ESET Threat Blog

Quite rightly, such notables as Paul Ducklin and our own Randy Abrams have poured scorn on the idea of the "indestructible botnet": indeed, Randy remarked:
"Calling the botnet indestructible is tantamount to calling the Internet unsustainable … I suspect that, in time, we'll discover the 'T' in TDL stands for 'Titanic,' and a currently unseen iceberg … Read More…

[Update: that article "IMF and the weakest link" is now up on SC Magazine's Cybercrime Corner.]
In a recent article for SC Magazine (I'll post the link here when it gets posted) on the International Monetary Fund security breach, I focused on the implications of technological versus psychosocial threats and countermeasures. Not, of course, the first time I've … Read More…

Introduction
As the sun is setting and I breathe some of the night time air I am inspired to write about Facebook.  Yes, *the* Facebook, the third largest country if it were a physical place with boundaries under a common rule of law and government.  When many people use a service such as this, it bears … Read More…

Recent additions to SCMagazine's Cybercrime Corner blog include:

"Password strategies: Who goes there?" by David Harley, May 23, 2011
Password selection usually involves compromise, but even a short password can be reasonably strong and still memorable. This follows up at some length on a previous ESET blog by Paul Laudanski.
"Fighting cybercrime" by Randy Abrams, May 23, 2011
If … Read More…

It occurs to me that I haven't recently posted any pointers to our content on SC Magazine's Cybercrime Corner, and now might be a good time to recap on what Randy and I have been posting there this month (so far…)
Babushka* dollars
David Harley, May 19, 2011
It's not surprising, given how much cybercrime originates in Eastern … Read More…

My colleague Cameron Camp brought to my attention an article relating to a survey by Ericsson from which I learned that 35% of iPhone/Android users in the US interact with their smartphones before they get out of bed.
Well, I can see some logic to using your smartphone as an alarm clock, and I can see that … Read More…

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 … Read More…

[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 unabated, … Read More…

You don't need more advice from me on avoiding phishing following the Epsilon fiasco: Randy, among others has posted plenty of sound advice, and I put some links to relevant articles here, though I don't know of anyone who's published a list of the whole 2,500 or so companies that are apparently Epsilon's customers, though comment threads … Read More…

My latest blog for SC Magazine's Cybercrime Corner looked at the recent APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) attack on RSA, in the light of Uri Rivner's blog on the implementation of the attack. 
Unfortunately, the exact nature of the target and damage remains somewhat obscure, so while I certainly consider Rivner's blog worth reading, I also found myself clarifying … Read More…