A Week in Security (April 20 - 26)

Below is a bird’s-eye-view of blogs we published last week followed by top security news. As much as possible, we don’t want you to miss anything 😉

World Cup 2014 Cash Prize & Tickets Email is a 419 Scam (Fraud/Scam Alert) The title says it all, and something like this is to be expected. With the FIFA World Cup just less than two months from now, we shouldn’t be surprised if we see more shenanigans online involving this event pop up in the future.
25 Years and our computers are still… (Cyber-Crime) With the celebration of Nintendo’s 25th birthday at that time, almost every gamer got nostalgic. On our end, our Malware Intelligence Lead looked back at the first computer and the first known virus.
“The Rock is Dead” Fast & Furious 7 Scam In Circulation (Fraud/Scam Alert) Online criminals declared Dwayne Johnson, alter ego of The Rock, dead in a recent Facebook scam. Instead of surveys, it encourages the curious to download a potentially unwanted program (PUP) onto their system.
A Penguin in XP’s Clothing (Online Security) One of our security researchers shared his tale of how he helped a friend recreate a Windows XP look and feel using an old machine. What he did was crafty, indeed.
“The Smart Girl’s Guide To Privacy”— A Review (Privacy) We reviewed Violet Blue’s handy book on privacy directed to ladies to celebrate World Book Day.
Brows(er)ing for Updates (Online Security) More PUPs on the horizon, this time masquerading as a fake Internet browser update. Once installed, it offers users with free gadgets and gift cards as a way to thank them for installing their updates. Yes, the freebies are likely to be scams.
Return of the Illuminati Spam Mails…of Doom! (Fraud/Scam Alert) The spam that gained notoriety from two weeks ago has returned. Their plea? Never talk about the Illuminati.

Top security news:

The computer viruses coming soon to a TV near you. Eugene Kaspersky, chief executive at Kaspersky, alerted the press that malware will no longer limit its threat real estate to computers and mobile devices. In the future, we’ll be seeing malware plaguing televisions because there are now new models that are internet-enabled. (Source: The Telegraph)
ZeuS Botnet Updating Infected Systems with Rootkit-Equipped Trojan. ZeuS or ZBOT, a popular family of information stealers, continues to evolve. Researchers found that several latest variants of ZeuS were capable of updating systems with a newer version of itself, which includes a rootkit. (Source: The Hacker News)
Power grid shockingly vulnerable to cyberterrorism. Here’s an extract from this editorial: “Adam Crain, owner of a small tech firm in North Carolina, says he had little trouble tapping into the computer networks used by power companies. After he notified utility security officials, alerts were sent to power operations advising them to upgrade their security software.” (Source: Insurance News Net)
How the cyber threat landscape is evolving. Our friends at Comodo updated us in the state of the threat landscape in an interview. They gave an overview of how things were 15 years ago, some risks of cloud storage, and how Heartbleed will probably make businesses consider security more seriously. (Source: Beta News)
Will the Internet of Things become the Internet of Broken Things? Cisco asked a what-if question: What if the Internet of Things (IoT) morphs into the Internet of broken things? What’ll happen? This article explores the answers to these. (Source: Computer World Malaysia)
It’s Insanely Easy to Hack Hospital Equipment. After a head of information security for Essentia Health was given free rein to poke around their medical equipment to check and assess its security risk, he revealed that most of them were hackable, insulin pumps and defibrillators included. (Source: Wired)