James on Security

New Scareware/Rogue Removal tool soon to be released

With a somewhat bloated market full of software for removing infections, another tool may seem unwanted…  However do you really want to run a 2 hour scan to remove a rogue?  That is the aim of ScareAware - my new tool especially for removing Rogues.

The tool, which should hopefully be released in the next few days, will include the following features in first release;

Updater

Simple interface

Light on Hard Drive space, and light on system resources

The (optional) ability to run the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool

A log file

Quick scanning

ScareAware will be updated at least once a week with the latest removal definitions, and occasionally program updates will also be included.

Watch this space

Lingering Rogue - MalwareRemovalBOT

Rogues, also known as Scareware, are often around for a week or two before their creators make a new variant with a new name…  However the rogue, called MalwareRemovalBot which popped up towards to end of 2008 is still promoting itself to users on twitter.

It appears that a series of 8 twitter accounts are linking to the site of the rogue, each account’s profile picture contains a woman in bikinis or underwear.

The accounts in question are:

emma_thompson90

hannahwatson90

madisonthomas90

oliviajenifer90

abigailhuston

alexisbarbara90

ashleymorgan90

samanthaedward9

The accounts appear to be in perfect synchronization in posting updates, the majority of which are sexual in nature.

If you spot any accounts on twitter like this you can go to their profile and click ‘Block and report for spam’, the team at twitter will then take a look and if necessary suspend the account.

Malware being pushed through rumours of Johnny Depps’ death

Johnny Depp today joins the long list of Celebrities who have had rumours of their death spread on the internet.  He also joins the list of Celebrities who have had these rumours exploited by malware.

A search on Google.co.uk (Found Here) found no malicious results in the first 5 pages, however when clicking ‘Results from the UK Only’, all results but 1 on the first page linked to the rogue ‘Live PC Care’.  After further analysis, it appears that this malware campaign targets people in the UK only… However the rumour is popular worldwide.

The fraudsters likely used blackhat techniques to get to the top of the search engines which will result in millions of hits, because the story is the second biggest on Google News Worldwide today.

However, it should be noted that Mr.Depp, 46, is in fact very much alive.