In my copious free time, I contribute to and in some cases maintain a number of other blogs (the ones with a security bias are listed in my signature here). The chainmail/hoax checking page at http://chainmailcheck.wordpress.com/ was specifically set up to explore a hoax/chainletter mitigation project that's still in the preparatory stages, but I've been posting

Bill B. forwarded an interesting hoax mail to my "hoaxchecker" account (hoaxchecker [at] gmail [dot] com. The hoax isn't so interesting in itself, in that it's been around quite a while, as is described at the ever-dependable hoax resource snopes.com. But I do find interesting the fact that this particular variant includes some wrinkles that

Eveline Goy commented on a previous blog on "When is a hoax not a hoax?", and I thought it was too good a comment to let it lie unnoticed. Dear Mr Harley You might be interested to know that the MISSING GIRL email re Rachelle Marie Smith is now being distributed in Australia.   Of course

As more information and discussion has come in on this, it now merits an update in its own right. It seems that there is at least one other unnamed app around as well as the Boxes issue, and while I've no reason to assume that it's malicious, I'd hardly advise that you rush into installing

[Update: There's been quite a lot of discussion and extra information coming in on this. It seems to me that there is at least one unnamed app around as well as the Boxes issue, and while I've no reason to assume that it's malicious, I'd hardly advise that you rush into installing an application when

Here's another conference paper we've put up recently on the white papers page at http://www.eset.com/download/whitepapers.php. "Whatever Happened to the Unlikely Lads? A Hoaxing Metamorphosis" by David Harley and Randy Abrams, was presented at the 19th Virus Bulletin Conference in Geneva in 2009, The paper was first published in Virus Bulletin 2009 Conference Proceedings. Copyright is

I learned a new word today. "Glurge", according to snopes.com, an essential resource when checking the validity of dubious chain letters, glurge is the sending of inspirational (and supposedly true) tales … that often … undermine their messages by fabricating and distorting historical fact in the guise of offering a "true story". I came across

Embarrassingly, I keep catching myself promising to come back to a topic and never getting round to it, however often I try to blog here. (The server is gradually filling up with my half-completed drafts!) There are just too many interesting things happening and not enough time to record them all here – this isn’t, after

PSST! Anyone remember the Telephone party game, also known by various politically incorrect names like Chinese Whispers and Russian Scandal? A series of reports like this and this illustrate a textbook example of how rumour and misunderstanding (some of it probably wilful) can transform a story into something very different to its original form. According

As the Win32/Waledac nuisance continues to escalate, it’s good to know that there are some certainties in a changing world. One, unfortunately, is that people will continue to fall for hoaxes and chain letters. Much to my surprise, one of my mailboxes has just been visited by an old friend, a hoax that has been