Webmasters from many on-line hosting providers are targeted in a new round of Avalanche phish.
Spam emails bear the same basic message with variations in the email subject line which use the name of the target hosting company.
Recipients who click on the included link are taken to a Web site made to look like a cPanel page.
Due to the system maintenance, we kindly ask you to take a few minutes to confirm your FTP details.
Please confirm your FTP details by using the link below:
Webmasters who fall for the scam should contact their hosting provider and have them change the password/s. The site should also be checked for any changes.
Article and Sceenshots at “CyberCrime & Doing Time” by Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
President Barack Obama announced his plans for securing cyberspace.
“we’ve had to learn a whole new vocabulary just to stay ahead of the cyber criminals who would do us harm — spyware and malware and spoofing and phishing and botnets.”
Obama also mention Conficker.
No single official oversees cybersecurity policy across the federal government, and no single agency has the responsibility or authority to match the scope and scale of the challenge. Indeed, when it comes to cybersecurity, federal agencies have overlapping missions and don’t coordinate and communicate nearly as well as they should — with each other or with the private sector. We saw this in the disorganized response to Conficker, the Internet “worm” that in recent months has infected millions of computers around the world.
http://certifiedbug.com/blog/tag/conficker/
Net savvy Obama used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter during his campaign.
Press release:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON SECURING OUR NATION’S CYBER INFRASTRUCTURE
New York Times:
Fending Off Attacks in Cyberspace
Steve Riley
Will the new US “Cybersecurity Coordinator†actually be able to do anything?
Users who retaliate to phishing attacks by telling off the phisher are being targeted with exploits designed to hijack their computers.
Joe Stewart at SecurityWorks Inc. The Phish That Bites Back
Mother’s advice not to talk back meant more than we ever knew. 
Quebec provincial police conducted raids on Wednesday, breaking up a hacking ring said to be responsible for an estimated CDN$45 million in damage to computer systems. Police did not release names of the accused who range in age from 17 to 26 years old. Three are minors.
In a videotaped press conference posted to the police agency’s Web site, Capt. Frederick Gaudreau, of the Surete du Quebec, said the hackers installed remote-controlled botnet software on victims’ machines in order to run phishing and spamming operations. The botnet is believed to contain up to one million zombie PCs, spanning 100 countries around the globe.
If convicted of computer hacking charges, the accused could face 10 years in prison, Gaudreau said.
Police confiscated computer equipment during the raids, and information found on the machines may lead to more charges against other alleged ring members.
