Is it safe to download pirated software?
One of the most frequently asked questions that we receive is, “Is it safe to download pirated software?” The answer? No, in most cases it’s not safe. Simply put, peer-to-peer networks are breeding grounds for malware and more specifically Trojans. PandaLabs receives and processes 55,000 samples a day, many of which are Trojans bundled with [...]
Greetings from Helsinki
After a week of holidays here in Helsinki, I started working again. During Monday and Tuesday I have attended the AMTSO meeting, where we’ve been discussing how we can improve the visibility that AMTSO actually has, so we can spread our message in a better way to the different media and users in general. Apart from [...]
Western Union entwined with cybercrime?
A few weeks ago I came across several email messages in Spanish purporting to have been sent by Western Union: As you can see, this is a typical message sent as spam that we have seen in many guises. It tries to pass itself off as some kind of official notification from well-known companies -anyone [...]
I’m a crack!
Internet offers us many possibilities, some of them are tempting, like downloading all types of programs without having to pay for it. I’m not going to comment whether this is good or bad, I only want to warn you of the risks you may run, as the websites that offer this type of “products†are [...]
Social engineering, PDFs and banking Trojans
A few days ago our colleague Oscar received an email inviting him to access a Web page by clicking on a link. This is not new. However, on clicking on the link, the following page was displayed (don’t try this at home, kids ): As you can see, the page includes a download window inviting [...]
Mac Malware – fact or fiction?
One of the questions I am most often asked has to do with the supposed “immunity” of Mac. The first thing I always explain is that no system is invulnerable, and that in the case of Apple, it is not renowned for paying much attention to security. Depending on the person’s fondness for Apple, the [...]
Worms 2.0
I love my job, and one of the main reasons is that everyday I see something new or at least different. I am always surprised on how the cybercriminals are able to adapt themselves and their creations to new technologies. Today I’ll show you the worm Spybot.AKB. It spreads using P2P programs (copying itself to [...]
Saint Valentine’s Day
Next Sunday, February 14th, is Saint Valentine’s Day. Since the 19th century, lovers, to express their love for each other have been sending flowers and greeting cards (also known as “Valentines”) on this date. And then the Internet appeared, as well as the social engineering tehniques developed by the cybercriminals to lure users and get [...]
Distributing malware through Facebook
People ask me many times how are the bad guys using Facebook to distribute malware. Even though there are multiple answers to that question, at the end of the day Facebook is just another way to communicate, and it has more that 400 million users, so it’s just another mean of transmission, as e-mails have [...]
The Hell Angels or, better said, the Malware Angels…
These days we’ve come across a new worm with old intentions. It has been detected as W32/Mseus.A, though it comes together with two friends W32/Mseus.A.worm and Rootkit/Mseus.B, a lovely bunch. It’s very curious how social engineering is being used to trick users, this time appealing to the users’ vanity to check if they can be [...]
