Supermarkets and fishy perfumes
Recently I've been seeing lightly-revised versions of a longstanding hoax, says David Harley. Read more on supermarkets and fish perfumes.
hoax
A Load of (Red) Bull
A hoax/chain message claiming that a well-known energy drink poses a serious threat to health, is now spreading on Facebook.
Irish Ransomware Report
Well, that was a little unexpected. The Irish Times has reported the discovery of the “first Irish language virus“. (Further checking suggests that the story may have originated with the Donegal Daily.) Actually, it sounds less like a virus – there’s no indication of whether it self-replicates – than the kind of ransomware that we’ve
Facebook Christmas Tree Virus: it’s Still a Hoax
"Old hoaxes never die": last year's Christmas Tree App Facebook "virus" warning is circulating again.
Facebook Invitation and the Olympic Torch
Old hoaxes never die. They just get transplanted to Facebook.
Facebook Sympathy Hoax: No Surprises
No, Craig Shergold doesn't need a heart transplant. Others do, but Facebook sharing isn't the best way to accomplish that.
Not all Facebook threats are hoaxes…
...the finding that 52% of respondents felt that increased use by their employees of social media had resulted in an increase in attacks from malware seems to me both interesting and significant...
Facebook, the natural home of the hoax
You may have noticed a lot of excitement about Facebook's latest attempts to prune your privacy, and you'll probably see more commentary on this blog. Here's something a little different: a good old-fashioned chainletter that seems to be flourishing despite all its logical flaws. The story is at SC Magazine's Cybercrime Corner, to which I
Urban Myth in the Making
...you can probably guess what I think about the idea of an undetectable virus...
Yesterday’s Virus Hoax is Today’s Fake Utility
One of the (few) blessings of having been so long in this industry is that I remember a time when most malware was viral and Trojans were rare: so rare, in fact, that there was at one time a notorious "dirty dozen" set of Trojans. At around the same time, there were innumerable hoaxes describing malware with
Osama bin Laden is alive and well… on Facebook
The death of Osama bin Laden has gone viral, with blogs, social media and search engines pumping terabytes of rumor, innuendo and conspiracy theories at the speed of light, along with the occasional kilobyte of truth. As the number of people searching for pictures and videos of bin Laden’s execution has skyrocketed, the criminal syndicates
Global malware thrives on the demise of a global terrorist
[NOTE: As we were publishing this articl, our Latin American office discovered another Black Hat SEO campaign incorporating promises of Osama bin Laden videos on Facebook. Click here to view their article in Spanish. We will follow up on this shortly. AG] The malware phenomenon started by the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death continues
Cyberthieves just love a good wedding, or a funeral…
Not using Twitter or Facebook is, in these times, akin to not owning or using a mobile ‘phone. Last night’s events – the reported death of Osama Bin Laden – proved that we are well and truly in the Twitter era (Twitter reported that over 4000 tweets per second were made immediately preceding the President’s
Ginger Rogers hoax
I've been coming across several references to an email and Facebook hoax relating to a YouTube that's claimed to show 92-year-old Ginger Rogers dancing with her great-grandson. Of course, it isn't: she died in 1995 in her 80s. This isn't a threat: it's a genuine movie and an interesting enough story to stand on its own,
ROFLing Around The Christmas Tree*
...conceptually there is a direct line of succession from this worm to the social engineering worm/Trojan hybrids of the early noughties. Clearly, the line continues through to the social network malware (real and memetic) of today...
Email Scam Resource
On Guard Online, has a number of other useful-looking pages, though I haven’t checked them all out personally: for example, talking to children about privacy and the internet, other forms of fraud and abuse, and social networking.
Cell Phone Telemarketing Hoax
You may have received an email message that looks something like this. (ESET was just asked about it – thanks to Chris Dale for passing it on.) Please note: this is, if not an out-and-out hoax, a very misleading message. Don't act upon it until you've read the rest of this article. REMEMBER: Cell Phone
Some possibly interesting links and a very old new paper
If you regularly follow my blogs, you'll know that while this my primary blogspot, it isn't the only site to which I post (see signature for full details). Here are a few recent blogs and microblogs that may be of possible interest. @Mophiee asked me about the ICPP Trojan on Twitter (where I'm @ESETblog or
No Stone Left Unturned
We have discussed SEO poisoning extensively in the ESET Threat Blog, and it should come as no surprise to our readers that any topic which trends up quickly in search engine traffic will be exploited by the criminals who specialize in such activities. The poisoned search term du jour is "erin andrews death threat". Apparently,
Armor‑Piercing Rounds for Chain Mail
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