2007 January

In their latest phishing scam targeting dentists, a tactic the FBI has labeled “spear phishing,” the fraudsters actually threaten violence.  The potential victim receives an email purportedly from a hit man who has been hired by “a friend” to kill him for $50,000. However, if the victim agrees to pay this “hit man” $80,000, he’ll back […]

Everybody likes free stuff, but when it comes to software, you often don’t know who to trust. We’ve all been burned by “free” software that was really just a means for someone to infect our machines with tons of spyware and other junk provided by miscreants disguised as “sponsors.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing […]

Those of us involved in computer and network security can get so engrossed in the cat-and-mouse game that we overlook the obvious. We implement high-tech, state-of-the-art intrusion protection on our networks and servers. We set up spam filters, content filters and email blacklists. Our antivirus definitions are updated in real time. And we are truly baffled when the […]

The Millennium Bug dominated the news for several years prior to the Y2K clock rollover. Gloom, doom and disaster was the order of the day. Survivalists hid out in bomb shelters with dehydrated food, hoarded gasoline, and predicted the end of the world as we knew it then. But at the first stroke of midnight, […]

Well, it’s the first one of the New Year that I saw. A friend of mine sent an email early on New Year’s Day:
Help! After defragging and rebooting I got the error message: ’Application failed to initialize: 0×800106BA. A problem caused Windows Defender Service to stop. To start the service, restart your computer or search Help […]