New Banking Trojan: A Nasty And Formidable Foe

Malware is getting more and more sophisticated. Bent on destruction, it is seemingly immune to modern weapons. One such Trojan horse program is very sophisticated and it keeps reinventing itself in its greedy quest to empty bank accounts.

The URLzone Trojan, which was recently discovered by Finjan Software, is highly advanced and proof positive that the bad guys are keeping up with technology as well as the good guys (if not being a step ahead, sad to say). This strain of malware rewrites bank pages; victims do not know that their accounts have been tampered with and emptied in many cases. Its interface is sophisticated and diabolical as it’s command-and-control feature allows the bad guys pre-set the percentage of the account balance they wish to clear out!

URLzone is a formidable adversary.. RSA researchers claim that this malware utilizes several techniques to discover those machines that have been set up by investigators and law enforcement, and so far, they have been impossible to fool.RSA Security was founded by and named after the inventors of public key cryptography: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adelman. According to Aviv Raff, RSA’s Fraud Action research lab manager:

“We typically create programs that are designed to mimic the behavior of real Trojans. When URLzone identifies one of these, it sends it bogus information. Security experts have long published research into the inner workings of malicious computer programs such as URLzone…Now the other side knows that they are being watched and they’re acting.”

URLzone is merciless when it discovers a program established by the “good guys.” Some malware might be content to simply disconnect, but not URLzone. The server forces money transfers, but not by one of their own people recruited to move cash overseas. They choose an innocent victim; someone who has received legitimate money transfers from other hacked computers on the network. To date, more than 400 legitimate accounts have been manipulated in this manner.

The idea is to confuse researchers and to prevent the criminal’s real money mules from being discovered. Although banking Trojans are not new and have been responsible for the loss of many accounts of innocent people, the URLzone represents the first of a frightening and smarter generation of malware. To date, according to police dog, Finjan, this banking Trojan infected as many as 6,400 computers last month alone and was clearing a hefty $17,500 per day!

One can only wonder if Andrew Jackson wasn’t right after all.

It has been said that Old Hickory didn’t trust banks. If your money isn’t safe there, where can it ever be?

Source : http://amog.com/

Facebook Review: A tool for cops and robbers

In Venezuela criminals use Facebook to research targets. Cops use it too — but not always for scrupulous purposes.

CARACAS, Venezuela — It has taken Venezuela by storm, but it seems that Facebook and other social networking sites also come with their perils.

Police here revealed that a pair of students at a private university in Caracas had been robbing their virtual friends’ homes using information they had compiled using Facebook.

Police raided the apartment of one of two students who, working in tandem with another couple, had been using Facebook to befriend classmates. They then used the information their new “friends” posted on their profiles to find out where they lived, what they owned and when they were not at home.

"They observe the families’ movements, they study the residencies — the comings and goings, the security measures," said Wilmer Flores Trosel, director of the CICPC, Venezuela’s eqivalent of the FBI.

Security analysts in Venezuela say it is becoming increasingly frequent for criminals to use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Sonico and Hi5 as a source of information for house robberies, fraud and kidnappings.

And it's not just the criminals capitalizing on this online data source, the police too are using it, to go after both hard-core criminals and political protesters. In a country with little tolerance for dissent, many fear the government has designs on controlling these sites. And the crimes aided by Facebook, might give them cause to do just that. [more]

Source : globalpost.com

Free Alternatives to 10 Popular Commercial Mac Applications

We all love free apps. MakeUseOf is all about free apps! Why pay for certain applications when you can get another which works almost (or just) as well for free? While there are a few applications which have no free counterparts, you can most definitely find a majority of others which carry one or several alternatives that performs about the same tasks; and it won’t burn a hole in your pocket!For your convenience, I’ve managed to gather a short list of the most frequently used Mac applications and provided a free counterpart for each of them. Hopefully, they’ll serve you as well as the paid versions.This is MakeUseOf’s edition of Software for Starving Students.

