Hi there! We've just released an updated, refreshed and extended awareness module on malware, one of those enduring "core topics" that we have covered several times in the six years or so since we launched our awareness service, and yet the threat is subtly different every year. As with the previous awareness topic, hacking, the most noticeable change lately has been the increasing use of malware for criminal purposes such as identity theft, spamming and industrial espionage. The days of viruses displaying funny graphics and playing silly tunes are long gone. It’s become much more serious, both for individuals and for organizations on the receiving end. Malware authors are constantly exploring different modes of infection, creating new payloads and inventing novel criminal activities. Some malware modifies its own code in order to try to escape detection by pattern-matching antivirus software, or picks up new component parts through the Internet as the in...

I can't resist re-posting this hilarious 419 scam fresh from my inbox, allegedly from innocent Natalya pictured above from the JPG attached to "her" email - I say "her" because the sender was listed as Frederick somebody, hardly a common ladies' name where I come from! Hi! I ask you to read this letter, it will not borrow a lot of your time. This letter not advertising, but this letter from usual Russian woman which wishes to meet the man of she dream... My name is Natalya. I'm 28 years old. My friends speak, that I - very cheerful and sociable woman and I have good sense of humour. I like to learn something new, to travel, walk on a nature. But unfortunately, I did not manage to meet the man to which I could trust, be very close with him and love him. At my age it is time to me to reflect on family, children. But all men whom I met, did not concern to this seriously. Therefore I have decided to try to find the man in other country. I have addressed in...

Hacker Gary McKinnon has to date successfully avoided extradition to the US to face up to his hacking of US military systems in 2001/2002. He continues to make full use of the British and European legal systems, his latest exploit involving allegedly admitting to an offense under the UK Computer Misuse Act in an apparent attempt to be incarcerated at Her Majesty's pleasure rather than, perhaps, end up languishing in an orange jump suit in Cuba. Admitting to the CMA offense is surely a desperate measure since it is hardly likely to improve his defense if he ever stands before the US courts. This is all an object lesson in the perils of hacking Uncle Sam's. It could literally be a life-changing experience.

The president of a company that develops software for oil and gas exploration was sentenced to 12 months' supervised probation and fined $2,500 for hacking a competitor using an airport's wireless network connection, according to eWeek . The company is also facing charges that it sold restricted software products to Cuba, potentially implying a wider governance failure if proven rather than simply a rogue employee, albeit a very senior one. Governance concerns are also raised by the alleged hacking of the World Bank's systems by an IT outsourcing supplier although the supplier denies the accusations . The supplier's website proudly announces that it won "the coveted Golden Peacock Global Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance for 2008" [an award that I personally hadn't heard of, but what do I know?], so it is possible that, if true, the hacker was a lone Black Hat that the company's award-winning governance processes failed to identify and/...

What makes hackers tick? Who are they? What is the difference between hacking and cracking? Are phreaks and social engineers hackers too? And most of all what can we do to avoid being hacked? We can't promise to answer these questions fully but our latest NoticeBored security awareness module does at least address them. Please sign-up here to receive the free monthly awareness newsletter . We will be using Google Groups in future rather than Topica to circulate the newsletters but unfortunately this means everyone on the current mailing list must make the effort to join the Google Group to continue getting them [we'd have migrated all your email addresses ourselves except that some might consider that a privacy violation!].

Anti-Terrorist and Monitory Crimes Division. Federal Bureau Of Investigation. J. Edgar. Hoover Building, Washington D.C Telephone Number : (206) 984 - 0470 ATTN: BENEFICIARY This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal transaction with Impostors claiming to be Prof. Charles C. Soludo of the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr Frank Nweke, none officials of Oceanic Bank, none officials of Zenith Bank and some impostors claiming to be the Federal Bureau Of Investigation agents. Oh, OK, so I'm supposed to suspend disbelief for a moment and accept that the FBI is writing to me out of the blue, with a grammatically incorrect and anonymous email, warning me about impostors from Nigeria? Right. Let's see what they want ... During our Investigation, it came to our notice that the reason why you have not received your...

As the title suggests, Will your cellphone spill your secrets focuses on privacy exposures from lost cellphones but the same considerations apply to other gizmos of course. The loss of a gizmo is more than just a privacy issue: we become very attached to, if not dependent on them. Speaking personally, I'm terrible at remembering names let alone phone numbers, email addresses, passwords and so forth, so I rely heavily on the technology to do the remembering for me. Naturally, being a security freak, I use encryption and other controls to protect such sensitive information so the privacy side is less of a concern than me simply losing access to all that valuable information ... so don't forget backups. Decent backups. Off-line backups with the backup media stored securely. It's a bit of a pain to take them but it's far worse to lose a gizmo (whether by leaving it on the back seat of a cab on the roof of a car, having it stolen, dropping it in a puddle or some other ...