ESET Threat Blog

Unless you’ve been on a sabbatical in a remote and unconnected part of the world, I don’t think you could have missed the news regarding WikiLeaks (the “whistleblower” web site) and its founder, Julian Assange. To put it succinctly, in the last few weeks, attempts have been made to shut down WikiLeaks’ operations- from payment … Read More…

There was a bit of a stir today around a British scientist, Dr. Mark Gasson. In the BBC article Dr. Gasson was touted as the “First Human ‘Infected With a Computer Virus’”. I let this one stew around for a few seconds and I have to say that this isn’t what it’s cracked up to … Read More…

Yesterday the US House of Representatives approved legislation that would specify and limit open-network P2P usage by government employees and contractors on systems authorized to connected to federal computers and network resources. As with everything in life, there are exceptions. Requests to use open-network P2P applications can be made for the following purposes:

necessary for the … Read More…

In my day-to-day discussions with peers and the general public, there is always something that I take away from the discussions. For instance, in the last few days there have been references to Kneber and Zeus as two different botnets. I'd like to take a moment to help clarify the fact that these are actually … Read More…

While RSA 2010 is in high-gear, I took some time out from meetings, speaking at our booth theater and catching up on threats, to listen to the recently-appointed  Cybersecurity Coordinator (Cyber-Czar) share his views on issues involving cybersecurity as well as his objectives and priorities. 
The interview started off with an introduction which revealed a background … Read More…

While serving in the Marine Corps, one activity that I felt was effective in preparing both myself and my unit to be able to handle real-world scenarios, was getting as much experience as possible from military training exercises. In most cases multiple branches worked together or, as in the case with NATO exercises, multiple countries … Read More…

I recently learned a new acronym: SODDI (Some Other Dude Did It). What this refers to is the defense that criminals routinely use (plausible deniability) – and even more so when it comes to illicit activities on the Internet.
On Sunday, November 8th 2009 the Associated Press published an article regarding an individual that was … Read More…

"Now may I suggest some of the things we must do if we are to make the American dream a reality. First, I think all of us must develop a world perspective if we are to survive. The American dream will not become a reality devoid of the larger dream of brotherhood and peace and … Read More…

Mac security firm Intego blogged about Apple’s decision to include an antimalware component in Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and we agree that it is a good step, security-wise, to provide some basic protection against malware.  Apple has long mocked Microsoft, up to and including this 2006 advertisement which implied there were no viruses … Read More…

The results (released yesterday) from a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute yielded some interesting data points. The most visible of these was the finding that 85% of U.S. organizations experienced data breaches of varying magnitudes. This study, entitled "U.S. Enterprise Encryption Trends", has completed its fourth annual publication.  The data was directly obtained from … Read More…