Microsoft Office Security Team Enlists Bots, Pen Tests

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Storm, Srizbi, and... Microsoft? Microsoft’s Office application security team actually runs its own internal botnet, which, among other things, “fuzzes” for vulnerabilities in Office applications. Microsoft’s botnet isn’t anywhere near the size of Srizbi (over 300,000 bots at last count) nor any of the other mega-botnets -- it’s just a couple ...

Storm botnet stages Fourth of July attacks

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

As predicted, hackers tried to trick users into downloading the Storm bot Trojan Friday by unleashing a flood of Fourth of July spam bearing links to malicious sites, several security companies reported.The spam campaign, anticipated earlier in the week by MX Logic Inc., used messages with subject headings ranging from ...

New breed of worm steals gaming passwords

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

A new generation of malware alware that looks for passwords to online games has emerged – and its success rates are stunning. Last patch Tuesday, Microsoft added special detection functions for two contaminants called Taterf and Frethog to its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). The results sent back to Redmond ...

Two million password stealers fingered

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool - a program that removes malware from Windows machines - detected password-stealing software from more than 2 million PCs in the first week after it was updated. One password stealer, called Taterf, alone was detected on 700,000 computers in the first day after the update. That's ...

Storm Is Back–With Porn Scam

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Security researchers Friday warned of a new, massive spam campaign that tries to convince users to install the long-running Storm bot Trojan on their PCs. The new spam blitz is difficult to characterize, said researchers from MX Logic Inc. and F-Secure, because of the nearly 40 different subject heads used by ...