News From Symantec Hosted Services

We know, only too well, that cyber criminals take advantage of every opportunity that new and emerging technologies provide to expand their trade – data theft.

So, with the huge adoption rate in smart mobile devices, and our increased reliance on these devices (which are literally powerful computers), there is a more pronounced sense of urgency to protect the data stored on these sophisticated mobile devices from the threat of cybercrime.

Symantec Hosted Services, recognizing this need, recently announced enhancements to its MessageLabs Web Security Service roaming support options, that will allow organizations to further support the security needs of their mobile workforce.

According to Symantec – “The new enhancements will monitor and secure the online activity of a highly distributed workforce.  Drawing on findings from the recent MessageLabs Intelligence report highlighting the inappropriate web usage of mobile workers, SmartConnect and RemoteConnect for MessageLabs Hosted Web Security protect against malware, and enforces Web acceptable use policies for teleworkers, or employees, at remote offices.”

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If you’ve noticed a significant drop in Spam in your inboxes lately, like I have, there’s good reason – according to Symantec Hosted Services.

On Sunday, October 3, Symantec Hosted Services noticed that global spam levels dropped to their lowest in a while. Symantec Hosted Services believes this drop was due to a decrease in output by the Rustock and Cutwail botnets.

For additional insight on how Symantec Hosted Services tracked last weekend’s spam drop via sophisticated botnet intelligence, what contribution to global spam each of the major botnets makes, and what factors influence botnet output, check out the MessageLabs  Intelligence blog report here.

About Message Labs Intelligence:

Symantec’s Message Labs Intelligence is a respected source of data and analysis for messaging security issues, trends and statistics. MessageLabs Intelligence provides a range of information on global security threats based on live data feeds from our control towers around the world scanning billions of messages each week.

About Symantec:

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world.  Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available here.

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“Here You Have” Worm Alert – The Incompetents Take The Bait

In Chapter One of, Internet Security 101, the following is the first point made – “Don’t run files that you receive via email without making sure of their origin.”

OK, I’m stretching the truth a little, since I don’t actually know of a book with the title “Internet Security 101”. But, the truism “Don’t run files that you receive via email without making sure of their origin”, remains valid.

Despite constant warnings NOT to run this type of file, many users continue to disregard this critical advice. The success of the email delivered “Here you have” worm that clogged email systems on Thursday, despite the usual misspelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors in the email, leaves little doubt.

According to Symantec’s Message Labs Intelligence, the worm is delivered in a  standard email that directs the recipient to click on a link pointing to a malicious file that’s disguised as a PDF. Clicking on the link installs the worm on the victim’s machine.

Graphic courtesy of Symantec.

Regardless of the fact that the delivery method and the worm itself are not particularly sophisticated, this attack affected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide, and then went on to spread through the following – instant messenger, mapped drives, and email, by taking contacts from the victim’s address book.

While doing the background work on this attack, I came across the following forum comment – “This hit one of our affiliated corporate networks today around 12 pm eastern. It was a mess.”

As one pundit put it – the attack was designed to “prey on the incompetent”. I find it hard to argue with that observation.

For additional information on this scam checkout Malware Operations Engineer Tony Millington’s Blog post over at the Symantec Hosted Services Blog.

About Message Labs Intelligence:

Symantec’s Message Labs Intelligence is a respected source of data and analysis for messaging security issues, trends and statistics. MessageLabs Intelligence provides a range of information on global security threats based on live data feeds from our control towers around the world scanning billions of messages each week.

About Symantec:

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world.  Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available here.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.