Spyware, viruses, & security forum: NEWS - December 07. 2012

An estimated 1.1 million consumers are at risk of identity theft after thieves broke into servers belonging to Nationwide and Allied insurance companies. Victims include current policyholders and those who sought insurance quotes.

The breach took place Oct. 3 and was discovered the same day. Nationwide immediately contacted authorities, but it waited to inform consumers directly. Earlier news accounts offered some hints at the scope of the breach, including some 30,000 victims in Florida and Ohio and 90,000 in Iowa.

"Although we are not aware of any misuse of consumers' information at this time, we have sent letters to notify those individuals whose personal information we believe was compromised, as well as certain additional individuals whose information was or may have been involved, but whom we do not believe had information compromised in the attack," the company said in a statement released Wednesday.

That personally identifiable information includes names and Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers and/or dates of birth. It also may include marital status, gender, occupations and the name and address of an employer. The company said there isn't any indication other sensitive data - such as medical information or credit card numbers -- was stolen.

Continued : https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/nationwide-allied-insurance-breach-hits-11-million-users-120512

Also:
1.1 million US consumers affected as insurance companies breached
Nationwide/Allied security breach highlights litigation fears
Nationwide Mutual hack affected '1.1 million Americans'

.. Researchers Say

Even security experts have trouble detecting a potentially dangerous Website on a mobile browser, according to a recent study at Georgia Tech.

Users on mobile browsers are vulnerable to certain types of attacks because the browsers are not implementing all the recommended security indicators in the interest of conserving screen real estate, Patrick Traynor, assistant professor in Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Computer Science, told SecurityWeek. Since the users don't have the visual cues to alert them to attacks, it is more difficult to avoid becoming victims, he said.

Mobile Web Browsers were missing certain security elements and indicators that are common in desktop Web browsers, or things weren't implemented consistently. The researchers figured that if they, as experts, had trouble figuring out what was going on in the browser, then it made sense that average users were at higher risk. The study was designed to find out whether the browsers provided enough information for even an information security expert to determine the site's safety.

"With all 10 of the leading browsers on the market today, the answer was no," Traynor said.

Continued : http://www.securityweek.com/mobile-web-browsers-overlooking-security-requirements-researchers-say

"Internet users should not assume that because they're somewhat savvy that they are invulnerable, warns one security expert"

Tis the season to be careful. That should be no surprise. Given that the online holiday shopping season is peaking, cybercriminals would be expected to ramp up their efforts as well.

But it might be a bit surprising -- not to mention depressing for security evangelists -- that one of the oldest and typical scams aimed at online buyers is still successful: PayPal email phishing.

Paul Ducklin wrote this week on Naked Security that Australian PayPal users are being targeted. But there is also word of the same thing happening in Ontario, Canada.

It won't stop there. Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at Sophos, noted that PayPal is used worldwide."It is a global phenomenon. These guys are equal opportunity exploiters," he said.

Even though the scam is common, Wisniewski said it remains successful. He said nobody but the criminals know just how successful they are, however. "Scams that aren't working die quickly, so we can assume that these must work quite well considering the frequency that we see them," he said.

Continued : http://www.csoonline.com/article/723379/paypal-phishing-scams-ramp-up-for-holidays

Related: Fake PayPal Emails: Windows 8 and Vintage Photo Collections

From Microsoft's Malware Protection Center:

Necurs is a prevalent threat in the wild at the moment - variants of Necurs were reported on 83,427 unique machines during the month of November 2012.

Necurs is mostly distributed by drive-by download. This means that you might be silently infected by Necurs when you visit websites that have been compromised by exploit kits such as Blackhole.

So what does Necurs actually do? At a high level, it enables further compromise by providing the functionality to:

• Download additional malware
• Hide its components
• Stop security applications from functioning

In addition Necurs contains backdoor functionality, allowing remote access and control of the infected computer. Necurs also monitors and filters network activity and has been observed to send spam and install rogue security software. Nefariousness aplenty. See our Trojan:Win32/Necurs family write-up for the full details.

Continued : http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2012/12/06/unexpected-reboot-necurs.aspx

Do you know how to report a computer crime? Or even who you would report it to?

So far, we have looked at phishing and SQL injection attacks, trolling, unauthorised email account access and malware in our series of articles on how to report a computer crime. In this article, we'll look at fake anti-virus.

We'll look at what offences are committed in different countries when a crime like this happens, how you should report the crime, and what evidence you can preserve that might help in the subsequent investigation.

Take this scenario:

'Peter is browsing the internet at home using his PC and lands on an adult content web portal. He sees a hyperlink offering to download an X-rated movie. Peter downloads the file.

Peter has the option "Hide extensions for known file types" selected in the folder option of his user account settings, so he is not aware of the fact that the file he has downloaded is in fact an executable file and not the AVI file it is masquerading as.

Peter runs the file and nothing appears to happen. He attempts to access Windows Task Manager but he finds he is unable to. After about two minutes, the icons on Peter's desktop disappear and he is presented with a scrolling window that appears to be scanning the contents of his hard drive. Once the scan has finished, Peter is told that his computer is infected with over twenty pieces of malware. ........ '

Continued : http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/12/07/how-to-report-fake-anti-virus/