There are always people who want to piggy-back on the achievements of others. After ESET warned the public against ACAD/Medre.A in two blogs here and here  and issued a free standalone cleaner for remediation, there was always the possibility that drawing attention to the issue would result in the topic being misused for other purposes.

No, this blog isn't expanding into a competitor for CNN or, in this case, Reuters: I've no ambitions to be a reporter. In fact, I don't know if this will attract more than usual blackhat SEO, fake Youtube video links, rogue FB pages and survey scams. In any case, if you're a regular reader of this

I've added some commentary and resources on the Japan earthquake/tsunami disasters to an independent blog I maintain that specializes in hoaxes, scams and so forth, but here are a few of the same resources that aren't already included in my recent blogs here on the topic: Analysis from Kimberley at stopmalvertising.com: http://stopmalvertising.com/blackhat-seo/recent-japanese-earthquake-search-results-lead-to-fakeav.html Guy Bruneau at Internet

…there are reports of scammers spamming out solicitations for contributions to fake disaster relief funds, in the wake of the recent earthquake in New Zealand…

[UPDATE #1 at 12:15PM:  Added more information about location of earthquake and prior scams. AG] We have just heard about the early September 4 (Saturday morning) earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand, currently estimated at a Richter magnitude of 7.4. Our New Zealand distributor in Auckland is unaffected, but communications with the area are difficult. As with

Update: more resources I picked up on  a security list just now (I'm drowning in email here!) Apologies for any duplication. Update 2: more additions below. @imaguid pointed out in a microblog that there's a pattern to the use of social engineering around disasters like the Haiti earthquake:  "first comes the tragedy, then malware purveyors exploiting the