Archive for the ‘Security’ Category
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
It seems like every week, news of yet another high-profile domain hijacking occurs. Whether it’s stolen credentials, SQL injection attacks, or even the work of disgruntled employees, the number of incidents has been on the rise.
At the beginning of last year, MarkMonitor participated in VeriSign’s beta program to test server-level ...
Posted in Brand Abuse, Domains, Security | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
A common security prediction for 2010 is the continued rise of malware and phishing attacks on mobile phones. The MarkMonitor SOC recently detected an interesting twist on this theme involving a popular smartphone and the latest smart technologies used by cybercriminals. In this case, instead of compromising a smartphone to ...
Posted in Phishing, Security, malware | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Phishing attacks have become more sophisticated with the use of fast-flux botnets as resilient attack platforms. The fast-fluxing among hundreds of compromised computers which serve as proxies for phishing sites means that detection and shutdown become more difficult.
One particular fast-flux botnet called Avalanche has received much attention in recent months ...
Posted in Phishing, Security, Uncategorized, malware | No Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
For retailers and consumers, Cyber Monday marked the beginning of the online holiday shopping season. For cybercriminals, however, it marked the opening of their winter phishing season.
Here at MarkMonitor, we are currently seeing an uptick in cybercriminal activity targeting online retailers’ brands. Linked here is an example of a phish attack ...
Posted in Brand Abuse, Phishing, Security | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
You have to give scammers credit, as they are a creative bunch. While most of us think of the annual open enrollment period for employee benefits as a non-event, scammers see it as an opportunity.
Just last month we’ve seen suspicious sites targeting employees of some of the largest corporations. In ...
Posted in Brand Abuse, Brandjacking, Phishing, Security | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
To say that it’s been quite a year in the world of domain names would be an understatement. From compromised ccTLD registries, to the delay of new gTLDs, some of the events of the past year have been surprising, while others could easily have been predicted.
Regardless of whether you could ...
Posted in Domains, ICANN, Security, Trademarks, gTLDs | No Comments »
Friday, October 16th, 2009
It’s bad enough that malware is virally spread via paid search and social networking links. But now there are more accounts of it being spread via natural search links as well. In a practice called “SEO Poisoning,” fraudsters use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to mix malware-laden search results with ...
Posted in Brand Abuse, Brandjacking, Security | No Comments »
Friday, May 1st, 2009
Most major brands suffer some type of online attacks but few use those attacks as opportunities to educate their customers.
This week, our customer Facebook experienced a high-profile phishing attack. Coincidentally, the attack just barely preceded our announcement that Facebook was expanding their relationship with MarkMonitor.
Facebook made the proverbial lemonade ...
Posted in Phishing, Security | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Javelin Strategy and Research recently released a study entitled “The Importance of Consumer Trust on FI Profitability” which attempts to measure the relationship between consumer confidence and credit card spending.
The study, conducted in 2008 using a random sample of 2,339 online respondents representative of gender, age, and income levels of ...
Posted in Phishing, Security | No Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009
With the recent attacks against high-profile New Zealand domain names including Coca-Cola.co.nz and F-Secure.co.nz, fingers are naturally pointing to Domainz, the registrar of record for these domains, as the party responsible for this lapse in security. While domain name registrars certainly need to ensure the security and stability of their ...
Posted in Domains, Security | No Comments »