Commercial app #1: AppZapper $12.95

AppZapper is an uninstaller. Mac applications are very simple to install: it’s a straightforward click-and-drag over to the ‘Applications’ folder. Uninstallation is supposedly just the same, dragging the application to Trash. But there are always remnants of the application in System and Preferences folders. An uninstaller finds these remnants and removes them as well. AppZapper is the best in the game.

Free counterpart: AppCleaner
There are hardly any noticable differences between these two applications, even if you put them side by side. AppCleaner works just as well as AppZapper.

Commercial app #2: Parallels Desktop for Mac $79.99

Parallels Desktop for Mac is a virtualization program which enables installation of multiple operating systems in a virtual environment. Use this to install Windows, Linux or any other OS while running Mac OS X at the same time.

Free counterpart: VirtualBox
Jason has covered this program in great detail. Check out his post to learn more about using VirtualBox and what it has to offer.

Commercial app #3: Xslimmer $12.95

Xslimmer is a program which removes unnecessary architecture from Universal Binaries. Because of Apple’s transition to Intel, developers had to make their programs cater for both PPC and Intel processors. It will also remove unwanted localization (language) files to drastically reduce the amount of space used by the application.

Free counterparts: TrimTheFat, Monolingual
TrimTheFat will only remove the PPC architecture from applications leaving the Intel side of it. Then use Monolingual to remove unwanted languages. Monolingual can also remove unneeded architecture but this feature is very unpolished and there are some reports that Monolingual causes severe damage to Intel Macs. Do not use Monolingual for that purpose, although removing languages works without a glitch. So, two free apps to replace Xslimmer’s functions. Using these two applications, you can very well free up several gigabytes.

Commercial app #4: CoverSutra 14.95€

CoverSutra is an iTunes controller and Last.fm scrobbler which provides a beautiful album art jewel case on the desktop. But 14.95€ is too much money to pay for something which will only help me control my music.

Free counterpart: GimmeSomeTune
Although GimmeSomeTune is free, in many ways it could possibly be better than CoverSutra. GimmeSomeTune can automatically fetch album artwork and lyrics, scrobble to Last.fm and has global hotkeys to control almost every aspect of iTunes.

Commercial app #5: TextExpander $29.95

TextExpander allows you to use customized abbreviations to “expand” frequently used phrases and text-strings. This application is valuable when you are always finding yourself typing the same line of text repeatedly such as in HTML editing.

Free counterpart: RapidoWrite
I honestly can’t tell the difference between TextExpander and RapidoWrite. To pay or not to pay?

Commercial app #6: Awaken $12.95

Awaken is an iTunes alarm, when it goes off, it will play a preset playlist. It can also be set to sleep your Mac after a certain time period is over, allowing you to listen to music while drifting off into slumber.

Free counterparts: iTunes Alarm, iTaf
I’ve covered this topic of alarms for iTunes before. iTunes Alarm and iTaf are very capable to perform the same tasks as Awaken, perhaps even more! Check out my older post to learn more about these little gems.

Commercial app #7: iWork $79, Office 2008 for Mac (Home and Student Edition) $149.95

I’m sure we all know what Office 2008 is. iWork is the Mac productivity suite which comprises of Pages (word processor), Numbers (spreadsheet) and Keynote (presentation).

Free counterpart: NeoOffice
NeoOffice is a full set of office applications and is a port of OpenOffice created specifically for Mac OS X. Some may argue that the interface is not as polished as it could be but we’re looking for productivity here. NeoOffice has just been recently updated and performs quicker among other enhancements. If what you’re looking for is a capable word processor (which is the most often used application within a productivity suite), why bother paying so much when NeoOffice is free?

Commercial app #8: Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X $39.95

If you are in a community where you’ll get exposed to a Windows NTFS formatted hard disk (like student life), you’ll definitely need to have NTFS support on your Mac. One method to do this is to buy Paragon NTFS. The other way is completely free!

Free counterpart: NTFS-3G with MacFUSE
I’ve explained how to use NTFS-3G in my first Macnifying OS X post. The NTFS-3G project has come a long way since it first started. The driver is pretty stable now and there is even a ublio version for better performance.

