For sports fans, the most exciting time of the year is the post season. It is when the underdogs have a chance to topple the better teams in the league, or last year's champions are trying to win it again. Depending on the sport, these events can draw a lot of viewers, whether it is a single event or a seven game series. So, its no surprise there are sites that claim to offer fans the ability to watch these events online.

Right now, we are in the midst of the NBA finals pitting some of the finest players in the league against each other in their quest to win it all. The series was just tied 2-2 before Game 5 on Sunday. On that day, some Facebook users may have seen pages offering a free live stream of the game.
 

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Contributor: Hiroshi Shinotsuka

Malware authors are always seeking new ways to hone their craft. As cybercriminals are facing a multitude of preventative technologies from Symantec and users are becoming more security conscious, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the bad guys to win.

Recently, during research, we came across an oddly named sample, Word13.exe. Upon first glance, it appears to be a digitally signed file from Adobe.
 

Figure 1. Word13.exe file signed by Adobe
 

Figure 2. Fake digital signature properties
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Japanese one-click fraud apps on Google Play made their debut at the beginning of the year and have now become a regular on the market as new variants appear on an almost daily basis. I was curious to see whether the scammers had attempted to target other mobile platforms, so I did some investigative work. The result of which was I didn’t find any one-click fraud on other platforms, but I did came across a dodgy app in the Apple App Store that uses a strategy that is similar to one-click fraud apps.

Once opened, the app accesses certain URLs and displays content from them within the app. The app itself pretty much acts as a frame for the fraudulent site. The particular app leads to fake dating services, called “sakura” sites in Japan, rather than one-click fraud apps that attempt to fool users into paying for an adult video service.

The app was introduced on the App Store as a game and certainly does not look like it is related to a dating service on...

Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, once said that, “without music, life would be a mistake.” This resonates with me, as someone with a profound love and appreciation for music. Like many fans, I’m an avid concert and festival attendee. Just last year, I attended a number of music festivals, from Coachella to Rock The Bells.

Last year’s Coachella music festival sold out quickly. While my friends and I managed to secure tickets, not everyone was so lucky. Shortly after ticket sales ended, I observed a Facebook fan page offering “free tickets” to users who liked the page. It had close to 10,000 likes but contained little information. I started warning friends that the page was a scam. The page was eventually taken down, with no free tickets awarded after all.

These types of online ticket scams may not seem common, but that perception is precisely why an offer like this—whether through social networking or email—may...