Use of pirated and counterfeit Windows software has tripled since 2006, according to analysts IDC – creating a fertile breeding ground for malware. For the report, entitled ‘The Dangerous World of Pirated and Counterfeit Software’, IDC analysts conducted 533 tests on counterfeit software from P2P and web sources.

Protection and remediation tips for Mac OS X users targeted by a Trojan adware plugin called Yontoo hidden behind movie trailer and other media playing links, generating money for criminals exploiting online ad schemes.

Our white paper on Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUAs) has been revised with additional information, including information about how legitimate software can become classified as a PUA due to its misuse, a discussion of a type of downloader called a software wrapper and updated screen shots. It can be found in the White Papers section  Problematic,

Aryeh Goretsky interviewed, as his paper on Possibly Unwanted Applications is published.

Further information on OSX/OpinionSpy

 ESET Latin America has confirmed that the Koobface variants they're looking at download rogue security software and other trojans from active urls. They include: Win32/TrojanProxy.Small.NEB trojan Win32/PSW.Delf.NSE trojan Win32/Qhost.NTN trojan Win32/Agent.QWU trojan a variant of Win32/Koobface.NCI worm a variant of Win32/Koobface.NCP worm Win32/Adware.Antivirus2009.AA David Harley CISSP FBCS CITP Research Fellow & Director of Malware Intelligence

[Part 8 of an occasional series, updating a blog series I ran in early 2009 to reflect changes in the threat landscape. This series will also be available shortly as a white paper.] Anti-Virus isn’t Total Security Don’t expect antivirus alone to protect you from everything. Use additional measures such as a personal firewall, antispam and

There's an interesting post by Lee Graves about fake Firefox updates that actually push adware. It's pretty comprehensive, and lots of other blogs have picked up on it, so I won't rehash the issue here. However, I notice that The Register have credited us with the story (though they may have changed it by the

I was asked about malware infection in the UK (especially with reference to Conficker), and(a) if the situation is really as bad as we, the AV vendors make out, and what the real infection rate is; and (b) whether government and ISPs etc could do more to help. You can now find a link here