ESET Threat Blog

Today it was announced that Howard Schmidt will become the Cyber Security Coordinator for the White House. First off, it’s about time the press stopped calling the position “Czar”.
I met Howard Schmidt when he and I both worked at Microsoft. It was right after I had spent a little time teaching helpdesk how to use … Read More…

Social networking sites have become living biographies of people and may set them up for social engineering attacks. From time to time I enjoy looking to see what I can find out about people who send question to me using the AskESET@eset.com address. I won’t ever name names, but I wanted to share one example. … Read More…

I recently made a presentation to  the Special Interest Group in Software Testing of the BCS Chartered Institute for IT (formerly better known as the British Computer Society). The PDF version of the slide deck is now up at: http://www.eset.com/download/whitepapers/Curious_Act_Of_Anti_Malware_Testing.pdf
The presentation outlines some of the problems with anti-malware testing and summarizes the mission and principles of the … Read More…

And it's a big hello to Lisa Presley. Or, at least, Lisa the owner of an English bulldog called Presley, who even has his own web site (in fact, at least two).
Not, I presume, LIsa Marie Presley, formerly associated with assorted defunct rock stars.   
Sorry to hear about your recently deceased husband, dear  (no, not … Read More…

Following my blog at http://www.eset.com/threat-center/blog/2009/12/18/a-trojan-anniversary, I came across a blog by Kurt Wismer that picked up the theme. As it happens, though I don't think we've ever met, Kurt and I have corresponded from time to time for quite a few years (fourteen, apparently), so I guess it's not so surprising that he also dates … Read More…

Adobe PDF files were supposed to be a safe alternative to Microsoft Word documents in a time when Microsoft offered no effective protection against macro viruses and had virtually no security model in Office at all. Times change. Microsoft Word documents rarely spread macro viruses and have not for a long time if you are … Read More…

I don't suppose anyone remembers my mentioning this before, or cares much anyway, but the 19th of December marks what I consider to be the 20th official anniversary of my entry into the anti-virus/security field.
Nowadays, viruses (and, in general, worms) have declined in importance and now constitute a fairly small proportion of the totality of … Read More…

OK, it isn’t quite that dire, but if you are using Windows XP Service Pack 2, support for that version of the operating system will end in July 2010. If you plan to stay with Windows XP a while longer then it’s a good time to upgrade to service pack 3 if you have not … Read More…

It is public knowledge that the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was hit in the face which left him with facial injuries, a broken nose and several broken teeth. The video of the attack is circulating on the Internet but at this time, if you search for them on any search engine it is possible … Read More…

I was recently asked to share some predictions about what 2010 will bring in the security space. I asked some colleagues from ESET Research to share their thoughts as well -Randy
Randy Abrams
Director of Technical Education
Social Engineering attacks will continue to grow in prevalence. As operating systems and eventually applications become more secure, the easiest way … Read More…