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Researchers Claim Phishing is on the Decline, but is Being Replaced by Key Loggers

Justin Kerr — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:24:53 -0500

Email spam is on the rise, no surprise there, but new information is suggesting that these emails could be coming from good old mom and dad as well. According to researchers over at Websense, personalized spam emails are being sent from tens of thousands of compromised accounts spanning all of the usual suspects including Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail.

Security researchers have suggested that given the sheer volume of spam emails being observed, the recent leak of some 10,000+ Hotmail accounts obtained through a phishing scam isn’t the only source of compromised email addresses, and it is very likely malware key loggers have helped to contribute to the rise in fraud. "The quantity of people hit makes me think that it was key logging — the success rate for phishing is only about one in 1,000," said Shulman, chief technology officer for security firm Imperva. "Secondly, when I went through the list of email account credentials, there were entries with the same username, but a slightly different password, which suggests that they're typos.

According to Patrick Runald from Websense “"Generally phishing is declining and being replaced by key logging, and considering the number of compromised accounts, it could be a combination of both." Apparently it also helps if your password isn’t 1-2-3-4-5. Time to go change the combination on my luggage!

Unbelievable: "123456" Most Common Hotmail Password

Paul Lilly — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:00:02 -0500

Over 10,000 Hotmail email accounts were leaked to the web earlier this week as the result of a massive phishing scam, which may not have taken a whole lot of effort. After all, if you're going to choose "123456" as your password, compromising your account is like shooting fish in a barrel.

In this case, there were 64 said fish in a barrel full of over 10,000 compromised Hotmail accounts, making it the most commonly used password of the bunch, according to a researcher who combed through all the posted accounts.

About 42 percent of the passwords consisted of lowercase letters from "a" to "z," and just 6 percent secured their email accounts by mixing alpha-numeric characters. And almost 2,000 passwords were only six characters long (the longest was 30 characters).

An interesting side note - a bunch of the top 20 passwords were Spanish names, which might suggest that the victims were of Spanish origin or lived in Spanish-speaking communities, Wired.com reports.

10,000+ Hotmail Accounts Compromised in Phishing Campaign

Paul Lilly — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:15:17 -0500

In what security experts are calling one of the biggest security breaches of all time, Microsoft on Monday confirmed that several thousand Windows Live Hotmail account usernames and passwords were leaked to the Web. The Redmond company says the breach was likely the result of an elaborate phishing campaign.

"We determined that this was not a breach of internal Microsoft data and initiated our standard process of working to help customers regain control of their accounts," a Microsoft spokeswoman said in an email to Computerworld.

Neowin.net first reported the incident, claiming that "more than 10,000" credentials had been compromised. But the number could actually be much, much larger. Neowin.net said it only saw a partial list representing usernames starting with the letters "A" and "B." Dave Jevans, the chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), surmises that the actual number could be over 100,000 accounts.

"A 0.5 percent rate, which is what 100,000 users would represent, isn't unreasonable for 10 to 20 million users," Jevans said. "They wouldn't have to spam every user to get that."

According to Microsoft, Hotmail stands at 400 million registered users strong, though the company didn't say how many of those are active users.

Image Credit: serc.carleton.edu

Gmail Grabs Number Three Email Spot from AOL

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:42:29 -0500

Gmail shed its beta tag in July, after having been around for five years. However, Gmail has acquired a different tag now: that of the third most popular webmail service in the US, at least according to internet research firm comScore. Gmail leapt past AOL to take the third spot during the month of July, a month in which it entertained 37 million unique visitors as opposed to 36.4 million users that visited AOL.

It now has Windows Live Hotmail – currently second with 47 million monthly unique visitors – well within its reach. Gmail’s unique visitors swelled by 25% during the first 7 months of 2009, while Hotmail only managed to increase unique visitors by 8%. Yahoo Mail is the most popular webmail service with 106 million unique visitors.

