play pirated games.
The extra security features in Microsoft’s upcoming Vista operating system could negatively affect smaller security firms, according to a new report.
The report, from the Yankee Group, suggests that as Microsoft users get a welcome security boost when the new Vista operating system is finally available, aftermarkets for anti-spyware and desktop firewall applications will be hit dramatically.
UPDATED: A Yankee Group report published today predicts imminent doom for anti-spyware makers with the release of Windows Vista. But don’t plan a funeral for WebRoot and Ad-Aware just yet. First, Microsoft has to sell the darned operating system.
Microsoft (Quote, Chart)still has not spelled out the system requirements for Windows Vista, with less than a year to go before its release.
Just 3 out of 100 Internet users are able to sniff out sites ready to drop spyware or adware onto their computers, security company McAfee said Wednesday.
In an online quiz run by McAfee’s recently-acquired SiteAdvisor, a service that alerts users of possible spyware- and adware-infecting sites via search results at Google, Yahoo, and MSN, 97 percent of more than 14,000 consumers were fooled by one or more malicious sites.
I got a spam this morning with a subject line of “yahoo send you postcard” from “postcard”. Of course all the alarms went off in my head, but there was no attachment and I have a nice little freeware app called PocketKnife Peek that lets you preview an email in plain text, view the html source, the headers and attachments without opening the email. (Minor rant — why doesn’t Outlook 2003 have that feature?!)
APRIL 20, 2006 (COMPUTERWORLD) - When the Indiana Department of Education began installing PCs running Linux in schools last year, it installed open-source antivirus software on servers to scan incoming e-mail. But it didn’t bother installing antivirus software on the desktop computers.
Read more: Linux desktop growth could spur new malware activity
Australia has convicted its first spammer under the country’s tough anti-spam laws. Wayne Mansfield, and his company Clarity1, from Perth in Western Australia, were held liable for sending more than 56m spam messages in the 12 months following the introduction of Australia’s Spam Act laws in April 2004.
Read more: Oz nails its first spammer
