Week in Geek: FBI to Delete Malware from Botnet Computers

lego-secret-agent-chase

This week we learned how to use over 50 tools & techniques to remove image backgrounds in Photoshop, save paper by highlighting and commenting on PDFs, “halt automatic IE updates, change the background image on Windows 7 folders, & customize the Ubuntu bootloader screen”, upgrade an Ubuntu ISO without re-downloading, found out how you keep track of your passwords, and more.

Photo by Chad Davis.

Weekly News Links

Photo by TopTechWriter.US.

US authorities to delete Coreflood bot from computers
In the battle against the Coreflood botnet, US authorities are going a step further by deleting the contaminant from infected computers, according to a report by Computerworld.
SpyEye Targets Opera, Google Chrome Users
The latest version of the SpyEye trojan includes new capability specifically designed to steal sensitive data from Windows users surfing the Internet with the Google Chrome and Opera Web browsers.
Malware authors target Google Chrome
Malware authors have begun preying on users of alternative browsers to push dangerous software, including Trojans and scareware. The problem is that most malware attacks aren’t triggered by exploits that target vulnerabilities in code.
Zeus trojan adds fake investment adverts
The Zeus trojan toolkit has added a new armament to its weapons of mass deception; advertising. Trusteer has reportedly found a new configuration of the fraudsters digital toolkit which injects banner advertisements offering high rates of interest, from 7 to 32 per cent per day, into Google and Bing pages.
FBI: businesses lost $11M over 12 months to China-based phishers
US businesses have been taken for at least $11 million over the last year thanks to unauthorized wire transfers to China. The situation is so serious that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a fraud alert to small- and medium-sized businesses.
Treacherous metadata in company documents
Office documents can contain metadata such as names, storage locations and version information about the software used to create them. An attacker can exploit this information for targeted attacks. The free tool Foca shows how talkative a company’s downloadable documents are.
Dropbox experiment with update to solve security vulnerability
The developers of Dropbox have published an experimental update 1.2.0 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux to solve the recently reported security problem.
Is A New Virus Hitting In Iran?
The Iranian government on Monday said it was targeted by a new computer virus dubbed “Stars.” The report came from the director of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization through the country’s Mehr News Agency.
Hackers claim to have stolen PSN credit card info
Security researchers say hackers claiming to have credit card information stolen from Sony’s PlayStation Network last week are trying to sell that information on underground Internet forums, but the veracity of the claims could not be confirmed.
Attack on the PlayStation Network: what customers should now watch out for
Since the intrusion into the PlayStation Network (PSN), 77 million users have been wondering what dangers they are facing due to the data theft, and whether they can still do anything to limit the potential damage.
Think the cloud isn’t risky? Ponder these numbers
We’ve had Amazon Web Services fail and bring down much of the Web with it. Add to that the PlayStation Network outage, which is still unresolved and is starting to get ugly in a legal and regulatory sense for Sony. And before that there was the breach at the e-mail marketing company Epsilon.
Microsoft issues phishing alert for Xbox Live
For the past week, Sony’s PlayStation Network has been offline with no timetable as to when it will return. An external attack has compromised users’ personal information and has left more than 75 million users unable to connect. Now Microsoft is experiencing its own online problems.
Jobs says Apple will testify on location issue
Following the location question-and-answer document Apple published this past Thursday, CEO Steve Jobs has gone on the record about the company’s plans to answer inquiries made by government officials, including the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Mozilla overhauling Firefox graphics, JavaScript
In the quest for better browser speed, Mozilla has begun work on new Firefox engines for running JavaScript programs and displaying graphics.
YouTube founders buy Delicious off Yahoo
Social-bookmarking service Delicious has been purchased by AVOS, the company started by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Yahoo said in a statement that it will continue to run the Delicious service until about July.

Random TinyHacker Links

Photo by 7 Tutorials.

Got any security questions you need help answering?
The team from 7 Tutorials is making a call for security-related questions you need help answering. They are going to take all the questions shared with them and try to come up with answers in the form of tutorials, reviews or in-depth research articles.
Using a Tablet? You might want to consider Windows Journal
If you are using a Tablet or Touchscreen computer with Windows 7, you might want to give Windows Journal a try. These tutorials cover in detail all there is to know about this cool little tool from Microsoft.
Have you joined the Office365 Beta?
Microsoft’s next online business collaboration platform, is receiving lots of praise. One of the many examples is this post from Ed Bott. Therefore we decided to sign up for its beta. You might want to try it too.
Still photography + .gif
Some amazing pictures that capture a still shot plus the movement of a gif.
Yap Voicemail For iPhone Transcribes Voice Messages to Text
A solid voicemail to text message converter for iPhone.