Commtouch Café

Shameless malware distribution abuses Texas explosion and Boston Marathon Attack

2013-04-18T14:31:57Z

Malware distributors are turning to recent events to get recipients to follow links to infected websites. The recent “Pope-themed” malware attack is one such example. The attacks at the Boston Marathon and the explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant have been quickly exploited with large quantities of emails sent out including subjects such as: CAUGHT [...]

Keeping the Zombies out

2013-04-04T12:35:16Z

The continuing spread of botnets poses a new challenge for online and mobile application designers. Malware-infected machines often have code installed to log keystrokes, steal information, or even initiate background actions without the user’s knowledge. As designers, how do you ensure that the user really is who they say they are, while making the overall [...]

Compromised Yahoo accounts spread Android malware

2013-03-27T09:21:30Z

The surest way to know that an attack method is working for a malware gang is seeing the method repeated over a period of several months. In Commtouch’s October Trend Report we described an attack targeting Android users. Last week saw a repeat of the attack with a few refinements. The main elements: Single link [...]

Election of New Pope used as Lure in Malware Attacks

2013-03-21T12:31:59Z

It’s tough being a malware distributor – you can’t exactly go around asking people to install your malware – you need to be creative. So a global news story such as the election of Pope Francis is too good an opportunity to pass up. The attack, launched a few days after the white smoke cleared, [...]

Sometimes guards, guns, and gates are not enough!

2013-03-14T12:31:10Z

Earlier in my career I spent several years working in the physical security sector, working on advanced detection technologies. Since I joined Commtouch, I have been surprised by how many parallels there are between the physical and logical security sectors. Both are founded on ’hardening’ your perimeter to ensure that – hopefully – only invited [...]

Preventing Outbound Spam and Blacklisting

2013-03-08T16:46:39Z

Blocked IP ranges resulting in customer loss, operational cost increases, brand damage and even potential lawsuits are potential negative consequences service providers face as a result of spam, phishing and malware emails emanating from their networks. But where does outbound spam come from? Outbound spam emails coming from service provider networks typically originate from several [...]

RSA Conference 2013: At the Heart of IT Security

2013-03-01T15:27:16Z

The RSA Conference in San Francisco is the most important event in the IT security industry worldwide. It is , at the same time, the single most important conference as well as the biggest trade show for all topics surrounding IT, information and internet security. With keynote speakers such as former U.S. Secretary of State [...]

Over 178,000 Android malware samples seen in January

2013-03-01T15:06:20Z

The Android OS is now installed on hundreds of millions of devices. In Q3 2012 alone, 122 million Android devices were sold, compared to 60 million for the same period in 2011 (Gartner – November 2012). Cybercriminals have clearly taken notice of the huge number of devices, as evidenced by the explosive growth of Android [...]

Dealing with the “unknown unknowns”

2013-02-15T15:05:15Z

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” Former US Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, February 12, [...]

Invitation: Visit Commtouch at RSA Conference 2013!

2013-02-12T17:10:50Z

YOU’RE INVITED: 3 NEW PRODUCT RELEASES! February 25 – 28th 2013, San Francisco Booth #553 Just as a workout regimen is vital to living a healthy lifestyle, Commtouch is the essential ingredient to your security health. As a leading provider of Internet security technology and cloud-based security services, we have delivered innovative security technology [...]