Office Live Workspace Due Out This Year

Justin Kerr — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:56:09 -0500

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley has apparently learned that Microsoft’s online alternative to Google Docs will emerge from beta before the end of this year. Office Live Workspace is a service that is geared to work as either a standalone product, or in tandem with Office 2003-2007. It has been suggested that the current public beta is fairly close to the final version, and the primary issue outstanding is language support. Microsoft wishes to expand the 11 languages it currently supports to 37 before it officially lifts the beta tag later this year. Spokesmen Kirk Gregersen from Microsoft has also reportedly commented on the surprising trends they have identified during the public beta. It was originally assumed that casual users such as students would use Live Workspace as a means to author and remotely access documents. Instead, the service is being used mostly as a single access point for collaborative efforts involving multiple users. Insiders have suggested that this only further demonstrates why desktop versions of Microsoft Office won’t be leaving us anytime soon.

For those who haven’t been following the development of Office Live Workspace, here is a rundown on the new features.

Note – This is the word processor component that most directly compares to Google Docs. It is just as full featured as the Google alternative, but suffers from an annoying lack of a save locally feature. If you wish to save copies of your “notes” for use offline, you will need to copy and paste them manually.

List – This is the spreadsheet component that represents a very stripped down version of Excel. Microsoft apparently knows that outside of business, its advanced spreadsheet features are often bypassed making it little more than a glorified list maker. The interface has been cleaned up to allow for better control over the making and sharing of lists. Once completed, you will have the option to export these as Excel spreadsheets.

Event List – This allows you to create an individual, or shared lists of events. Event lists can be exported to Outlook or Excel. Any entries manipulated in Outlook remain synced with the version on the web.

Task List – This feature is similar to list, but is better optimized to represent task’s. It gives a preformatted layout for the task name, due date, and priority. The task’s can be exported to Outlook or Excel.

Contact List – The contact list allows you to create a central location for your contacts which can easily be shared with others. Contacts stored here can be pushed into Outlook or Excel.

The current web interface is easy to use and its tight integration with the Office desktop applications gives it a pretty compelling advantage over Google Docs. It an excellent alternative for those of us who aren’t yet comfortable with authoring exclusively in the cloud but still want the benefits of remote and shared access. For people who use office on the go, this is service is defiantly worth checking out.

Related Links

Office Live Workspace Public Beta

Learn How To Save Office Documents To Live Workspace

Windows Live Hotmail Wave 3: New Features Revealed

Justin Kerr — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:56:57 -0500

Windows Live Hotmail’s 260 million users worldwide can look forward to a multitude of new features that were recently unveiled by Microsoft. Hotmail wave 3 promises a speed boost of over 70% during sign in, and will enable dynamic storage that will grow at a rate of 250 MB per month. Microsoft is also reportedly working to address the user interface problems which have plagued the service since the roll out of wave 2. Hotmail users currently have the option of picking between the well loved “classic” or the “full” user interface which reportedly suffers from a low adoption rate. This low adoption rate has kept the classic version alive, and made it difficult for Microsoft to roll out new features. Hotmail wave 3 looks to merge the layout of the “classic” with the functionality of the “full”, an approach they are hoping will finally please everyone. This is something that is desperately needed to help attract and retain users currently considering competing services such as Gmail or Yahoo. Improved integration of Live contacts, calendar, and instant messaging help to round out the initial batch of leaked features. The press release doesn’t make any mention of the long rumored POP support or any Skydrive integration, but hopefully these features are still in the works. No public beta has been announced yet, but the “coming soon” headline suggests it probably isn’t that far off.

Are you a former or current Hotmail user? Will these new features keep you with the service or send you running back? Let us know what you think.

Windows News, Friday the 13th Edition

Mark Soper — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:55:14 -0500

WoW! Pro Photo Tools Are Not Just for 32-bit Windows Anymore

32-bit Windows XP and Vista photo fans have been enjoying Pro Photo Tools' combination of metadata editing, mapping and GPS support since early May, but now, thanks to WoW64 (Windows on Windows 64, which enables 32-bit Windows apps to run on 64-bit Windows), 64-bit users can use it too, as reported by the MSDN Pro Photo Community Blog.

