An online malware measuring tool has unexpectedly rated U.K. PCs as having the lowest level of infection in Europe.
The Nanoscan tool, which can be downloaded as a plug-in from the site of owner Panda Software, put the U.K. in bottom spot last week, with only 8.1 percent of those scanned showing active malware. By a separate measure, that of ‘latent’ or inactive malware, however, the U.K. fared less well, reaching 20.7 percent.
Top of the infection list for active malware was France (28.2 percent), Mexico (23.1 percent), Brazil (18 percent), the U.S. (17.8 percent), and Argentina (17.4 percent).
The figures appear to show very high levels of infection, but the results only rate those who visited the site and asked to be scanned. These individuals would be expected to show a bias towards having infected PCs. The company has created its own global malware map from the data, which is collected from thousands of mostly consumer PCs every 15 minutes.
Interestingly, almost 8 percent of those scanned and who showed active threats also had anti-virus software installed, which appears to support the company’s controversial view that conventional signature-based malware detection is no longer enough to protect PCs.
“These figures prove that it must be complemented with online tools such as Nanoscan and Totalscan, which are capable of detecting more malicious codes than the solutions installed on users’ computers” said Luis Corrons of Panda Software.
Nobody knows for sure how many PCs are infected with malware at any one time, though last year Microsoft came up with the more optimistic figure of one in 300 Windows PCs in its own research.
Critics might point out that, flawed though anti-virus systems might be, they are no worse than online scanning tools, which are often promoted as marketing tools for paid-for products. This is the case with Nanoscan. Anyone passing the malware test with Nanoscan is invited to try the more advanced but paid-for Totalscan software.
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eBay is one of the most successful Internet-only ventures of all time, so it’s not surprising that it has come under near-constant attack by fraudsters and hackers. In the latest attempt, a hacker logged on to the eBay Trust and Security forums and pretended to post as 1,200 separate users, making it appear as if he had actually logged in with each user’s account. The posts contained the users’ names, contact information, and credit card numbers.
That done, the hacker posted a video of his exploits on YouTube to celebrate his “achievement” (the video has subsequently been taken down). In response, eBay and LiveWorld—the third-party software firm that operates eBay’s web-based forums—took the entire Trust and Security forum offline while they looked into the problem. The forum was taken down 90 minutes after the posts first hit the Web and was put back online later that day.
eBay issued an official statement on its eBay Chatter forum, stating that while the posts appeared to contain credit card information, the posted numbers did not correspond to credit card information that eBay had on file for those users. Nevertheless, the user names and contact information were accurate, and eBay claims they are attempting to get in contact by phone with each of the 1,200 users to ensure that they can protect themselves from any attempts at hijacking their accounts. At this time, eBay is unclear as to whether or not the accounts have been fully compromised. It is also not certain that only these 1,200 accounts are affected.
While the original posts and the YouTube video showing the list of names have been removed from the Web, an eBay member has grabbed as many of the account names as possible and posted them on a personal web site so that people can easily check to see if their account was one of the original 1,200. So far, the operator of this list has not been asked by eBay to take it down.
While this particular attack may not have revealed customers’ credit card information, there are plenty of fraudsters about who are trying their hardest to scam people out of their money: a helpful eBay forum member even posted a list of an astonishing 36 common scams currently being perpetrated against eBay users. Most of these involve social manipulation and phishing scams rather than direct attack, but clearly they are effective: videos of hacked accounts posting over 60,000 items for bid show what the bad guys are likely to do once they have your account information. It’s always a good idea to practice skeptical computing, but eBay users should take even greater care to ensure that they are not taken in by any of these scams.
An eBay representative did not return our request for a comment in time for publication.
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Giving into user demand, the networking site LinkedIn will soon start letting its users post photos with their personal profiles.
LinkedIn has long resisted photos, seeing itself as a site for professional networking and job-seeking and desiring to set itself apart from social-oriented hangouts like News Corp.’s MySpace and Facebook. In addition, LinkedIn didn’t want to open potential employers to discrimination complaints.
But Adam Nash, LinkedIn’s senior director of products, said photos remain one of the most requested features, and the site will start allowing them this Friday — with limits.
Users will be able to post only one photograph, and a head shot is highly recommended. Nash said the feature isn’t meant for posting photos from afterwork gatherings but for helping users recognize former colleagues and classmates. Although party shots are discouraged, there are no current plans to ban them.
LinkedIn also will allow a user to turn off photos completely when viewing other profiles — useful for human resources employees searching the site for potential recruits but fearful that a photo might compromise anti-discrimination policies.
Users also can control who can see their photos — their closest connections, everyone or in between — and they won’t be pressured to post one. Photo-less profiles won’t have an empty box seen at many other sites to remind visitors that a photo is missing.
“We did have to put some significant thought into how to introduce photos in a professional context, while still accommodating needs,” Nash said.
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