Posts Tagged ‘Macintosh’

Peeping Tom tricked women into taking hacked webcams into shower, claim police

Published by pratyushkp on June 10th, 2011 - in Social, Technology

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The problem of perverts and cyberstalkers using malware to grab control over female victims’ webcams is one that has been around for quite some time.

Hackers can secretly spy upon people in their bedrooms, and even exploit technology to blackmail young women into posing naked, threatening that they will send other compromising photos to their online friends.

It’s pretty unsavoury stuff, and has probably made some women cautious of handing over their computers to that ever-so-friendly repair man, fearful of what they might install while the computer is in their care.

In the latest case, a 20-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly infecting young women’s Apple Mac computers with spyware that could commandeer their webcam.

Trevor Harwell, of Orange County, California, is said to have rigged the MacBooks with error messages that would increase the chances of him capturing nude pictures and movies of the young women.

You’re probably wondering what kind of error messages would achieve such a result.

"You should fix your internal sensor soon. If unsure what to do, try putting your laptop near hot steam for several minutes to clean the sensor."

According to Fullerton Police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich, the error message tricked many victims into taking laptops into their bathroom while taking a steamy shower.

The sleazy scheme was only brought to light last summer when a mother became suspicious about the unlikely messages appearing on her daughter’s computer.

Hundreds of thousands of surreptitiously taken still images, videos and cellphone videos were seized from Hawell’s computer according to a report in the LA Times.

Anyone woman who believes they might have been a victim is invited to contact Fullerton Det. Kathryn Hamel at (714) 738-5327.

Of course, and perhaps most disturbingly, there was nothing stopping the victim of the alleged surveillance being under-age.

It’s true of people of any age, but young people’s PCs must be properly protected with the latest anti-virus software, security patches and firewalls. It is also essential that young people are taught how to behave safely online, to avoid being exploited by sick-minded hackers.

  • Find out more about how to protect children from online threats at www.getsafeonline.org
  • Find out about the Virtual Global Taskforce – a group of police forces working around the world to fight online child abus

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

Related articles
  • Peeping Tom tricked women into taking hacked webcams into shower, claim police (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
  • Crooked Technician Hacked Laptops To Become Peeping Tom (escapistmagazine.com)
  • Technician Arrested for Installing Webcam Peeping Software on Women’s PCs (techland.time.com)
  • Cops arrest alleged high-tech peeping Tom (cbsnews.com)
  • Peeping Tom Mac spyware suspect cuffed (go.theregister.com)
  • Police: Computer tech installed peeping software (seattlepi.com)
Tags: , , , , Los Angeles Times, , , Orange County California, , Virtual Global Taskforce,
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Rihanna and Hayden Panettiere sex video spreads Mac malware on Facebook

Published by pratyushkp on June 2nd, 2011 - in Social, Technology

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Hot on the heels of an earlier Mac malware attack spreading via Facebook links, we are seeing another attempt to infect Mac users on the social network – with what claims to be a sex video of celebrities Rihanna and Hayden Panettiere.

If you see messages like the following on Facebook, please do not click on the links.

one more stolen home porn video Rihanna and Hayden Panettiere

Hot Lesbian Video - Rihanna And Hayden Panettiere!!
[LINK]

Rihanna And Hayden Panettiere !!! Private Lesbian HOT Sex Tape stolen from home archive of Rihanna!

For those who don’t follow such things, Hayden Panettiere played the part of the cheerleader in the sci-fi TV show “Heroes“, and Rihanna is a pop star famous for her umbrella-ella-ella.

Not that you’ll get to see much evidence of that if you click on the link as – on Apple Macs at least – you may find yourself ending up on a webpage which tries to infect you with malware in the form of a fake anti-virus attack.

Has a private lesbian hot sex tape really been stolen from the home archive of Rihanna? Personally I think it’s unlikely, but it’s surprising what people will believe these days (and indeed, what celebrities will get up to) so it’s no wonder that some folks might click on the link.

