In the last few days, I have been asked by a journalist (or four) what MacDefender means for the future of Apple security, and if I thought there was excess hype around it.   I'll address the second question first.   I think its safe to say the current malware would not be newsworthy if

In the wake of the massive PlayStation/Qriocity data breach Sony has announced that they will be providing a 1 year complimentary ID theft protection service through a company called Debix. In addition to the ID theft protection Sony is offering other “gestures” of goodwill. This all sounds good on the outside and the ID theft

Security companies in general and, unfortunately, anti-malware companies in particular, are often accused of ‘hyping’ threats because of a perceived self-interest. However, in the main, legitimate vendors and researchers like those at ESET typically try to resist overhyping or playing up threats where possible, in favor of more balanced discussion that can help customers take

In techie circles bringing up the topic of security through obscurity is like bringing up religion or politics at a cocktail party where you don’t know anybody. It might go over really well, or you might find people calling you names that my friends in HR would chastise (or fire) me for printing in the

The recent MacDefender Trojan has been receiving “rebranding” facelifts since it came out. It has now been deployed as MacProtector, MacDetector, MacSecurity, Apple Security Center, and there are no doubt more iterations to come. The malware has been updated, and now sports an improved UI that looks like a native Mac OSX application, unlike the

Introduction As the sun is setting and I breathe some of the night time air I am inspired to write about Facebook.  Yes, *the* Facebook, the third largest country if it were a physical place with boundaries under a common rule of law and government.  When many people use a service such as this, it

Recent additions to SCMagazine's Cybercrime Corner blog include: "Password strategies: Who goes there?" by David Harley, May 23, 2011 Password selection usually involves compromise, but even a short password can be reasonably strong and still memorable. This follows up at some length on a previous ESET blog by Paul Laudanski. "Fighting cybercrime" by Randy Abrams,

As many of us cruise the information superhighway (haven’t heard that for a while have you) on 64-bit machines, it might be a good idea to take a breath and remember a pioneer. Back in the days when a small team at IBM was building a general purpose 8 bit personal computer, Tom West and

Yes, it is Sony again. This time it is their Canada web site and their Japan website. According to thehackernews.com, which I cannot vouch for, this is the 10th Sony hack. While we don’t know how the PlayStation Network hack happened, we do have some information about how some of the other attacks were performed

One of the (few) blessings of having been so long in this industry is that I remember a time when most malware was viral and Trojans were rare: so rare, in fact, that there was at one time a notorious "dirty dozen" set of Trojans.  At around the same time, there were innumerable hoaxes describing malware with