MoMusings

I’m on vacation as of the end of today for two whole weeks, yippee!

However, I suspect I’ll get called, or asked to come in at least once during my time off as August has frequently been a month when new malware breaks out and we are not talking minor outbreaks, but whoppers!

Remember, Nimda and Blaster, guess when they were causing misery to many, many people? Yep, that’s right in August!

However, first a bit of fun, Phishing fun to be exact:

Take a look at this Dilbert Cartoon on Phishing, it is amazingly accurate. ‘Nuff said

Now, onto more serious things.

New Bagles aka Beagle aka Tooso:

Yes we have seen lots of new variants being seeded over the last 24 hours, so be aware if you receive a strange e-mail with a .ZIP or .RAR attachment, then it is probably one of the new ones. If you haven’t guessed then the Bagle author(s) are back from their holidays.

Typical, as I’m about to take a few weeks off!

In the last 24 hours we have seen 11 new variants and we will almost certainly see more.

So, if you get an e-mail that contains an attachment called:

• Taxes.zip or Taxes.rar



• The_taxation.zip or The_taxation.rar
• The_reporting_of_taxes.zip or The_reporting_of_taxes.rar
• Work and taxes.zip or Work and taxes.rar
• Increase_in_the_tax.zip or Increase_in_the_tax.rar
• To_reduce_the_tax.zip or To_reduce_the_tax.rar

Then you have a copy of one of the new variants, just delete the e-mail, do NOT open the attachment.

New ISP:

I have just changed my ISP as they started to block ports which I needed for my WormCharmer. Now, don’t get me wrong I’m all for increased security but not when it is applied to those of us that know how to protect ourselves.

The ISPs that insist on putting in place a blanket port block policy should seriously think about allowing the more technically aware customers to opt out. That way most customers get protection and people like me get to catch new malware; which helps everyone one as well.