MARLBOROUGH — The Better Business Bureau issued an urgent SCAM alert cautioning businesses and consumers about an email that looks like it is from BBB, with the subject line “Complaint from your customers.”

This e-mail is fraudulent. BBB warns you to ignore its contents and delete it immediately. If you have already clicked on a link in the e-mail, run a full virus scan of your computer.

The e-mails have return addresses that BBB does not use (one example is riskmanager@bbb.org) and it is signed with the address of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the national office of the BBB system. The e-mail contains a link to a non-BBB web site. Do NOT click on the link.

BBB is working with law enforcement to determine its source and stop the fraudulent campaign.  http://www.bbb.org/us/article/ALERT-Malicious-Complaint-Email-Claiming-Its-From-BBB-30916

For several hours Sunday morning, Blast Magazine and many other websites in the InMotion Hosting network were attacked by a hacker called TiGER-M@TE.

InMotion, where Blast hosts one of its servers, acknowledged the breach.

“At around 4 a.m. EST, our system administration team identified a website defacement attack affecting a large number of customers. We are still investigating, but it appears that files named index.php have been defaced. We are evaluating how this has occurred and our security team will have more information shortly,” InMotion said in a statement. “While we review this issue, cPanel and SSH access has been disabled on various platforms. For additional security, we are rotating passwords on a number of accounts.”

It is unclear how many sites were hit, but it is likely hundreds, if not thousands.

This morning, the Blast homepage was briefly replaced by a black background with the red letters “Hacked” (See photo below) and all of our blogs and articles were unreachable.

This appears to be the same hacker who successfully attacked Google previously. The Hacker News interviewed TiGER-M@TE, who claimed to be hacking since 2007, working alone, and only using private exploits and zero-day attacks.

In an online posting, TiGER-M@TE claimed responsibility for launching the homepage defacement attack.

“While we can respect TiGER-M@TE’s abilities, we are disappointed that our websites were hit,” said Blast Magazine editor-in-chief John M. Guilfoil. “What truly concerns me, however, is that InMotion Hosting appeared woefully unable to prevent or defend against this kind of attack, even though homepage defacements have been going on seemingly forever. We will consult with InMotion on Monday and plan to press the company to be more proactive in its security if InMotion values its customers.”

You know the dangers of identity theft and make sure that you shred old bills and receipts before dumping them in the trash, but how do you protect your Smartphone? Since your Blackberry, Android or iPhone device is capable of a whole range of conveniences – browsing the Internet, online purchasing and banking – your Smartphone is actually a pocket-sized holder of all the sensitive information you’ve been trying so hard to keep from prying eyes.

Recent studies have found that modern users aren’t nearly as careful with a phone as they should be, particularly if it’s used for these types of activities. A recent report by CPP found that 54% of second-hand phones contained personal data such as text messages, emails and bank details –a wakeup call for consumers. Loss or theft is a common concern as well, and without sufficient protection, a stranger can easily grab web site logins, passwords and credit card details that can be used to carry out transactions and register for services in your name.

So, what can be done about it? Well, first of all it’s important to start looking at a phone in a similar way you would a wallet, purse or keys – in other words, make sure you know where it is at all times. If you are selling or recycling a phone, make sure any and all personal data is deleted before it is passed on, and don’t forget to remove the SIM card and any internal memory.

While it’s always a good idea to be aware of exactly what type of data a phone can store and take steps to minimize the chance of loss, thankfully the security industry is also weighing in with software that’s specifically designed to protect Smartphones. Using a modern mobile security suite, you can remotely lock, wipe or locate a phone as soon as you notice it missing, and of course it’s a good idea to report this yourself to the provider just as you would with a lost credit card.

Malware is also a concern, because if your Smartphone is infected by one of the growing range of malicious programs and apps that target mobile devices, sensitive data can be retrieved and sent to a third party without your knowledge. Again, security software can help, and with the wide range of games and applications now available across all phone platforms it’s more important than ever to make sure you have a suite installed that can scan these files and protect you from malicious code.

