ESET Threat Blog

This week Blackhole has been updated to version 1.2.3 and includes a new exploit for the Java CVE-2012-0507 vulnerability, which ESET calls Java/Exploit.CVE-2012-0507. Earlier this week information was published about the Blackhole update by French malware researcher Xylitol and last week Microsoft shared information about an interesting way of breaching the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) … Read More…

If you've been following this blog for a few years, you probably know that I'm reluctant to play the prediction game, but it seems to be expected at this time of year, so here's my contribution. Java will consolidate its position as the successor to PDF and SWF in the favourite exploits stakes, the latest … Read More…

A new attack against Apple Mac OS X Lion (10.7) has been detected by Intego.  The threat is a trojan, dubbed Flashback, installed via a fake Adobe Flash installer downloaded from a third party site.
As with the MacDefender and Revir malware the Flashback attack uses social engineering to entice the user to download then install the … Read More…

 
A new trojan has been released targeting the Macintosh Chinese-language user community.  The trojan appears to the user to be a PDF containing a Chinese language article on the long-running dispute over whether Japan or China owns the Diaoyu Islands.  
When the user opens the “PDF” file, it attempts to mask the installation of a … Read More…

No, this is not about porn, but rather about Adobe. The newest version of Adobe’s PDF reader is called Adobe X. If you are like me, your copy of Adobe Reader (or Adobe Acrobat) did not automatically upgrade to the newest version.
Adobe X incorporates a sandboxing technology to try to help mitigate the numerous and … Read More…

I recently upgraded my copy of Adobe Reader to Adobe Reader X, the new version that sandboxes the PDF reader. I immediately had problems with PDFs that I tried to open from the internet. I uninstalled Reader X and reinstalled to no avail. I suspected that there might be an issue between Sandboxie and Reader … Read More…

I didn’t expect a part 5, but here it is! Adobe has announced that they will be making some significant changes to Flash. In a blog post http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/2011/01/on-improving-privacy-managing-local-storage-in-flash-player.html Adobe’s marketing machine really pours it on thick, but there appears to be some good news.
In the blog it is stat4ed that a future release of Flash … Read More…

My good friend David Phillips, AV guru at the Open University, called my attention to this. I originally posted it at Chainmailcheck, but I thought it would probably be of interest to readers here, too.
An email headed “ADOBE PDF READER SOFTWARE UPGRADE NOTIFICATION” has been spammed out recently: of course, it’s a fake, linking to … Read More…

Marketing hate it when I refer to competitor blogs, but Sophos' Vanja Svajcer, while discussing Adobe's accelerated security update (good move, guys!), makes a point that's worth three hearty cheers and a quote.
If nothing else, JavaScript should be disabled by default in Adobe Reader.
Go on Adobe, make my day.
Yesssssss!!!!
Though I'd settle for a slightly shorter step towards … Read More…

Brian Krebs thinks so:

Java is now among the most frequently-attacked programs, and appears to be fast replacing Adobe as the target of choice for automated exploit tools used by criminals.

Of the systems which I personally administrate as the ‘Chief Family Technology Officer’, the Java updates constantly annoy and confuse my mom who uses Vista… Vista … Read More…