Despite the article at computerword.com April 22, 2008 reporting that Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) had made Storm pretty insignificant, the botnets appear to be preparing for another attack, possibly targeting around Mother’s Day. According to UploadMalware.com’s Malware Blog, one of their researchers has found indications of a new storm worm variant moving in. "At the time of this posting we have not had any reports of spam from the botnet using the 3 domains that were

Now in my third year as a Consumer Security MVP, the time has flown since I started this blog with the best intentions to be prolific. My first post on this blog, Life on the Forums "They may win the battle but not the war." A phrase that comes to mind when I see the heroic efforts of helpers in the malware removal forums, where my security interests lie." The battle continues, I am now an Administrator at two training schools. Volunteers helping users to remove infections from their

I have been following a discussion of iedefender at CastleCops which is five pages long so far. The topic started with: "Attached below is a copy of IEdefender (hxxp://www.iedefender.com/) a new rogue software." To which the vendor replied: iedefender : "Hello, we’re developers of IEDefender, our software is clean and is real antispyware. As we can see, people from your site send our exe to different antivirus and antispyware companies, trying to black PR our company. They’ve got answers

Posted on DirectRevenue's home page and giving no reason for the sudden closure. "Best Offers and Direct Revenue have ceased operations. To service legacy consumers we are maintaining this page of uninstall instructions, an uninstall software tool, and an email based support service." Whether this means DirectRevenue is truly gone or will surface under a different name, remains to be seen. DirectRevenue Settles FTC Charges

From the Webpage portal: "The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) provides an in-depth perspective on the changing threat landscape including software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software. Each individual report focuses on data and trends observed in either the first or second half of each calendar year and uses historical data to provide context. The purpose of the SIR is to keep Microsoft’s customers informed of the

The Zlob Trojan Downloader typically poses as audio or video codecs, required to be installed on your computer so you can watch or listen to certain media. VirusRay is just the latest infection that downloads and installs rogue anti-spyware programs and displays fake security alerts in your Windows taskbar. "When the Zlob infection downloads and installs VirusRay, VirusRay will automatically start and perform a scan of your computer. When done scanning, VirusRay will state that it found Trojans

Good news. "Today, we updated the installation experience to make IE7 available to as many Windows users as possible. As of today, IE7 will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation, and will be available to all Windows XP users. If you’re not already running IE7, you can get it from the Internet Explorer home page on Microsoft.com. We’ve made a few other small tweaks to the UI, including enabling the menu bar by default, and created a new MSI installer that simplifies deployment

Microsoft’s Live Translator, in Beta and powered by Systran, has been quietly released. I received a few 500 Internal Server errors, and not all the translations worked all the time, but it is early days yet. Like other translator tools, Live Translator lets you enter a block of text for translation from one language to another, or you can enter a URL to have an entire web page translated. translator.live.com translate.live.com windowslivetranslator.com Live Translator Beta Help

Zango Drops Lawsuit Against PC Tools "Adware company Zango has voluntarily withdrawn its lawsuit against security software company PC Tools, which Zango accused of illegally removing its software from users’ PCs without their express permission. The move follows a court’s refusal to grant Zango a temporary restraining order." Article at BetaNews: http://www.betanews.com/article/Zango_Drops_Lawsuit_Against_PC_Tools/1188317390

Microsoft has launched Tafiti, http://www.tafiti.com/ a search engine built on Microsoft® Silverlight. http://silverlight.net/ This is not your usual search interface and has rich visualizations. Check it out.