Fake 'Support' Call Centre Calls - A New Scam?

Recently a new scam has emerged, involving calls from fake call centres, and pretending to be from Your ISP/Windows/Microsoft.

The scam uses social engineering to trick users over the phone into believing they are infected, then tries to get them to download fake/rogue software as well as connect to a remote 'support' session and charge them money for the software.

You can read more information about this scam on the Sophos Security Blog:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/04/sick-of-call-centres/

Twitter - New XSS Exploit

A new exploit was discovered in Twitter today allowing for HTML code to be injected into tweets. This allowed the attacker/user to redirect users when the tweet was just hovered over. This seems to have been patched now, however it is a wake-up call for users to always be alert when using any social networking website. You can find out more information and see a demo of this exploit in action in the Sophos YouTube video.

Internet Explorer 9 - Beta Released

Internet Explorer isn't the most popular browser. It's slow, bloated and riddled with exploits. However, rumours have been spreading about the eagerly awaited Version 9. The beta is now here, and it's available for everyone to download.

Internet Explorer 9 is supposedly a huge leap forward. Everything has been changed and the interface is much different to that of the previous versions. It's much more user-friendly, much faster and also more secure.

If you wish to find out more information and actually download and trial the beta then you can do so here: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

If you're trying out IE9 do post a comment below and let us know what you think!

Adobe Flash Player - Critical Exploit (13th September 2010)

Another exploit in Adobe's Flash Player has been discovered. Adobe published information about this critical exploit yesterday. This affects versions 10.1.82.76 and older for Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems.


Adobe stated "This vulnerability (CVE-2010-2884) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against Adobe Flash Player on Windows. Adobe is not aware of any attacks exploiting this vulnerability against Adobe Reader or Acrobat to date."

An update should be expected during the week of 27th September and updates for Adobe Reader and Acrobat will be released during the week of October 4th. Remember, stay safe.

You can view the full article here: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa10-03.html

Rogue Anti-Virus Removal

We've all seen and heard about rogue anti-viruses. They lead the user to believe they're protecting their PC when in truth they're actually infecting it. Rogue AV's typically stop you from opening all .exe files with a message saying something along the lines of "FileYouOpened.exe Is Infected!" The rogue anti-virus then says that the only way to remove the "infections" (that don't actually exist) is to purchase their premium software. In truth it is all a big scam. They wait for unsuspecting users to enter in credit card details to "upgrade" when in truth these are just stolen.

So now you're infected with a rogue anti-virus how do you remove it? You can't open your browser and sometimes anti-virus/maware programs because they're "infected" so how would we go about doing this? Well it's actually not too difficult. Most of the infection can be remove with a simple Malwarebytes scan in Safe Mode.

Matt from Remove-Malware.com has made a post on how to remove AntiVir Solution Pro - one of the main and most recent rogue Anti-Viruses currently spreading. You can read this post here: http://remove-malware.com/antimalware/anti-malware-howto/removing-antivir-solution-pro-fake-anti-virus

(Note the Dr Web Live CD part isn't completely essential, however if you have disc's available then it is recommended.)

Adobe Reader Exploit

Adobe Reader recently had an exploit that allowed the download and execution of a remote file upon opening a .pdf in Adobe Reader software. Sophos released a video demonstrating this. If you use Adobe Reader ensure that you update it regularly to remain protected against exploits like these.

August - 90 Second Security Round Up

September is now upon us, however I thought it would be a good idea to round up all the latest news for August.

Fortunately, Sophos have released a YouTube video showing exactly this.