Open Source Solutions for Small Business Problems » 19. Viruses & Spam

I give up. Trackbacks and Pingbacks now closed.

freelock — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:25:58 +0000

It’s too bad the spammers are out to piss all over the public commons. Since I’ve started writing more regularly here, I’ve been getting inundated with pingbacks and trackbacks, and have to keep marking them as spam, a couple dozen a day. Don’t have time to do this, so I’ve just turned this off… I appreciate any links you’d like to make to here, but please fill out a comment if you’d like to continue the discussion so I’m aware of your post.

I used to use Akismet to filter out comment spam, but spammers now seem to make each post unique enough that that became ineffective–I would still get dozens of comments to moderate every day. So then I switched to the Recaptcha.net system you can see on any of my posts–which has been working great for comments, but it doesn’t attempt to deal with all the automated trackpacks/pingbacks.

So here we are, back to comments only. Please leave one, or drop me an email here if you’d like to discuss anything I’m writing about, and are not just another spammer…

Spam Revisited

freelock — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 20:13:08 +0000

We’ve noticed a huge increase in the spam getting dropped into our spam quarantine–it’s doubled in the past two months. I have clients complaining about greatly increased spam as well. It turns out we’re not alone:
Spam Doubles, Finding New Ways to Deliver Itself – New York Times

Spam is back — in e-mail in-boxes and on everyone’s minds. In the last six months, the problem has gotten measurably worse. Worldwide spam volumes have doubled from last year, according to Ironport, a spam filtering firm, and unsolicited junk mail now accounts for more than 9 of every 10 e-mail messages sent over the Internet.

… What to do about it? Our next Freelock Irregular newsletter will offer some help. But meanwhile, for the technical folks, here’s a link to a How-To to implement checking for Yahoo domain keys:

Postfix with dkfilter (DomainKeys Implementation)

Tricks that could be used to steal your data

freelock — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:33:22 +0000

Not to make you paranoid or anything, but here’s a fascinating story of a new social engineering tactic: a new way somebody might trick you into giving away your passwords and any other sensitive stuff on your computer.
Dark Reading – Host security – Social Engineering, the USB Way – Security

Optimizing Dspam purge scripts

freelock — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:00:39 +0000

Here’s a useful link for making Dspam clean up much more efficiently…

Optimizing DSPAM + MySQL 4.1 | HowtoForge – Linux Howtos and Tutorials

“Anti-piracy” techniques install spyware on your computer

freelock — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:02:33 +0000

Fascinating read here, about how a copy-protected music CD from Sony installed a surriptitious program on a computer, hid itself completely from view, and made itself nearly impossible to remove without crippling the user’s computer. These are the techniques of people trying to hijack your computer, the worst techniques of crackers, spyware, and viruses. What’s different in this case is that it’s a big well known company doing it. Mark’s Sysinternals Blog: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

Running Windows is more risky than ever

freelock — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 17:16:24 +0000

The Register is running a story today about a botnet–a network of compromised computers–that is under the control of hackers. Is your computer one of the bots? For a surprising number of people, the answer could be yes.

Hackers plot to create massive botnet | The Register

From the article:

It almost goes without saying but all the MyTob variants, along with the Bagle downloaders, infects only Windows PCs. Apple, Linux and those few souls out there still running OS/2 are all immune, as usual. Standard defence precautions against viral attacks apply in defending against the various new Windows worms and Trojans released this week. Windows users need to apply the latest security patches, update anti-virus tools and to resist the temptation to open suspicious-looking emails. Applying a personal firewall wouldn’t go amiss either.

If you’re in Seattle and need help switching to Linux or installing a firewall, we at Freelock Computing would be happy to help!

Virus and Spam Chapter Resources

freelock — Tue, 25 May 2004 06:16:26 +0000

Articles

“The Rise and Fall of Albania’s Pyramid Schemes,” by Christopher Jarvis
“Blaster worm linked to severity of blackout” by Dan Verton
“Computer virus infects Air Canada check-in system” Reuters
“The Spread of the Sapphire/Slammer Worm” by David Moore, Vern Paxson, Stefan Savage, Colleen Shannon, Stuart Staniford, and Nicholas Weaver
“Man cleared over porn ‘may sue’” by The BBC News, 31 July 2003
“Spam: How it is hurting email and degrading life on the Internet” by Pew Internet & American Life Project, October 22, 2003
“Why Am I Getting All This Spam?” Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) report on the origins of spam, March 19, 2003
“Virulent worm calls into doubt our ability to protect the Net” by Rob Lemos
“There will be an estimated 302 million corporate mailboxes worldwide by year end 2003 and Microsoft Exchange is estimated to power 35% of these.” Analysis by Research And Markets
“A Plan for Spam,” by Paul Graham

Software

Amavis, open source framework for email virus scanning
Tripwire, open source file monitoring program for Linux (commercial for Windows)
SpamAssassin, open source heuristic spam filter with Bayesian component
Popfile, open source spam filter
SpamBayes, open source spam filter
Dspam, open source spam filter
Bogofilter, open source spam filter
SpamNet, shared spam tagging server
TMDA, open source verified sender filter
Maia Mailguard, web application for managing Amavis and SpamAssassin

Spyware cures may cause more harm than good

freelock — Thu, 05 Feb 2004 15:08:20 +0000

http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5153485.html
contains a story about programs that claim to remove spyware, but actually install more spyware on your system.