On Tuesday, April 26, Symantec hosted a live Twitter chat centered around our latest Internet Security Threat Report and the changing threat landscape. We’d like to extend a big thank you to those who participated and joined the conversation.

 Using the #SecChat hash tag in Twitter, we were able to guide a lively discussion around what’s top of mind with regard to the current security threat landscape for those of you in the security industry.

One aspect of the discussion focused on end-user security education and its importance, while others questioned whether dollars spent toward user education made any difference at all. We certainly heard all sides to the story. If there is anything people agree on it’s that the “user is like water, following the path of least resistance to their end goal,” in the words of one tweeter.

Those in support...

On April 20, for the first time ever, gold rose above $1,500 an ounce as worries over the U.S. economic outlook boosted demand for the metal as a haven. Within hours, Symantec observed this spammer’s response: a hit-and-run spam attack with the Subject line “Subject: Is Gold Your Ticket To A Golden Future?”

Hit-and-run spam (or snow-shoe spam) is a threat known for its large volumes of spam messages in short bursts, where domains are quickly rotating and the sending IP hops within a certain /24 IP range.

Key characteristics include:

• The message is in HTML
• There is some type of word salad or word obfuscation injected between various tags and/or in the URL by means of multiple directories
• The message is typically sent within the same /24 IP range
• Domains are rotated quickly

The call to action for this particular attack is a URL in the message body which directs the recipient to a Web site where the...

As I recently have sent off my tax forms in preparation for the US Federal tax deadline on April 18 this year, a recent phishing scam piqued my interest. This attack is taking advantage of the new tax year beginning for folks in the UK on April 6, 2011.

The message in question was being sent in the name of the HMRC, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, in an attempt to lure users into divulging bank account information with the lure of unclaimed tax overpayment money.

The path of the message had an international flavor, beginning at what looks like a computer at a hotel business center based in the US, then going through servers in New Zealand, then back to the US through the mail servers of a large free email service, and then presumably into the inbox of a user based in the UK.

The URLs in the message also contributed to this internationalized scam by utilizing a domain based in Serbia which would redirect users when they unsuspectingly clicked on the...

In the past couple of months, Symantec observed phishing sites that spoofed online FIFA games. The legitimate game is played by forming a team of footballers purchased with coins. The more games you win with your team, the more coins you gain. The popular and more skilled footballers demand a higher number of coins.

The phishing campaign was launched with fake offers of free coins to lure online FIFA players. One of the phishing sites was purportedly from a player who sympathized with end users who struggle with the game. The phishing site contained a message from this fictitious player which expressed the embarrassment one goes through for having a team of low profile footballers. The message explained that the site would help players generate free coins so that they could form a more expensive team of footballers. The phishing site prompted users to login with their email address and password to gain up to 10,000 free coins per day. The phishing pages featured popular...