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How to report malicious URLs

3wPlayer

Image via Wikipedia

One of the topics I frequently get asked about by customers when they visit SophosLabs, is what do we do about the hoards of legitimate web sites that we see getting hit with malware? How do we go about alerting them to the problem? How can we help to get things cleaned up quickly thereby reducing risk for users?

Sophos customers can take advantage of our WebAlert service, but this is not relevant to non-customers.

Web security is a topic that affects us all. The web has become the predominant way in which malware is delivered nowadays. Thanks to techniques such as black hat search engine optimisation (SEO) or drive-by download attacks, failings in the security of a single site or hosting provider can expose many innocent users to malware. Improving the process by which the bad stuff gets reported and cleaned up is in all of our interests.

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The MySpace puppies hack that wasn’t

Early on Friday, visitors of the MySpace website were presented with a curious message that left many users believing that the service had been hacked.

MySpace message

We messed up our code so bad that even puppies and kittens may be in danger. Please turn back ...now.

* Have your pet spayed or neutered.

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Wikipedia Says It Is Losing Contributors

Image representing Wikipedia as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit its entries, says it is losing contributors.

Founder Jimmy Wales says administrators are scrambling to simplify what he called “convoluted” editing templates that may be discouraging people from writing and editing Wikipedia’s entries.

In another effort to encourage volunteers to stay active, Wales says the site has introduced a new feature called WikiLove that lets users post positive feedback.

He was speaking to the Associated Press on Thursday from the website’s annual conference, held this year in Haifa, Israel.

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Data stolen from 35 million South Korean social networking users

Image representing Cyworld as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Hackers have broken into the popular South Korean websites Nate and Cyworld earlier this week, and stolen information about 35 million social networking users.

Names, email addresses, phone numbers and resident registration numbers of users are said to have been compromised.

The BBC reports that the Korean Communications Commission has pointed the finger of blame at Chinese hackers, after it was discovered that the IP addresses of intruding computers were based in the country.

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Beware shortcuts for getting more followers on Twitter

Free twitter badge

Image via Wikipedia

There are various different ways of getting more followers on Twitter.

The easiest method is to be a celebrity. It doesn’t matter if you tweet anything interesting, you’ll probably find a fair number of people will follow you regardless.

Alternatively, you could try to tweet something that people find useful or amusing or informative on a regular basis. If you put in the hours, write great tweets and be yourself then you may find others are happy to follow you and engage with you online.

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BeautifulPeople dupes media with Shrek virus publicity stunt

Image representing BeautifulPeople as depicted...

Image via CrunchBase

BeautifulPeople.com, the dating website which claims to only accept members who pass an attractiveness rating, is claiming in the media that it has been hit by a computer virus.

According to a press release issued by the website, it was hit by a virus called “Shrek” that made it possible for “30,000 ‘ugly’ people to invade the site.”

The story has been widely reported by the likes of The Guardian, The Telegraph, Fox News, The Daily Mail and many other media outlets.

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