The trend of exploiting current news events to deliver malware continues to push the boundaries of decency. Its not very often we are taken aback by malware distribution methods, but the recent vulture-like exploitation of the Air France disaster and deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett really is plumbing the depths of social engineering techniques.

The” average Joe” probably sees the word "virus" as a generic term for all current threats out there in the wild. The reality is much different. There are a lot of categories which must be mentioned in this context.  The word "virus" should not be used as a catchall term for malicious infections. A virus is actually a malicious file which has the ability to infect/add malicious code to other files; we currently see a downward trend of this type of infections.

You most likely saw some of the news and debate that followed President Obama’s unveiling of his administration’s plan to deal with cyber security threats to U.S. federal agencies and the private sector.  With any personal views on the plan itself aside, as part of his remarks late last month, President Obama delivered an eloquent commentary on the current state of online security – one that, while aimed at Americans, applies to all Internet users, regardless of nationality.

XP Deluxe Protector is a new rogue application. It will show false scanning results to entice users to purchase their software.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) broke the news yesterday that it shut down a notorious rogue Internet service provider which, it claims, actively participated in hosting spam-spreading botnets, phishing sites, child pornography, and other illegal and malicious content.

From the FTC news release –