The range of features and conveniences available on Smartphones are only set to grow further as new technologies are introduced, so there’s never been a better time to increase awareness of mobile threats and consider additional protection to make sure you can enjoy using your device with peace of mind.

Walgreens pharmacy chain alerted customers today that their email addresses may have been stolen by spanners.

“We recently became aware of unauthorized access to an email list of customers who receive special offers and newsletters from us,” the company said in the email. “As a result, it is possible you may have received some spam email messages asking you to go to another site and enter personal data. We are sorry this has taken place and for any inconvenience to you.”

The company did not say how many addresses may have been stolen.

According to the statement, only the customers’s email addresses were taken. No prescription information, credit card numbers or addresses were stolen.

“Online security experts have reported an increase in attacks on email systems, and therefore we have voluntarily contacted the appropriate authorities and are working with them regarding this incident,” Walgreens said.

Concerned customers can call Walgreens at 888-980-0963.

WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, 39, was at the Westminster Magistrates Court overnight after a judge refused him bail at an extradition hearing in London.

Assange is currently wanted in Sweden over claims he sexually assaulted two women in August.

The Guardian reports that Assange denies the allegations and Howard Riddle, district judge, ruled there was a risk Assange would fail to surrender if granted bail.

WikiLeaks, which published a quarter-million sensitive diplomatic cables on Sunday, came under a denial of service attack by a hacker styled “th3j35t3r” (The Jester).

When the attack happened, th3j35t3r tweeted, “TANGO DOWN – for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, ‘other assets’ & foreign relations.”

According to PCMAG.com, F-Secure’s Chief Research Officer, Mikko Hypponen said, “It was a weird case. Everybody assumed it was some large-scale Distributed Denial of Service attack, but the guy himself says it’s not. It’s a protocol-based attack from a single source.”

WikiLeaks recovered by changing its hosting providers, which were in France when the attack happened. They are currently using two different servers hosted by Amazon.com.

The hacker, th3j35t3r, characterizes himself as ex-military and often uses military terms. He uses a Russian Hotmail account.

Here’s yet another reason to fear people on social networks.

We’ve all heard the horror stories about privacy issues on social networks, but more than 200 young girls now know the consequences of being too trusting on these sites all too well.

In a practice termed “sextortion” by the FBI, a hacker gathered personal information and used it to extort young girls into providing him with risque pictures and videos in exchange for not forwarding the information to their parents and email contacts.

The hacker, a 31-year-old California man whose name was not released, was arrested following a two-year investigation by a Los Angeles squad of Federal Cyber Investigators.

The method used to hack these computers was called “spear phishing” and the hacker posed online as a friend or relative who wanted to share a video, this was done mostly on popular social networking sites. After clicking on the video, the victims’ computers were completely compromised and the hacker instantly had access to the victim’s files, webcams, and microphones. The hacker was literally given access to spy on the individual through their webcam and could track every keystroke.

“The victims were tricked. They had no idea what had happened until it was too late,” said FBI Special Agent Tanith Rogers.

This method was easily implemented, and the hacker learned it from researching readily available online sources.

“What’s so frightening about this case was how easily the victims’ computers were compromised,” said FBI Special Agent Jeff Kirkpatrick, one of the Los Angeles cyber investigators who worked the case.

Although the hacker was only interested in exploiting these young women sexually, the privacy issues extend to all realms of personal information and security, including identity theft, access to bank accounts or any other records stored on a personal computer. Actual crimes such as robbery or assault could also be cause for concern when addresses revealed. The idea of this virtual stalking has gone from a joke within the virtual world and should now be taken seriously as a potential threat that has attracted federal attention.

What is a greater cause for concern is the potential for people who have a vested interest implementing this type of virus on your computer in order to gather incriminating information on you in your daily life.

The FBI has tips to try and avoid victimization, however until more precautions are put in place, your computer may not be a secure and private haven, not even when you are alone in your home.

Twitter says that its team has fixed a cross-site scripting vulnerability on its web interface that allowed several worms to spread across the site on Tuesday morning.

