Hasta La Gadget!

For the most part when it comes to downloading torrents, spotting a fake or one laced with malware is relatively easy as you would only have to scan the comments and the negative votes. However there are times when the torrent might be new or unpopular which means that comments and votes are not available, so how do you tell then if the torrent you are about to download is a fake or contains malware? Well thanks to a Symantec patent, it seems that the anti-virus company is hoping to help make your future torrent downloads a safer and much more informed one at that. After all no one likes spending hours downloading a torrent only to find out it’s a dud, right? (more…)

Symantec Patents Method To Weed Out Fake Or Malicious Torrents original content from Ubergizmo.

This week the Botnet known as Bamital has been reported dead by the two warriors that claim to have killed it: Symantec and Microsoft. This report shows that the death of said botnet will take down its abilities in full: hijacking search results galore being the main evil this Bamital creature was working with. Each time a user in the line of fire searched for something using search engines from whens they’d be sent to a malicious 3rd party site, having malware installed from that point.

Microsoft has made it clear that their research pushes Bamital far beyond the average malicious attack on the public. What they’ve found suggests that a whopping 8 million computers had been affected by Bamital over the past two years alone, including many of the most major search engines. If you’d been using Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo, Google, or a variety of other smaller engines over the past two years, Microsoft and Symantec are saying this week that you were at risk – but that you aren’t any longer.

That said, there are still users out there with the malware already on their computers. For those folks, Microsoft has provided their Virus and Security Solution Center for remote help. This is a continuation of what Microsoft calls their MARS initiative, aka Microsoft Active Response for Security.

The other big name you’ll want to know if you’re tracking such things is Operation b58. This code-name is the one associated with Symantec and Microsoft taking down Bamital, and is the sixth “botnet disruption operation” Microsoft has initiated in three years. That’s a whole ‘lotta botnet bunker busting! And it’s not just about sitting at home and keying in to the malware tossers from afar – Microsoft has provided photos of, for example, Microsoft DCU’s Richard Boscovich and Craig Schmidt working with a “third-party cyberforensics expert” securing a lovely collection of evidence of the Bamital botnet down in New Jersey at a web-hosting facility that will remain nameless (that’s the image you’re seeing above).

The image you see above with the yellow dot web sort of graphic is what Microsoft describes as Figure 28. This map was included in a legal declaration filed by Microsoft DCU’s Craig Schmidt (also pictured above) in Operation b58. It shows what happens when a computer infected with Bamital sees when they search in Bing for the word Chrome – ads, ads, and more ads. Fun stuff!

[via Microsoft]

Bamital Botnet destroyed: Microsoft, Symantec victorious is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In case you don’t remember, today is Guy Fawkes Day. Anonymous is trying to make sure that you remember the fifth of November, taking to Twitter today to announce that it has hacked PayPal and made off with nearly 28,000 passwords. According to The Next Web, Anonymous posted these passwords (along with usernames and telephone numbers in some cases) to Private Paste, though at the time of this writing the page linked to by the AnonymousPress Twitter account has been taken down. [UPDATE: PayPal responds below.]

PayPal says that it is currently investigating the claims of a breach, but so far the company hasn’t found any evidence that it has been hacked. SEE: quote below. That isn’t all Anonymous has been up to though, as the BBC reports that Symantec is looking into claims that it has been hacked as well. Over the weekend, sites belonging to NBC, Lady Gaga, and the Australian government were compromised in an apparent protest for Guy Fawkes Day.

“It appears that the exploit was not directed at PayPal after all, it was directed at a company called ZPanel. The original story that started this and was retweeted by some of the Anonymous Twitter handles has now been updated.” – PayPal Spokesperson

Guy Fawkes, who attempted to blow up the House of Lords in an effort to kill King James I back in 1605, has become something of a legend within Anonymous, thanks to 2005′s V for Vendetta. “Members” of the group often wear Guy Fawkes masks that were used in the movie when they appear publicly, and indeed, a few of the websites displayed the famous Gunpowder Treason rhyme after being compromised. “Remember, remember the fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot,” the rhyme commands. “I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.”

A number of the sites that were reportedly compromised in this Guy Fawkes protest are now back to normal, but you can bet that Anonymous is pleased with the attention it has received this fifth of November. Even though PayPal hasn’t confirmed that it was hacked, it might not be a bad idea to switch up your password if you happen to be a customer. Knowing Anonymous, this won’t be the last we hear of the hacktivist group today, so keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more details.

Anonymous celebrates Guy Fawkes Day with reported PayPal hack [UPDATE] is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Customers were not happy after security firm Symantec made a recent update to its antivirus software, causing some Windows-based PCs to crash repeatedly, showing a dreadful “blue screen of death” in many cases. The company released a statement on its website saying it received a number of reports with machines running Windows XP that were continuing to show the blue screen after rebooting.

It was discovered that the issue had been limited to machines running any combination of Windows XP, the latest Sonar antivirus software version, the 18 Sonar signature set from the July 11 revision and software from third parties. “The root cause of the issue was an incompatibility due to a three way interaction between some third party software that implements a file system driver using kernel stack based file objects – typical of encryption drivers, the SONAR signature and the Windows XP Cache manager,” Symantec said.

Enraged customers said they were forced to remove the software manually and disable their machines. Someone had said on the discussion boards that Symantec would compensate customers for the inconvenience, but the company recently responded to the problem saying that it would not be providing compensation packages. Symantec said it was working hard on a solution and providing technical support to customers, including directly reaching out to customers who had posted about the issue on the discussion boards.

[via Reuters]

Symantec antivirus update causes Windows XP machines to crash is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.