Allow me to frame the threat of cybercrime that we all face by quoting from Jeff Debrosse’s 2009 Cybersecurity Review white paper: Cybercriminals are global and often well organized. They are smaller and more maneuverable than most corporations. Some are sheltered by certain G8 economic countries’ policies and laws. Their thefts fuel their home country’s

The NCSA (National Cyber Security Alliance) just released the detail of a survey of educators and technologists concerning both cybersecurity and cyberethics education in the schools. Cyberethics is prevention. It attempts to decrease cybercrime by teaching that it really is still crime and not very nice.  Cybersecurity is teaching defense. If I covered the whole

Recently I blogged (Once Upon A Cybercrime…) about a survey ESET commissioned which indicated that Mac users are victims of cybercrime as often as PC users. This finding was not the main point of the survey, but was an interesting finding. The survey is titled “Securing Our e-City National Cybercrime Survey” and was commissioned to

In a recent speech given by Robert S. Mueller, III, Director of the FBI, he claimed that he had almost been the victim of a phishing attack targeting his bank account. Mueller went on to say that at his wife insistence he has since given up on-line banking. The article I saw was http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/FBI-Director-Nearly-Hooked-in-Phishing-Scam-Swears-Off-Online-Banking-616671/. It’s

We know that spam works: well, it works well enough for spammers to keep devoting time and money into pumping sewage into the arteries of the internet. The interesting question is why does it work? The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), a global coalition of network operators and messaging providers who do some vital work

San Diego is a great place to live in and visit. I grew up in San Diego and didn’t realize how good I had it until I moved to San Bernardino when I was 15.  What does this have to do with security? If you need an excuse for a trip to San Diego (or

We all have recently endured a week or so of extensive media hype about a worm called “Conficker”. Phrases such as “One of the worst viruses ever” and other such nonsense were tossed around like promises at a political rally, with about the same level of honesty and accuracy, perhaps even less. Conficker was already

Good morning. Is there anyone still out there and connected? Thought so. While one or two people who comment here seem to think I’m personally responsible for developing, maintaining, and marketing ESET products (and in at least one case writing the malware as well) I’m afraid I didn’t spend April 1st crouched over a rack

Responding to a request for information about phishing and malware distribution mechanisms this morning, I happened upon a link on the Anti-Phishing Working Group site to the Silver Tail blog  The site has been running a series of blogs on "Online Fraud from the Victim’s Perspective". Author Laura Mather tells the story of two victims,