Summary: A few news items about security
• First human ‘infected with computer virus’ (another stupid article from the MSBBC, but other news sites fell for it too)
• Captain Cyborg Has A Virus-Infected Sidekick… But Nothing Can Stop A PR Campaign (rebutting the above)
The story is — as with all captain cyborg stories — a lot less than the headline suggests. Gasson wasn’t “infected with a computer virus.” He took a chip that had a computer virus and stuck it in his arm, just like Warwick has done n the past. The parallels to an actual virus are minimal, and the usefulness for anything is even less than that. Gasson presents this as useful for considering the implications for implanted technology such as pacemakers, but that’s nothing new. People have talked about potential technology issues from the wireless interface to pacemakers for years. Doing some sort of publicity stunt with an implanted computer chip doesn’t further that discussion along.
• Alleged $100M scareware sellers facing charges (Windows only)
Three men are facing federal fraud charges for allegedly raking in more than US$100 million while running an illegal “scareware” business that tricked victims into installing bogus software.
• Sality, the virus that turned into the ultimate malware
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From an analysis performed with a “rogue P2P client” coded to become part of the malicious network, Symantec has determined that the Sality botnet covers something like 100.000 computers. It’s a bots figure below the one achieved by giants like Conficker but similar in size to other botnets as Storm, Pandex and Rustock. What remains clear is the demonstration of Sality’s unique threat, a malware floating around since seven years that shows no intention to quickly disappear from the net.
