Instant messaging (IM) applications are widely used nowadays, and while more and more people use them, they’ve also become increasingly feature heavy. Besides the original chat function, IM applications have also integrated other useful features such as blogging, photo albums, online games, etc. More functions enhance the user’s Internet surfing experience, help people to share information and thoughts, and even allow users to manage their assets online.
While people are enjoying the convenience brought by advanced technologies and services, hackers are also aiming at the information that people are increasingly putting on the Internet, especially when the information is profitable. Online account information is definitely one of them.
A recent security event is a warning to us all. It was discovered that people’s IM account information is available online by searching keywords such as “[IM USERNAME] password txt filetype:txt.” Hundreds...
Online games are becoming more popular among Internet users and new services are emerging. One of these is a game service provided by an unauthorized third party. It’s free to play and could enable gamers to earn money or equipment for the game more easily. However, since these “unofficial” game servers aren’t tested or signed by trustworthy organizations, there is no way to tell whether or not user information stored on these servers is secure. Also, applications associated with this service could pose potential threats to users’ computers. Recently, we detected a new trick used to steal gamers’ account information, which could be sold for money in the underground black market later.
We discovered that the malware author inserted Infostealer.Gampass into the executable file of the login service for the unofficial gaming site. When...
News becomes valuable when it has accumulated a large amount of attention from the public. Such news could be used for massive agitprop campaigns, marketing, etc. On the other hand, it could also be used for malicious purposes. The recent swine flu news has motivated malware authors to create a virus and distribute it using swine flu-related spam emails.
A malicious swine flu-related PDF file that exploits an already known PDF vulnerability was mentioned in a previous post. In China, Symantec has discovered another attack utilizing this widely publicized topic: compromised news and informational websites that talk about swine flu.