According to The Guardian Technology Blog, a Japanese developer reported the XSS vulnerability to Twitter on August 14. The company launched a new site September 14, and the new site still had the vulnerability.

Twitter said Tuesday afternoon it had fixed the vulnerability, but not before countless malicious Tweets had been sent.

“We’ve identified and are patching a XSS attack; as always, please message @safety if you have info regarding such an exploit,” the company said in a status message posted at 6:25 a.m.

The exploit was perfectly simple. You see, when you send a Tweet with a link attached, the URL is converted to a hyperlink. The exploit changed the way the link was translated when you hovered your mouse over it to click.

Twitter has been hacked — just for the fun of it/

The site was overrun on Tuesday morning with posts discussing a programming flaw that pranks users, spread worms, and sends porn to unsuspecting Tweeters.

According to experts, the problem was limited to a JavaScript command in the old Twitter web interface, which is gradually being phased out.

The New York Times reported that one offending post included an “onmouseover” command that caused messages to pop up and sites to open automatically when a pointer hovered over it.

The script caused some users to forward the offending links to their followers — similar to the many Facebook worms that have been found over the past few years.

Twitter hasn’t issued a statement yet, but posted a status page message saying: "We’ve identified and are patching a XSS attack; as always, please message @safety if you have info regarding such an exploit." At 9:50 Eastern time Twitter said it had fixed the flaw. (XSS is short for "cross site scripting" and refers to Web-application flaws that enable hackers to inject scripts into Web sites.)

News outlets reported that due to the worm, Sarah Brown, wife of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, was circulating a link on her Twitter page that sent users to a hardcore Japanese porn site.

Twitter user Magnus Holm, who says he’s a Norwegian Ruby on Rails programmer, appears to have started the slaw.

In an email to the Times, Hold said he just “wanted to experiment with the flaw.”

But the hack isn’t so harmless, and it’s led to other acts of online vandalism.

Others appear to be taking the JavaScript exploit and using it for much worse actions.

The Times reported that Holm said one malicious worm “downloaded some nasty code from a Russian server.”

There is no word on law enforcement action yet.

Thousands of Tufts University alumni have received letters over the past few days warning about a computer security breach that may have left their social security numbers and other personal information exposed.

According to school officials, several computers were exposed to an unknown virus or malicious software program. The computers contained old student files and they may have been downloaded.

"We don’t have any direct evidence of any unauthorized use of personal information, but we thought it would be a good thing to notify those individuals exposed," said Kimberly Thurler, a Tufts spokeswoman.

Seven thousand alumni are affected, and warning letters started going out May 24.

Tufts is offering each alumnus a free year of credit monitoring service from Experian.

Tufts, like many other colleges, once used social security numbers as student identification numbers. That practice is quickly going out of vogue across the country as identify theft fears have climbed. The files that were exposed were old records that still contained SSN’s.

Thurler said Tufts is in the process of seeking out and destroying these kinds of records.

"This is a case of old files that were still on isolated computers," Thurler said. "A small number of isolated computers were exposed."

At least one of the computers affected was located at Tufts’s Dining Services Department.

Thurler said she did not know the nature of the files that were breached.

Malicious software can seek out personal information like social security numbers and passwords. Infected computers can send data to a third party.

If you haven’t noticed, the internet is getting increasingly shittier with each passing day.

Whether it’s the makers of “The Hurt Locker” threatening to sue anyone who downloaded it, YouTube pulling every other clip that someone posts, or the fact I can’t figure out how to use a goddamn “keygen” so I can get all of this stolen software I downloaded to work, the web isn’t the proverbial “Wild West” anymore.

Hey, at least there’s still a healthy amount of free porn sites available at our fingertips, right?

Although, after reading articles like this, I’m sure that’ll change sooner than later, too.

Anyway, with the series finale of Lost airing this coming Sunday, some impatient fans have been (unsurprisingly) looking for any hints or plot spoilers because they’re either horribly impatient (which is dumb) or, because they’d like to ruin the ending for someone who would be super pissed if that happened (which would be hilarious and awesome.)