SophosLabs is adding detection for the various components of this Mac malware attack as OSX/FakeAV-DWK, OSX/FakeAV-DWN, OSX/FakeAvDl-A and OSX/FakeAVZp-C. Users of Sophos products, including the free Mac anti-virus for home users, will be automatically updated.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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  • Are Hayden Panettiere and Mark Sanchez dating — or just fast-food junkies? (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
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  • IMF boss rape video? Mac malware spreads via Facebook links (blogoholic.in)
Tags: , , , Heroes (TV series), , , Mark Sanchez, New York Jets, ,
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IMF boss rape video? Mac malware spreads via Facebook links

Published by pratyushkp on June 1st, 2011 - in Social, Technology

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Mac OS X malware is being spread by sick messages spreading virally across Facebook, claiming to be a video of controversial IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The fake anti-virus attack first appears in your timeline as a message apparently posted by one of your friends.

oh shit, one more really freaky video O_O

IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn Exclusive Rape Video - Black lady under attack!
[LINK]
IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape scandal. Mother of Alleged Rape Victim: Dominique Strauss-Kahn Did Not Want To Be President of France - ABC News

(I have obscured the image used in the message in case it causes offence).

The message’s text refers to the news story of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn who is facing charges in New York over charges that he tried to rape a hotel maid.

In terms of sick headlines to entrap users, this one ranks right up there. It’s been, of course, a very big news story – and many people have been following the case with interest. And that probably explains why the hackers have used the promise of a video as bait.

Clicking on the link takes you to a webpage, which appears to consist of a still from a sex movie. However, when I visited the page on my Apple Mac I was rapidly redirected to a “Mac Defender”-style fake anti-virus attack, written specifically with the intention of infecting my computer.

Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac intercepted the attack as OSX/FakeAVZp-C.

What’s interesting is that up until now we have mostly seen these fake anti-virus attacks target Mac users by poisoning search engine results. But now we are seeing them being distributed by viral Facebook spam campaigns as well.

It’s probably not too difficult to put yourself in the shoes of a computer user who knows that they are possibly about to watch a seedy video, only to find themselves facing a screen warning them of numerous security threats.

In many ways this is a genius piece of social engineering to frighten unsuspecting Mac users into installing the software and handing over their credit card details.

It’s just a shame that Facebook’s own security systems are currently failing to stop these links from spreading.

Download Sophos’s free anti-virus for Mac home users. It’s automatically updated to protect against the latest threats. Another step you should take is changing the default settings on Safari – it’s not a complete defence, but it can help a little.

Related articles
  • IMF boss rape video? Mac Facebook users hit by a sick scareware attack (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
  • Mac Defender malware now spreading virally via Facebook (zdnet.com)
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  • “Former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn Said to Maid While Assaulting her … “Don’t You Know Who I Am?”" and related posts (scaredmonkeys.com)
  • “Strauss-Kahn Scandal Continues to Reverberate” and related posts (thenewspundit.com)
Tags: , AntiVirus, , , , , , , , ,
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Fake Firefox warnings lead to scareware

Published by pratyushkp on May 31st, 2011 - in Social, Technology

Image via CrunchBase

Purveyors of fake security software don’t let much grass grow under their feet and continually make improvements to their social engineering lures.

While most of the talk for the past month has been their move to Mac with fake Finder pop-ups that appear to scan your computer, they haven’t stopped innovating on Windows either.

Their latest scam? They detect your user-agent string from your web browser and display a fake Firefox security alert if you are using the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

Internet Explorer users get the standard “My Computer” dialog that appears to do a system scan inside their browser window.

Taking advantage of detailed information about the person’s computer and software allows for a much more specific, believable social engineering attempt.

We are likely to continue to see these criminals targeting each operating system, browser and any other details that can be gleaned from HTTP requests sent from our devices.

If you click the “Start Protection” button you will download the latest, greatest fake anti-virus program which will perform exactly the way you would expect a fake anti-virus program it to.

It will faithfully detect fake viruses on your computer until you register it for $80 or more.

If you are a Firefox user and see a warning about viruses on your computer, you will know it is fake. Firefox does not include a virus scanner inside of it and it will only warn you about visiting malicious pages.

If you get a warning about a dangerous website from Firefox you can always play it safe… Close the browser.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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Tags: AntiVirus, , , , , , ,
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