Slashdot

Crimeware server exposes breadth of data theft

Last month Researchers at online security company Finjan uncovered a 1.4 gigabyte cache of stolen data from North America, Europe, the Middle East and India on a Malaysian server that provided command and control functions for malware attacks in addition to being a drop site for data harvested from compromised computers.

"This is a unique example of what we have been talking about for the last year," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technical officer at Finjan. Online thieves are using sophisticated tools to plant malicious code on legitimate Web pages, compromising visiting PCs and stealing data.

That is quite a find. Glad to know someone is trying to do something about this.

Tech Groups Back Kaspersky in Fight Against Zango

In May 2007, Bellvue, Wash.-based Zango -- a company that makes software to serve pop-up ads and tracks users' activities on behalf of online marketers -- sued Kaspersky, charging that the company interfered with its business by removing its "adware" without first alerting the user.

The judge who was assigned the case has thrown it out and Zango has appealed to the 9th Circuit. As users actively install Kaspersky's software for the precise purpose of removing cookies, I don't see how you can make a credible case that consumers have not consented. Someone needs to tell Zango and other adware makers that they are not entitled to a place on other people's computers.

Not long ago I purchased some items online from a catalog that caters to a niche market. A few days later I started seeing advertisements for this catalog on some of the blogs I read. Because the blogs I read have subject matter completely unrelated to the products this catalog offers, I was unable to dismiss the possibility that I was being tracked.

I noticed earlier that blogs that have a partnership with Amazon had advertisements for books I had recently purchased from Amazon. Since these books were not best sellers, and not related to the subject matter of the blogs, I once again had the feeling of being tracked.

So, are there companies offering services matching online purchases to online advertisers? I find the experience creepy and am far less likely to do business with such advertisers in the future.

Judge Temporarily Halts Echostar-NDS Group Trial, Admonishes CEO

U.S. District Court judge David O. Carter stopped the trial in the middle of testimony by an engineer for Echostar rival DirecTV Inc., sent out the jury and said he needs to decide whether or not to offer a "negative inference" to the jury, noting that NDS Group CEO Abe Peled (pictured) had traveled to the Santa Ana, Calif. for the trial this week but left after giving a deposition instead of remaining to publicly testify.

It is always a bad sign when a judge publicly admonishes your CEO. NDS is division of News Corp. Murdoch cannot be happy about the way this trial is going.

The Washington Post reports on a speech by AG Mukasey about a "global crime surge:

The new breed of criminals is "more sophisticated, they are richer, they have greater influence over government and political institutions worldwide, and they are savvier about using the latest technology, first to perpetrate and then to cover up their crimes," Mukasey said.

Fergie seems to think it is just fear mongering. Richard Korman gives it a more sympathetic treatment. What do you think?