ESET Threat Blog

While I share the reluctance of my colleagues to predict the future, I think there are some trends that can be classified as “reasonably likely to occur” in 2012. I make no promises, but here’s what I think we will see, in no particular order of importance or certainty.

We will see increased interest in digitally … 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…

Old hoaxes never die. They just get transplanted to Facebook. Sometimes literally, when a classic email hoax starts to spread with minor emendations through Facebook message or news feeds. In this case, the actual message (at least, as I received it) is still email, but it's been adapted to appeal to the more than 800 million Facebook … Read More…

Since yesterday’s Much Ado About Facebook post in the ESET Threat Blog, we have written additional articles, received a few comments, and also received updated information on the “threat,” so it seems that now is a good time for a follow-up article.  Reports continue to come in of pornographic and violent imagery on Facebook, and … Read More…

As I've spent a lot of blogging time here, here and elsewhere on cold-calling/support desk scams, I didn't think I could let the recent flurry of publicity on Microsoft's disavowal of one of its Gold Partners because of their alleged implication in this kind of scam. I gave my own take on the topic at Securiteam, so … Read More…

When Róbert Lipovský and I commented on the DigiNotar/SSL situation, we said that " the user should be cautious (as always), but there's no cause for panic." While I still think that's fair comment, there's no doubt that things aren't looking any better.
Right now, much media attention is starting to be focused on DigiNotar's filing for … Read More…

It has been 1,000 days since the Conficker worm first appeared on November 21, 2008.  For the first two months after its initial appearance we received a trickle of reports through our ThreatSense.NET telemetry system.  By January of 2009 that had become a flood, and then a deluge, as this “super worm” rose to meteoric … Read More…

It's something of a truism, that 'old viruses never die', and that certainly seems to be the case for some of the older, more widespread, email worms. In this interview (http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041129/news_lz1b29five.html) back in 2004, I talked about an email worm called "Win32/Zafi.b" which, at the time, had recently been spreading on a global scale.
However, a … Read More…

Here's a diagnostic window that your shouldn't panic over, certainly if some cold-calling scammer directs you to it by persuading you to run a diagnostic on your own system.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
You might think I've blogged more than enough about support scams already – you know, where someone calls you out of the … Read More…

Update: It seems like the initial article is inaccurate and that Paul Rellis never made any such comments about a 14 year old breaking into the X-Box live servers and have not offered to mentor him http://kotaku.com/5805742/microsoft-is-helping-an-xbox-live-hacker-develop-his-talent
TekGoblin reports (http://www.tekgoblin.com/2011/05/27/14-year-old-call-of-duty-hacker-hired-by-microsoft/) that a teenager who broke into the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 gameservers last month, … Read More…