The IT Security Office has seen an uptick of "tracking number" malspams (spam with malicious attachments). Here's the good news: our filters are doing a good job of catching these and stripping the attachments. Most people are reporting messages to us that look something like this:
The folks over at Lifehacker have posted a notice that tomorrow, November 18, 2008, ZoneAlarm Pro will be available as a free download.
Consumer Reports has published a good, quick take on common mistakes that can ruin your computer or invite identity theft.
For reasons that have yet to be determined, someone compromised an e-mail account at George Mason University and used it to send a hoax message regarding today's elections to approximately 30,000 students and 5,000 staff and faculty. The hoax message reads as follows:
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Subject: Election Day Update To the Mason Community: Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. Peter N. Stearns |
If you're still using Firefox 2, it's time to upgrade. (Here's how to do a version check: Click the Help menu, then select About. A window will pop up and it will say which version you're running.)
Please see the alert posted at http://www.security.ku.edu/alerts/alert-viewer.jsp?id=70. If you don't want to read all the dry technical details, here's the "just add water" version:
Ordinarily, Microsoft releases updates for its software (Windows, Office, etc.) on the second Tuesday of every month. Today, though, is a little bit different. They have discovered a very severe vulnerability in Windows and they decided that it's bad enough that they will release a patch outside of the normal schedule.
...is worth two in the...something. Sorry, I'll work on that.
About a week ago, an IT Security Office staff member found a Palm Centro on the bus. Being a nice person, he brought it back to the office so that we could work to find its owner and return it. He walked into my cubicle and handed me the phone and said "can you tell me whose phone this is?"
Election season is in full swing and the push to register new voters is on! If you haven't registered to vote yet, make sure you're registering with the proper authorities, and not someone who is trying to steal your identity.
While the IT Security Office has not received any reports of phishing scams involving voter registration, it's a good idea to be wary. Fraudsters may attempt to confuse you into giving up your name, address, social security number, and even your bank account under the guise of the voter registration process. Don't be fooled!
iPods, mobile phones, smartphones, USB sticks, laptops, GPS units...the list of gadgetry we use and store in our automobiles is nearly endless. Bad guys know this.
Have you ever visited a web site, and received a scary-looking pop-up, "Your computer may be infected!!!", or "Your computer is at risk!!!!"? The site then "helps" you by directing you to software that will "Clean your PC", "Improve your PC's speed!", or "Eliminate online threats".
