Black Market, For Sure
I suppose it was just a matter of time. Malware made just to flex hacking muscles had to give way to customized malware-creation-for-hire.
Now you can launch a denial-of-service attack even if you lack the coding chops to create it yourself.
Ziff Davis reports: "The surge in malware activity has created a healthy black market for crimeware. According to a new report from PandaLabs, prices in the malware market start at $10 for an hour-long distributed denial of service attack and head up to $1,500 for a mailing list, with prices dependent on quality and quantity."
eWeek blogger Lisa Vaas elucidates: "A security firm has uncovered an easy-to-use, affordable tool for making a variety of customized Trojans—from downloaders to password stealers—on sale at several online forums.
The tool, discovered by PandaLabs, is called Pinch, a tool that allows cybercriminals to specify what type of password they want their Trojans to steal—be it for e-mail or system tools. Pinch also has encryption capabilities to ensure that nobody intercepts stolen data. Pinch's interface also has a SPY tab that lets criminals turn Trojans into keyloggers. In addition, the tool can design Trojans that snap screenshots from infected computers, steal browser data and look for specific files on the target system.Pinch is impressive, but it's just one sample of the array of crimeware for sale in malware markets and covered in a recent report from PandaLabs titled 'The Price of Malware.'
Malware has, in fact, increased 172 percent over the past years, according to the security firm. PandaLabs credits customized Trojans for the bulk of this increase, where malware is customized to infect a specific user or group of users."
YouQuestion
7/23/07 may be a date that changes the way political campaigns are conducted. What happened? People - presumably, younger, tech-savvy people - asked direct questions of Democratic candidates via YouTube.
Says PC Magazine, "Questions posed during the two-hour debate, held at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., were culled from the approximately 3,000 30-second clips submitted by YouTube viewers, according to host Anderson Cooper.
Candidates also got a chance to produce their own short video segments.
Nearly as Old as I Am
Tech Republic (www.techrepublic.com) has a feature on "Dinosaur Computers," complete with photos of some of the earlier models. Their selections go back to the 70s (too far back for me, I admit), but those from 1984-1989 actually evoke memories.
Here is one of my early (though not first) computers, the Amiga 1000:
Later, I had an Amiga 2000 which supported a Toaster for video editing. What's amazing about that little computer is that it was able to handle real-time editing effects (however cheesy some of them may have been) and a wide variety of graphics - back in the mid-eighties. Impressive!
Check out the Dinos for your own compu-memories: http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10877_11-919-1.html.
I suppose it was just a matter of time. Malware made just to flex hacking muscles had to give way to customized malware-creation-for-hire.
Now you can launch a denial-of-service attack even if you lack the coding chops to create it yourself.
Ziff Davis reports: "The surge in malware activity has created a healthy black market for crimeware. According to a new report from PandaLabs, prices in the malware market start at $10 for an hour-long distributed denial of service attack and head up to $1,500 for a mailing list, with prices dependent on quality and quantity."
eWeek blogger Lisa Vaas elucidates: "A security firm has uncovered an easy-to-use, affordable tool for making a variety of customized Trojans—from downloaders to password stealers—on sale at several online forums.
The tool, discovered by PandaLabs, is called Pinch, a tool that allows cybercriminals to specify what type of password they want their Trojans to steal—be it for e-mail or system tools. Pinch also has encryption capabilities to ensure that nobody intercepts stolen data. Pinch's interface also has a SPY tab that lets criminals turn Trojans into keyloggers. In addition, the tool can design Trojans that snap screenshots from infected computers, steal browser data and look for specific files on the target system.Pinch is impressive, but it's just one sample of the array of crimeware for sale in malware markets and covered in a recent report from PandaLabs titled 'The Price of Malware.'
Malware has, in fact, increased 172 percent over the past years, according to the security firm. PandaLabs credits customized Trojans for the bulk of this increase, where malware is customized to infect a specific user or group of users."
YouQuestion
7/23/07 may be a date that changes the way political campaigns are conducted. What happened? People - presumably, younger, tech-savvy people - asked direct questions of Democratic candidates via YouTube.
Says PC Magazine, "Questions posed during the two-hour debate, held at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., were culled from the approximately 3,000 30-second clips submitted by YouTube viewers, according to host Anderson Cooper.
The event marks the first time during a formal debate that presidential candidates answered questions posed directly by the voting public via the Internet. YouTube users had several months to submit their clips, the best of which were later selected by members of CNN's political team.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel, Sen. Christopher Dodd, former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Sen. Joseph Biden, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich were equipped with earpieces and video monitors that beamed the selected videos to candidates' podiums."
While the questions were culled by a group of media gate-keepers, nevertheless, the topics brought up for discussion were one step closer to what really interests the voting public, not the talking pundits.Candidates also got a chance to produce their own short video segments.
Nearly as Old as I Am
Tech Republic (www.techrepublic.com) has a feature on "Dinosaur Computers," complete with photos of some of the earlier models. Their selections go back to the 70s (too far back for me, I admit), but those from 1984-1989 actually evoke memories.
Here is one of my early (though not first) computers, the Amiga 1000:
Later, I had an Amiga 2000 which supported a Toaster for video editing. What's amazing about that little computer is that it was able to handle real-time editing effects (however cheesy some of them may have been) and a wide variety of graphics - back in the mid-eighties. Impressive!Check out the Dinos for your own compu-memories: http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10877_11-919-1.html.
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