Regardless of the intent, fans who are looking for Lost finale spoilers not only aren’t finding them, they’re ending up with a nasty computer virus. Clearly, that’s not the kind of spoiler that anybody’s looking for. More on this story, thanks to the Boston Herald, after the jump.

Digital forensics provider Paraben Corporation has released a new product designed to detect porn on a person’s computer.

According to Paraben, the average age of a person first exposed to pornography online is 11 — whether on purpose or .. cough … not.

The Paraben Porn Detection Stick scans a PC and peripherals like flash cards and external hard drives and seeks out all those nekkid pics.

“Creating a tool that empowers parents with the ability to find risks to their children was very important to me as a parent and as a professional fighting crimes against children,” said Amber Schroader, CEO of the Utah-based firm.

The product’s internal software can scan images for skin tones and body parts on 15 supported image formats. It doesn’t say anything, however, about video files.

The product is $99 and promises a 99 percent success rate.

So that still leaves, what, 10 gigs of porn on your computer?

Research from security firm McAfee shows that some celebrities are just dangerous to Google and search for around the web because of the litany of fake websites out there that try to infect your computer with viruses and malicious code as you innocently seek out wallpaper and screensavers of your favs.

Brad Pitt leads the pack on a list that includes Jessica Alba and‚ Katherine Heigl.

“Fans searching for “Brad Pitt,” “Brad Pitt downloads,” and Brad Pitt wallpaper, screen savers and pictures have an 18% chance of having their PCs infected with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware,” McAfee said. “Cybercriminals are using A-listers’ names and images, like Beyoncƒ© and Justin Timberlake, to lure Internet users who surf the Web for the latest gossip, screen savers and ringtones to “fake” Web sites that look legitimate.”

The list includes:

1. Brad Pitt – When “Brad Pitt screensavers” was searched, more than half of the resulting Web sites were identified as containing malicious downloads with spyware, adware and potential viruses.

2. Beyoncƒ© – Inputting “Beyoncƒ© ringtones” into a search engine yields risky Web sites that promote misleading offers to gather consumers’ personal information.

3. Justin Timberlake – Interest in his high-profile relationships makes him an easy target for spammers and hackers. When searching for “Justin Timberlake downloads” one Web site advertised free music downloads that were flagged as directly leading to spam, spyware and adware.

4. Heidi Montag – “The Hills” star is a popular search term when it comes to searching for wallpaper. A host of wallpaper Web sites contained hundreds of malware-laden downloads.

5. Mariah Carey – Spammers and hackers are using Mariah Carey screen saver Web sites to link to other sites proven to contain spyware, adware and other threatening downloads.

6. Jessica Alba – Red-ranked risky sites were identified when searching for “Jessica Alba” and “Jessica Alba downloads.” The sites contained hundreds of malicious downloads, links to other bad sites, misleading offers to gather information, and a high number of spam emails when an email address was provided.

7. Lindsay Lohan – This young Hollywood starlet is as dangerous to search online as she is famous. Searching for “Lindsay Lohan downloads” resulted in several dangerous Web sites laden with hidden adware.

8. Cameron Diaz – Cybercriminals use download Web sites related to Cameron Diaz’s image to link to other harmful sites containing spyware.

9. George Clooney, Rihanna – The technology found one Web site embedded with hundreds of dangerous wallpaper and photo downloads after inputting “George Clooney downloads.” “Rihanna pictures” was also a risky search term, as McAfee identified a site that spammed its test email address.

11. Angelina Jolie – When “Angelina Jolie downloads” was searched, the software highlighted a risky site with 978 hidden malware-infected wallpaper and photo downloads, as well as links to other potentially dangerous URLs.

12. Fergie – A Fergie screen saver site was flagged as offering 111 risky downloads that could seriously compromise a PC’s privacy with unwanted spyware and adware.

13. David Beckham, Katie Holmes – The “David Beckham” search term generated a great deal of wallpaper and screen saver downloads veiled with malware. Consumers should also exercise caution when searching for “Katie Holmes” online – one download site advertised free screen savers that, if downloaded, would infect your computer with malicious programs like spyware.

