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Zango's continued bad practices in light of FTC's proposed settlement terms

Just over two weeks ago, the FTC announced a proposed settlement with Zango for the complaint filed earlier this year. Under terms of the settlement, Zango is required to give up $3 million in ill-gotten gains and to stop a number of bad practices that have been documented back to...

Tags: Spyware/adware news

Blog posts 2006-11-19

Zango, the FTC, MySpace and You Tube

This past Friday, the FTC announced a $3 million dollar settlement with Zango, formerly named 180solutions, in a lawsuit charging Zango with unfair and deceptive business practices, among other things. See ZDNet story here with more details. FTC announcement here. Case documents can be downloaded here.As usual Zango refuses...

Tags: Spyware/adware warnings, Spyware/adware news, Zango

Blog posts 2006-11-06

Halloween sites tricking users with malware

Update October 27:  This morning I contacted the owner of the listed sites.  The sites were indeed hacked, and the owner has since removed the malicious code from the web pages. This is a nasty trick!  There are a few Halloween sites being used to distribute malware, right at the time when unsuspecting...

Tags: Spyware, adware & malware, Cyberthreats, Viruses and worms, SECURITY, Halloween site, malware, Halloween

Blog posts 2006-10-26

Scary malware tricks part 1

In keeping with the Halloween season, Im starting a series on scary malware tricks, similar to last years series on spyware tricks. Perhaps my personal focus has changed, but it seems to me spyware tricks are becoming far more devious and destructive. Last year I was testing mostly adware,...

Tags: malware, rootkit, Removed

Blog posts 2006-10-20

Edelman on 'Deceptive Door Openers' and Ask toolbars

In a new article posted this morning, Ben Edelman continues his investigation of high-profile companies clogging users computers with junk. Todays target: InterActiveCorps Ask.com, known for its widespread "smiley" toolbars.Last year I blogged about Asks various toolbars and the trinkets Ask uses to get users to install them. ...

Tags: toolbar, Ask

Blog posts 2006-10-16

Is Zango stealing affiliate commissions from adult webmasters?

It seems that Zango, formerly known as 180solutions, the company we all love to hate, has royally ticked off a bunch of adult webmasters. Paperghost, aka Chris Boyd, has the story, complete with links to forums where the adult webmasters discuss Zango allegedly stealing affiliate commissions. True? I...

Tags: Zango

Blog posts 2006-10-13

So what about user education on security?

CNETs Joris Evers writes about one security expert who says education users on computer security in the enterprise setting is "pointless". Doctoral candidate Stefan Gorling, speaking at the Virus Bulletin Conference, said:"I dont believe user education will solve problems with security because security will always be a secondary goal...

Tags: security

Blog posts 2006-10-12

Malware being spammed as PDF from retail stores

Reports surfaced today of spam purporting to be from Dell, Walmart, Circuit City or Sony confirming an order for a Sony Vaio computer with a PDF attachment, but the attachment is, in fact, a very nasty piece of malware named Haxdoor. Text of email:Subject: Order ID : 37679041Dear Customer,Thank you...

Tags: Adobe PDF, Haxdoor

Blog posts 2006-10-10

MVP awards, Messenger Plus! and adware -- a good combination?

A controversy has been raging in certain circles the last few days over a MVP award, which has now been rescinded, to an adware pusher known as Patchou, Cyril Paciullo, the author of Messenger Plus!, now known as Messenger Plus! Live. Ed Bott blogged about it here. Patchous devotees have...

Tags: Messenger, Lop, Patchou, Messenger Plus!

Blog posts 2006-10-09

Spyware pushers cash in big on zero day exploit

I expect that most readers have already read about the latest zero day exploit, Microsoft Vector Graphics Rendering Library Buffer Overflow, discovered by Adam Thomas of the Sunbelt Software research team on Monday. I'm not going into detail on it -- there is plenty of information about the exploit already,...

Tags: exploit

Blog posts 2006-09-20

Should anti-spyware programs remove cookies?

Spyware expert Ben Edelman has written a great piece on anti-spyware programs and cookies. He tested eleven different anti-spyware programs against cookies from 50 advertising systems and posted detailed results including which anti-spyware programs detected which cookies and which programs detected the most cookies. At the extreme ends...

Tags: anti-spyware

Blog posts 2006-09-18

DollarRevenue adware pushed through bot net for huge profits

German Honeynet Project researchers report that adware company DollarRevenue is directly linked to a bot net attack exploiting the MS06-040 server service vulnerability reported last month. Bot net trackers estimate that one malicious hacker alone earned $430 in one day by installing malware/adware programs on infected machines. 7,700 machines...

Tags: DollarRevenue

Blog posts 2006-09-08

FTC settles with Enternet Media for $2 million

The Federal Trade Commission announced today their settlement with Enternet Media for $2 million for putting spyware on users' computers.Under a stipulated final judgment and order, the defendants are permanently prohibited from interfering with a consumer’s computer use, including but not limited to distributing software code that tracks consumers’ Internet...

Tags: Web browser, Enternet Media

Blog posts 2006-09-06

The state of spyware according to Webroot

Webroot released its quarterly report on spyware today, claiming spyware infection rates are at their highest since 2004. During the second quarter of 2006, Webroot researchers found that 89 percent of consumer PCs were infected with an average of 30 pieces of spyware – a slight increase from the...

Tags: spyware, Webroot Software Inc., Zlob

Blog posts 2006-08-15

More disturbing long-tail content from Zango

SunbeltBLOG asks "Is Zango partnering with a bunch of sickos? " I won't repeat much what's posted there because it's too disgusting, but here's the first part.unitedtoserve2005dotcom redirects to a hard core porn site, searchdotporn-infodotinfo, which offers “totally free porn videos”. These are Zango porn videos — you...

Tags: Zango

Blog posts 2006-08-14

Movieland.com sued for spyware

Hot off the wires -- I just got a press release stating Washington State Attorney General McKenna filed a suit against Movieland.com and 3 associates, all California based companies, for "installing software that takes control of a consumer's computer by launching aggressive and persistent pop-ups that demand payment for a...

Tags: Movieland.com, MovieLand

Blog posts 2006-08-14

Zango caught in lies about their software on MySpace?

Zango's videos have been found all over MySpace, along with a number of sites pushing Zango videos to MySpace users without disclosing the presence of Zango. Profiles named Zango were found on MySpace and Zango later admitted an employee created the profiles and said it was a "mistake". It looked...

Tags: Zango

Blog posts 2006-07-28

Vonage and spyware

What does Vonage have to do with spyware? Ben Edelman has the answer to that question. In his usual meticulous style, Ben has documented with screenshots, packet logs and diagrams the relationship between Vonage and spyware. Vonage is caught being advertised by pop-ups from Direct Revenue, Targetsaver and others, sometimes...

Tags: Vonage Holdings Corp., spyware

Blog posts 2006-07-18

Pushing Zango - out of MySpace

Last week I blogged about Pushing Zango on MySpace and linked to Paperghost's blog asking if teenagers are being unwittingly used to push Zango on my space. It looks like Paperghost aka Chris Boyd managed to create a bit of a stir on the subject and now it looks...

Tags: Zango, MySpace

Blog posts 2006-07-17

Pushing Zango on MySpace

Chris Boyd asked the question yesterday, Teenagers used to push Zango on Myspace? It does indeed look like teenagers, and older MySpace users as well, are being used to push Zango and not making a dime for it. But the Zango affiliates and Zango itself must be taking in...

Tags: MySpace, Zango

Blog posts 2006-07-10