Here's part one of an excellent presentation from David Solomon on understanding and fighting malware. Here's an excerpt from the summary:

Today's Internet is fraught with peril in the form of undesirable and malicious software. These types of software continue to evolve new ways of propogating and ways of embedding themselves more deeply into the systems they infect. Join us for this webcast, presented from Tech·Ed 2005 in Orlando, Florida, and gain an understanding of their propagation methods, including buffer overflow exploits, how to detect them and how to prevent them. Get a first-hand look at rootkits, which are the sophisticated tools and techniques by which malware attempts to avoid and prevent detection.

A new wave of spam appears to be exploiting the Georgia/Russia conflict and has a decidedly pro-Russia slant. According to a report in ComputerWorld, the spam started going out this morning and included such subject lines as ""Mikheil Saakashvili gay scandal! New of this week!" and offer a link to a fake news story which if clicked downloads malware onto the victim's computer and adds it to a new botnet. Researchers at the university of alabama, Birmingham traced the malicious spam back to 44 computers, all which have no previous spam record, and several are located in Russia.

In a related development, the website of Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili was hit with a DDoS attack. It's not known if the attack and the new wave of spam are connected, but experts have been debating whether Georgia and Russia have been using cyber-warfare as part of their arsenals.

A massive new spam attack claiming to be Top 10 lists from CNN but is actually a link to a malware bonanza is getting worse. Security experts say the attackers are sending close to 11 million spams an hour. The sites hosting the malware appear to have been compromised by the attackers as many of the domains in the malcious URLs are legit.

Anyone who clicks on the link in the email is taken to one of the compromised sites, where a pop up informs them that they need to install an update to Adobe Flash. Clicking cancel puts the user in an endless loop with the only way out is to shut down the brower or install the malware. Experts say the attack is unlikely to end anytime soon.

Here's a very interesting video that takes a look at OtherHomePage.com, a known malware site. Watch and learn!

Spammers targeting blogs have come up with a new technique. According to an article on NetworkWorld.com, they are now paying people to post for them. The apparent theory is that comment made by an automated system are easy to spot and block, while comments made by a real human are more likely to get through moderation. Spammers are paying around $20 for 100 comments, and seem to be hiring people from India and other third world countries. Good work if you can get it? Probably not.

Spam King Edward Davidson was found dead at his home just days after forcing his wife to help him escape from the minimum security prison where he was serving time for his role in a penny stock spam scam. Davidson owned Power Promoters, a company that provided spamming services to other companies.

According to police reports, Davidson killed his wife and 3 year old daughter before committing suicide. His 7 month old son was found unharmed.

Hi everyome!

I am currently out of the country on vacation. Posts will resume on July 25th. Thank you for your patience and have a great week!