Hotmail Gets Faster, Adds More Features

If you're a Hotmail user, you're not just imagining greater speed. As reported by the Windows Live Mailcall blog, Hotmail's classic mode is now much faster and no longer reloads the entire page when the screen updates. If you have a paid version of Hotmail, you can now use its "Add an email account" feature to add many POP3 accounts, even if you don't know your POP email server settings.

CastleCops' Loss is Microsoft's Gain

I first encountered CastleCops, one of the most effective antiphishing websites, while writing my book, Maximum PC Microsoft Windows Vista Exposed. Wednesday, InfoWorld reported that CastleCops founder Paul Laudanski has become a Microsoftie, and will be working as part of Microsoft's Internet Safety Investigator for the Live Consumer Services team. Laudanski's new job started May 16th, but CastleCops is still on duty.

Still looking for a PC with Windows XP? The 'Last Chance' Is Coming

InfoWorld reports that HP, Acer, and Lenovo will be accepting orders for systems with Windows XP installed all the way through June 30, while Dell has announced its "last chance" date is this coming Wednesday, June 18th. Check with vendors to see what models offer Windows XP (hint: you'll probably need to order from the "Small Business" menu).

There's no need to panic, though, if you want an XP-based PC from a major vendor but don't want to order it until the second half of the year. What you'll need to do then is to use the "downgrade to XP" option when you order a system with Windows Vista. The details of the downgrade option vary by vendor, though, so make sure the model you want offers the option, and don't wait too long to make your order.

Take 5! Microsoft Introduces SkyDrive

Mark Soper — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:48:58 -0600

SkyDrive Takes Off

The Windows Live family of online-enabled services just grew a little bigger last week with the introduction of SkyDrive online storage. During the beta period, the storage limit was 1GB, but now that it's live, you get 5GB of online storage - free. You'll need a Windows Live ID (a Hotmail address will do) to get started. You can get a Hotmail account and sign up for Skydrive and other Live services at http://get.live.com.

Using SkyDrive

SkyDrive provides personal folders only you can access, as well as shared folders you grant access to on an invitation-only basis, and public folders anyone can view. As soon as you add your profile in Spaces, your name and picture appear in place of the "no name" shown in the figure below.

To add files to any folder, open the folder and click Add Files. You can use drag and drop to add groups of files after you install an ActiveX control, or you can browse for files to upload. An Online Storage "gas gauge" display at upper right shows you how much space remains, and if you've accessed other SkyDrive folders.

An individual file can be up to 50MB in size, which is more than enough to transfer RAW digital camera pix and many high-resolution videos. During the upload process, SkyDrive checks files for errors. If a file has errors, it won't be uploaded. SkyDrive may have problems handling a large number of large (over 3MB) files at a time; if some files don't upload, upload them in smaller batches.

Accessing Your Files

To access files with SkyDrive, go to http://home.live.com and sign in. Then, click the SkyDrive link in the Spaces category, and you're there. Click an individual file to view it. Each file offers options to open, download, send a web link, rename or delete it.

Sharing Files with SkyDrive

To share files with friends and family, click the Create a New Folder link in the Shared section. Specify the contacts (automatically pulled from your Hotmail or Live Mail account, or add new ones) you want to share with. Contacts can be Readers (view access) or Editors (have view/add/change/delete access). Click Create Folder after selecting contacts. Your contacts will get emails notifying them how to access your files. You can add files using the file uploader or Browse button.

Use the same method to set up Public folders, but specify Anyone on the Internet for sharing.

SkyDrive Uses

While SkyDrive's integration with Spaces is aimed squarely at Web 2.0 social networking types, SkyDrive has lots of potential for businesses and creative types as well. If you're worried about walking off without your flash drive, getting to important files, or if you need a backup of vital files for your next meeting, consider giving SkyDrive a try. It gives you access anywhere you can connect to the Internet.