It appears there is a malvertisement (malware being delivered through website ads) attack campaign in full force and after today I'd guess it's on the up-swing. After having a number of people in separate physical locations report the exact same malware installed on their machine, things start looking bad. I'm never one for jumping to trends and hopping to conclusions, but I … [Read more...]
The Illinois Marathon and Active.com – A Source of Spam?
Last year, I ran in the 5K that accompanied the Illinois Marathon and half-marathon. I registered for the event ahead of time and used the online registration through Active.com. The event was fun and well coordinated. Unfortunately, months after the event, it wasn't quite so coordinated. I use an e-mail service called OtherInbox, which I've recommended previously, that allows … [Read more...]
Cyber Shockwave – A War Game We Lost
On February 16th, the United States government participated in a war game that was different from any others in recent years. Moving from the conventional attacks, threats, and worries of the past this most recent war game started with our digital infrastructure. An app was downloaded by over 20 million smart phones called March Madness. This app activated a malicious bit of … [Read more...]
Degaussing Hard Drives
Wednesday, I was able to check off another one of those things on the 'To Do at least Once in your IT Career' list by degaussing hard drives. Degaussing a hard drive means using a device that generates a strong electromagnetic field to wipe the data on the drive. This is an important step that I've mentioned before in the 'Before you Recycle/Garbage that Old Computer' article … [Read more...]
Malware Taxonomy
A working group has formed to move towards establishing official language and terminology for describing malware to assist communicating and fighting malware. The working group is trying to establish the Malware Attribute Enumeration and Characterization (MAEC) language. There are a number of benefits to establishing a common malware terminology: eliminating innacuracy in … [Read more...]