15. Katherine Heigl – Hollywood’s big headliner in recent years is now susceptible to Internet lurkers too. “Katherine Heigl” was searched and a site was identified containing hundreds of malware-infected pictures.

‚ ”Cybercriminals employ numerous methods, yet one of the simplest but most effective ways is to trick consumers into infecting themselves by capitalizing on Americans’ interest in celebrity gossip,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee’s Product Development and Avert Labs. “Tapping into current events, pop culture or commonly browsed sites is an easy way to achieve this. And because of Americans’ obsession with following celebrities’ lifestyles, they are an obvious target. We have to take precautions in casually navigating the Web since many subtle sites may be rife with malware for consumers’ computers.”

The list was compiled using McAfee SiteAdvisor, which can be downloaded for free at‚ www.mcafee.com/siteadvisor.

McAfee Avert Labs reported Tuesday the most significant malware outbreak in three years with more than 500,000 detections of a Trojan horse they’re calling “Downloader-UA.h,” which is spreading by masquerading as a media file.

“The malicious MP3 music or MPEG video files have appeared on popular file-sharing services such as Limewire and eDonkey,” Avert Labs said in a statement.

McAfee has rated “Downloader-UA.h” as a “medium” risk threat. It is the first malware to receive that risk rating since 2005. It is the most dangerous threat to mask itself as a multimedia file ever recorded.

“This is one of the most prevalent pieces of malware in the last three years,” said Craig Schmugar, threat researcher at McAfee Avert Labs. “We have never before had a threat this significant that arrives as a media file.”

The last time McAfee went to “medium” on a computer threat was W32/Sober from November 2005. Sober was a virus that proliferated massively through email.

The malicious files are all named differently in multiple languages and vary in size to make them appear like legitimate music or video files, McAfee said. Attempting to play one of the malicious files will trigger a program called “PLAY_MP3.exe” to download, launch, and force advertisements to appear on the infected computer.

Some of the sample names used by the malicious media files include “preview-t-3545425-adult.mpg” ; “preview-t-3545425-changing times earth wind .mp3″ ; “preview-t-3545425-girls aloud st trinnians.mp3″ ; “preview-t-3545425-jij bent zo jeroen van den.mp3″ ; “t-3545425-lion king portugues.mpg” and “t-3545425-los padres de ella.mpg”

If you need a another reason to get rid of Limewire and other filesharing apps, you might not get a better one.

Take a seven dollar can of compressed air from any office supply store. Flip it over, and spray its liquid nitrogen on a computer’s DRAM, or digital random access memory. Reboot the computer, or even extract the DRAM chip and clone it, then run a few relatively simple programs. Nothing that would defeat an intermediate level programmer.

It’s that easy to bypass the most popular forms of hard disk encryption software. From Windows Vista, to Mac OSX, to various flavors of Linux, it appears that all major operating systems are highly vulnerable.

Conventional wisdom held that DRAM memory was rapidly volatile, causing all of its information to fade as soon as power to a computer is cut. However, researchers with Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science department have recently proved that false.

By tipping the can of air upside down over a laptop’s DRAM chips, the nitrogen gas freezes the chip within seconds. When it’s frozen, the memory can stay fresh for longer than ten minutes — more than enough time to steal the encryption keys that allow easy access to the hard drive’s data.

In their paper, titled, “Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys,” they say, “We show that this phenomenon limits the ability of an operating system to protect cryptographic key material from an attacker with physical access. We use cold reboots to mount successful attacks on popular disk encryption systems using no special devices or materials.”

The revelation and airtight research have knocked the computer world for a spin, as laptops containing military information to proprietary corporate research are now wide open.
In their paper, the researchers observe that many computers with inefficient cooling systems do not need the benefit of liquid nitrogen at all. The DRAM stays cool enough on its own to simply reboot the computer with the proper access tools.

The researchers end their abstract by noting, “Though we discuss several strategies for partially mitigating these risks, we know of no simple remedy that would eliminate them.”

See also: The New York Times