Spammers Defeated by own Tools

Researchers have discovered that, by turning one of the tools used by spammers to generate difficult-to-filter mail, they can achieve a higher success rate in blocking those messages.

Oh, those wiley spammers...

According to the post over at New Scientist, an awful lot of spam relies on using a relatively simple template-structure to generate a massive amount of variation across mails without a massive amount of work going into actually writing new spam messages. It’s a simple enough idea, but the new method of combating it is, surprisingly, just as simple.

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Slippery Flash Exploit Hits Gmail, YouTube, Flikr

Word has emerged of a new vulnerability in Adobe’s Flash that seems as though it may well be entirely unpatchable, leaving web users in a fairly untenable position securitywise.

While Flash has long been criticised as something of a security risk, a large portion of that risk normally tends to be associated with the manner in which users are expected to keep a Flash player up to date in their own browsers. In that respect, if in no other, the emergence of a Flash exploit that could well prove to be entirely unpatchable is very worrying indeed. Moreover, the list of potentially exploitable sites includes names as big as Gmail, Flikr and YouTube.

Hotmail Phishers Hit Gmail, Yahoo

The same phishing scheme that resulted in around 10,000 users Hotmail account details being posted online has reportedly hit Gmail and Yahoo as well.

According to the BBC’s report on the phished accound details, which include the requisite passwords to sign in to accounts, the initial reports of around ten thousand Windows Live Hotmail account names and passwords being published online don’t mention the impact on other email providers. It’s interesting to note that with the news that Yahoo and Gmail users are effected, Microsoft’s handling of the situation is only looking better.

Hotmail Passwords Posted Online

Microsoft has announced that it is investigating details of a phishing scheme which has culminated in the publication online of “thousands” of Windows Live Hotmail accounts.

The one is of particular relevance because of the revelation that most of the accounts whose details have been published online were those belonging to European users, so if you have a Hotmail inbox you haven’t checked in a while it might be worth taking a look at. Microsoft has also stated that it has locked all effected accounts, so if you’re suddenly having trouble getting at your mail then that could certainly be the issue.