Righard Zwienenberg | WeLiveSecurity

Bio

Righard Zwienenberg

Righard Zwienenberg

Senior Research Fellow

Education: Yes

Highlights of your career? Being in the business for 25 years in August 2013.

What malware do you hate the most? Data destroyers.

Favorite activities? Drums, magic, squash.

What is your golden rule for cyberspace? Practice Safe Hex.

When did you get your first computer and what kind was it? 1979, Commodore PET 2001.

Favorite computer game/activity? Jumpman (C=64).

Articles by author

Threats Combofix: a cocktail of infective factors

Combofix: a cocktail of infective factors

In various blog-posts, users have been encouraged by ESET experts to download applications from the official website for that application, as you never know what might have happened to the software when you download it from a mirror site or a download site.

active heuristics Advanced Heuristics

Advanced Heuristics

When something in your vicinity happens, you know right away if it is good or right. When the traffic light on a busy road is red, you know not to cross and when it is green you can cross, but still be looking around to see if it is safe. With different instances that are

"Viruses Revealed" Scareware on the Piggy‑Back of ACAD/Medre.A

Scareware on the Piggy‑Back of ACAD/Medre.A

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.

"Viruses Revealed" DNS Changer (re)lived, new deadline: 9 July 2012!

DNS Changer (re)lived, new deadline: 9 July 2012!

As written in our “Password management for non-obvious accounts” blog post on February 22, the FBI confiscated the DNS Servers used by the DNS Changer malware and replaced them with different servers so that infected users would not be left without internet right away. Initially these replacement DNS Servers were to be taken offline on

2012 predictions Phishing Using HTML and Intranet Security Settings

Phishing Using HTML and Intranet Security Settings

Phishers always try to find new ways to bypass security features and trick ‘educated’ users. Over the years we have seen simplistic phishing attempts where the required information had to be typed into the e-mail body. This worked at that time because phishing was new and hardly anyone had a notion of the implications. Later,

"Viruses Revealed" From Georgia With Love: Win32/Georbot information stealing trojan and botnet

From Georgia With Love: Win32/Georbot information stealing trojan and botnet

Malicious software that gets updates from a domain belonging to the Eurasian state of Georgia? This unusual behavior caught the attention of an analyst in ESET's virus laboratory earlier this year, leading to further analysis which revealed an information stealing trojan being used to target Georgian nationals in particular. After further investigation, ESET researchers were

ACTA SKYPE: (S)ecurely (K)eep (Y)our (P)ersonal (E)‑communications

SKYPE: (S)ecurely (K)eep (Y)our (P)ersonal (E)‑communications

SKYPE: Securely Keep Your Personal E-communications From time to time people get new computer equipment and need to (re-)install all their favorite programs. Often a painful and time-consuming job, but afterwards it should ease the way of working with the new equipment. Even security gurus have to undergo this procedure at regular intervals. In November

DNS Password management for non‑obvious accounts

Password management for non‑obvious accounts

A continuation on: Time to check your DNS settings? After 7 March 2012, lots of people potentially can be hit as their systems are infected by a DNS Changer. Several government-CERTs have already warned their users. Rather than using the ISP’s DNS Servers, the malware has changed the settings to use DNS Servers controlled by