This week’s WSJ.com column (subscription only) is about mobile viruses — or the lack of them. First off I talked about CommWarrior, the virus any of you with a Symbian phone and Bluetooth switched no will have been pinged with anywhere in the world. CommWarrior isn’t new: It has been around since March 2005. But this isn’t much… Read More »
Despite appearances, the U.S. is still the most popular place for the bad guys to place their malware code. StopBadware.org has listed those Internet Service Providers that wittingly or unwittingly host “badware” — an umbrella term for any kind of software that insidiously installs itself on your computer. What’s interesting is that while there is… Read More »
F-Secure are calling these things SMS phishing (sometimes called smishing, unfortunately), but really they are more like Nigerian email scams delivered via SMS, which isn’t quite the same. The scam is basically this: send an SMS saying the recipient has won the lottery, have them call the scammer, and the scammer tricks them into giving… Read More »
If you’re wondering why Sanjaya Malakar has done surprisingly well in American Idol, here’s one possible answer: dialers. Dialers are pieces of software usually stealthily installed on a victim’s computer to automatically dial expensive premium telephone numbers. The victim only finds out when they receive their phone bill. In this case, the dialer, openly available… Read More »
The South China Morning Post reports (I’ve got the hard copy here; everything there is behind a subscription wall, so no full link I’m afraid) of a clever scam where the bad guys steal just enough stuff — cards + identity — from a victim to be able to social engineer their way into trust,… Read More »