As the economy worsens and more people get laid off, online fraud and financial scams are rising, security experts say.

Many of the scams lure people in with promises of quick and easy money. For instance, there has been a marked increase in money mule recruitment scams for people to transfer funds online between countries, and other illegal work-related spam in recent months, security firm Panda said on Thursday. Such offers promise $225 or more a day for what they call "rebate processing" work at home.

"The schemes are aimed at people who are desperate in rough … Read more

USB thumb drives are convenient, popular and often free--and they're spreading viruses like sailors on shore leave.*

The US-CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) issued a warning on Thursday that malicious code is increasingly propagating via USB flash drive devices.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense has temporarily banned the use of thumb drives, CDs, and other removable storage devices because of the spread of the Agent.bzt virus, a variant of the SillyFDC worm, according to Wired.

We've seen this before with portable external storage devices. Floppy disks were the culprit in the early 1990s, followed by CDs. The fact that USB thumb drives are being used by so many people makes them an attractive target for virus writers.

"The bad guys are intentionally developing new flavors of malware designed to propagate through USB devices," said Gunter Ollmann, chief security strategist for IBM's ISS security division. "They are today's floppy drives."

But USB drives are even handier. Their small size makes them easy to slip into a pocket or carry on a lanyard around your neck. A common swag item in the tech industry, they also are mainstream consumer storage devices. They literally litter my desk drawers.

There are a couple of ways USB thumb drives can be used to spread viruses and other malicious software.

… Read more

British prime minister Gordon Brown spoke on Thursday (at least indirectly) about the future of Gary McKinnon, a 42-year-old UFO enthusiast accused of hacking into several U.S. military sites. It was the prime minister's first public comments on the case which, after six years, took a twist over the summer.

McKinnon lost his last fight against extradition in July but has yet to arrive in the United States to stand trial. His lawyers are continuing to appeal within the E.U. courts. McKinnon, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, has said he would prefer to stand … Read more

White lists will be on every desktop within the next five years, according to Patrick Morley, CEO of Massachusetts-based Bit9. Morley was in town to address the Dow Jones VentureWire Technology Showcase in Redwood City, Calif., on Tuesday. He stopped by CNET News afterward to discuss why he believes white listing will be important in the next few years.

The basic idea behind "white listing" is to define a set of software, a set of vendors, and allow only those trusted applications or files from those vendors to run on your machine. If a file or application is … Read more

Extended certificate validation for Web sites has boosted online confidence in 2008, according to a statement released Thursday by the Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA).

This could help online consumers looking for sites to trust on Cyber Monday, the first shopping Monday after Thanksgiving when online purchases are at their peak.

Sites with Extended Validation Certificates (EV) added to Secure Socket Layers (SSL) encryption display their URLs in a green bar in the address field of compatible browsers. This signals to the user that there is increased scrutiny of the Web site. In Firefox 3, a user clicks the … Read more

Want to watch a high-definition show from iTunes on an older external display? Good luck!

Some Mac users are teed off that they are getting error messages saying the iTunes movie they rented or bought can't be played on their display because it is not HDCP (High Digital Content Protection) authorized.

And some people are complaining they are only able to play certain standard definition iTunes content on their laptop or via an HDMI connection.

As a result, some Apple forum participants have threatened to boycott iTunes.

"And here we are now with Apple users who have spent … Read more

Finjan, which sells Web gateway security software to the corporate market, announced Wednesday a $22 million investment round.

HarbourVest Partners led the round, which also includes Benchmark Capital, Israel Seed Partners, Benhamou Global Ventures, and Cisco Systems.

San Jose, Calif.-based Finjan said it plans to expand its sales and marketing infrastructure with the money.

Green Hills Software announced this week that it is spinning off a new company to bring its military-grade Integrity operating system to the enterprise market.

Integrity, which sits on top of the processor controlling access to hardware and devices, has received the EAL6+ (Evaluation Assurance Level), the highest rating for an operating system.

It's already being used in the B1 bomber, the F35 joint strike fighter, the Airbus 380, Boeing 767, and NASA's next-generation shuttle, and now will be available for use on computers running Windows, Linux, and other desktop operating systems.

The operating system's virtualization features … Read more

The University of Texas at San Antonio launched a new incubator that will help commercialize security technologies.

The Institute for Cyber Security's (ICS) new incubator will provide start-ups access to seed capital, business advise, and office space and infrastructure on the campus. It is getting $5.5 million in funding from the state of Texas.

The first two start-ups being incubated are Denim Labs, which developed technology that protects PHP-based Web sites against certain types of intrusions, and SafeMashups, which enables Web mashup applications to authenticate with each other before exchanging data.

The ICS also has ongoing projects dealing … Read more