Storm and the Future of Social Engineering 77
Albert writes "Storm shows several key characteristics, some new and advanced. It uses cunning social engineering techniques — such as tying spam campaigns to a current event or site of interest — as well as a blend of email and the Web to spread. It is highly coordinated, yet decentralized — and with Storm using the latest generation of P2P technology, it cannot be disabled by simply 'cutting off its head.' In addition, Storm is self-propagating — once infected, computers send out massive amounts of Storm spam to keep recruiting new nodes."
Self created problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi Eric
Please forward us the username and password that your using so we can login and test this problem
Cheers,
Bruce Renner
Betta Computer Services Pty Ltd
Unit 2 / 55 Tradelink Rd, Hillcrest, 4118
Ph: 3809 2999
Fx: 3809 3999
http://www.bettacomputers.com.au
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Re:ZOMG BOTZ (Score:5, Interesting)
Opinions: (Score:5, Interesting)
Took it's time.
Why isn't every virus doing this?
Seriously, this has always been possible, always been a threat. It's not surprising. It's "different" but you can't even call some parts of that "new"... other people thought of these things years ago.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next step is an "evolution"... instead of a simple worm, we get a virus that changes itself programmatically to avoid detection, uses information from previous successful hacks to propogate itself (e.g. "People click on me if I claim to be from this website... I'll send out some more of me claiming to be from that and similar websites"), or authors piggy-back increasingly more complex viruses on the back of Storm, so that eventually there is just a "swarm", instead of a "Storm".
And then the "virus swarm" will be seen as a single entity and you'll be defending your computers against it and reading adverts for "Anti-SWARM" software, etc.
Why. . ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that this is what anti-virus companies do, but the way people talk about Storm and similar bot nets, makes it sound as though there is some elusive quality which allows it to do all these unexpected things. What gives? It's just a program. What's the big deal? Or IS there a big deal? I've never been infected.
-FL
Re:Self created problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then it turns out the guy did want my CC number. When I pointed out that I have no way of knowing that this is really TW or a scammer, so the best I can do is acknowledge his notice and check my own online account, he responded, and I'm not making this up, "Yes, I understand. But I can GUARANTEE YOU that this really is Time Warner."
I replied, "No, you can't." and hung up.
Then of course, after I paid, they tried the same thing then realized mid-call I had paid it.
Re:Self created problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tell me about it.
Some background to the particular bee in my bonnet: OS X is designed with a certain folder structure repeated in various different places:
However, the GUI installation tool only allows for installation by default into
The upshot of this is that every install that uses Apple's installer asks you for your admin password (so that it can write to
In other words, Apple has been training users these past 8 years to type their admin password at the drop of a hat.
This will certainly come back to bite them.
Re:A Little Education can bring calm after the sto (Score:3, Interesting)