Security Response

Here’s a money making idea: find some advertisers and tell them you can put their ads on billboards at half the going rate. You don't own any billboards? No problem, just go paste the ads over the ones on someone else's billboards.

This idea has not really caught on in the real world—it's impractical to run around town, climbing up poles, and plastering ads on someone else's billboard. You’re also limited to the billboards you can physically reach. Plus it's illegal.

The Internet is another story. There are no physical limitations, no climbing, and some people don't have an issue with doing illegal things, especially when they don't think they'll get caught. The good news is they do get caught, but we'll come back to that.

So what is the equivalent of a billboard on the Internet? A website. Getting people to visit a website and view ads on it is big business. This attracts cyber criminals who try to figure...

Ten years later, it is tempting to say that the September 11th terrorist attacks against the U.S. changed everything. It is indisputable that it changed many things, and without a doubt it changed how we think about security, how we deploy security, and what we spend on security.

But, we have not seen a significant impact on cyber security. The events of 9/11 drove a deep concern with physical security, but in 2001 no one saw a physical threat originate from a computer. That said, in the last ten years, we have seen a significant evolution in the Internet security threat landscape.
 

Famous or infamous, when you make news, the scammers pay attention. While we have come to expect the famous and infamous to show up in malware attacks that use spam and SEO poisoning, we shouldn’t be surprised when scammers leverage the spotlight that current events shine on the infamous. As Samir Patil blogged on Monday, the Gaddafi family is showing up in 419 scams. After all, few of us know a real Nigerian prince, but most of us have heard of Gaddafi, know he is in a bit of trouble, and might have the resources to buy his way out of trouble.

I can’t predict how events in Libya will end for the Gaddafi family. But I do predict that they will become very popular not only in 419 scams, but in a variation called the inheritance con.

Like the 419/Spanish prison scam, the inheritance con goes way back. The most famous version is the Drake scam, which started shortly after the...