Commercial app #9: Photoshop CS3 $649

Photoshop is an image editing tool which is incredibly successful because it is simply so capable.

Free counterpart: GIMP.app
Right, this is a very touchy topic. So, let’s get this straight: No free application will ever be good enough to completely replace Photoshop. There are always alternatives if you’re not looking to spend $650 to touch up your photos. This is one of them. GIMP.app is specifically ported to Mac OS X so don’t mistake it with GIMP. Before this, running GIMP.app requires X11 to be installed but there is now an experimental native version which doesn’t need X11 to run. I’ve tried it, takes a little long to launch but it works. I don’t mind waiting a bit and saving $650.

Commercial app #10: Cha-Ching $40, MoneyWell $39.99

These two applications are personal finance managers, and pretty good ones at that. But they cost a bomb. I don’t know about you but I’m hardly willing to spend $40 to manage my finances.

Free counterparts: Cashbox, Mini$
Simple, easy-to-use, straightforward, free. That’s all I need. Granted, Mini$ and Cashbox are not as fully-featured as Cha-Ching and MoneyWell, they don’t have the fancy frills of schedulers and buckets styles but they still manage to help me keep track of my finances.

So I hope that this list prevented the major hole in your pocket which could have been if you paid for these applications. Are there any other applications you use which I didn’t list? Maybe you would like to find out if the application you were thinking of buying has a free alternative? Shoot away in the comments!

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationship, studies and his future.

Source: makeuseof.com

Apple’s new multi-touch Magic Mouse

Riding the wave of new Apple products announced yesterday is a new gesture-based, multi-touch mouse.

The Magic Mouse continues Apple’s war on buttons by removing all those pesky clickers. What’s left is an aluminum base topped by a smooth white touch-sensitive polycarbonate panel.

Apple was criticized for the single button hamburger shaped mouse that shipped with the original iMac. Many Mac and PC users favor the greater control that a dual-button mouse with scroll wheel provides. In response, Apple released the Mighty Mouse in 2006 that incorporates four functional buttons and a trackball.

The new button-free Magic Mouse signals a return to minimalism while including all the functionality of multiple buttons. Gizmodo thinks it’s a welcome change:

The Magic Mouse is undoubtedly the best mouse Apple’s made in years. They’ve taken their knowledge in trackpad finger gestures and one-piece manufacturing and made this delicate, yet sturdy, bridge-shaped mouse.

The Magic Mouse will be included with new iMacs or can be purchased alone for $69. Currently the Magic Mouse is only compatible with Mac OS X, but broad support, including PCs, is likely to happen soon.

source : Scitech

The smallest Wireless-N router

When traveling far away from home you shouldn’t have to suffer with primitive living conditions like crappy Wi-fi. No, when pitching your camp in a 15th floor suite you should be equipped with proper communication amenities. Sure, many hotels offer Wi-fi in your room (sometimes even for free) but the connection quality is frequently poor or intermittent. The other alternative, a wired Ethernet connection, just isn’t going to cut it. For proper computing comfort when on the road, we think our Mini 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router is the only way to go.

The world’s smallest Wireless N Travel Router is a high performance router so small it can disappear into your front pocket. It comes with a convenient carrying case, a thin 3-foot Ethernet cable, an Energy Star Certified external power adapter, a handy alternate USB cable to power the router from a computer. The Mini 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router is a remarkable 2.5″ wide by 3.25″ long by 0.75″ high (6.4 x 8.2 x 1.9cm). It has a reset button, power port, one 10/100Mbps Wide Area Network Ethernet port, and an LED display that communicates power and link status. The router features convenient Access Point and Access Point Client modes. The latest in wireless encryption protects valuable data, while advanced Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technology delivers high speed wireless connectivity and broad coverage that minimizes dead spots.

• World’s smallest Wireless N travel router
• Access Point and Access Point Client modes
• Easily share a single internet connection with multiple users
• One-touch Wi-fi Protected Setup
• LED Display
• Reset button
• Dimensions: 2.5″ x 3.25″ x 0.75″
• Includes: carrying case, CD-ROM, a thin 3-foot Ethernet cable, power supply, USB c