Symantec has just published one of its regular major security software reviews.

Symantec, developers of the Norton antivirus product range, publishes monthly security software reviews under the title of MessageLabs Intelligence Reports. One of the highlights of the report relates to botnets; the report suggests that almost 95% of spam is sent from a botnet, compared to 84% in April this year. More specifically, the report reveals that Rustock has kept its number one spot as the most common spam-sending botnet, responsible for 41% of botnet spam (up from 32% in April this year).

One reason behind Rustock’s increase in spam presence is that it no longer uses TLS encryption to send out spam; this speeds up connections and increases the amount able to be sent by the botnet. The figures for the use of TLS have dropped considerably; in March this encrypted spam was attributed to 30% of spam sent from all different kinds of sources, and 70% of spam sent from Rustock; this has dropped to 0.5% today.

Paul Wood, the MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Symantec Hosted Services, explains: “It is likely that because TLS slow connections due to the additional encryption processing required to send a spam email, the botnet controllers realized that this tactic impeded their spam-sending capabilities,” Wood said. “As a result, Rustock’s dominance has never looked better as its spam-per-bot-per-minute rate more than doubled from 96 spam emails to 192.”

The report also highlights global variations in spam; the UK, it claims, is responsible for 4.5% of all the world’s spam, a percentage that has more than doubled since the month of April. Four of the top 10 spam sending countries (the UK, Germany, France and Italy) can now be found in Western Europe, showing a global shift in the sources of the most troublesome and high-volume spamming.

The MessageLabs Intelligence Report was not just focused on spam; it highlighted a number of other changes and developments in internet dangers. For example, viruses. They noted that the ratio of email-borne viruses in people’s day-to-day email traffic from new dangerous sources was down from July by 0.02%, at 327.6 emails in August. Phishing was also covered in the report, which revealed that 1 in 363.1 emails, which was a 0.10 percentage increase since July.

Geographical trends were also discussed extensively in the report; rises in levels in spam in countries such as Hungary, Hong Kong, Japan and China; the percentages of spam in emails in the US, Canada and the UK; and the sudden targeting of Oman with phishing attacks in the month of August. Vertical trends, such as the automotive sector being the most the spammed sector in industry (at 94.8%), and the Education sector being at a spamming level of 92.9%, were also discussed.

With its security software reviews, Symantec hopes to keep the using public in the know as to the various changes in threats and dangers in all sorts of areas, from spam to viruses.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Internet security antivirus company Norton has just issued a study which discovered that one in every three top-trending search results delivered about 10% of malicious results, with the term ‘Red Hot Laugh Riot’ being one of the worse culprits.

The internet security antivirus company Norton’s study appears to have uncovered just how wide, extensive, and often bizarre this problem really is. ‘tropical dreams sweepstakes’, for example, produced what Norton reckons was a “staggering” 99 malicious links out of the first 100 indexed results.

This week the three top targets for malicious links were celebrity news gossip, gaming online, and the names of particular diseases: “constance francesa hilton” and “melorheostosis” topped the deadly list of search terms, managing to return malicious links in 45 per cent of the first 100 results. Hackers use rises in popular interest on particular subjects – whether they be international crises, song lyrics, celebrity gossip – to install malicious links into the search results.

So what has Norton done with the information garnered from this study? Norton has released the Norton Safe Web Lite, which can identify dangerous sites before you even click on them. This is a free downloadable tool that can be used with either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. This technology can be found in the Norton Internet Security and Norton 360 products, and provides a crucial barrier of defence from clicking unknowingly on risky sites.

Nearly 60 per cent of these ‘risky’ sites were discovered to contain drive-by downloads, which can infect people’s computers with ease and speed, often without them knowing.

This safety technology has been targeting one of the most popular websites of the day: Facebook. The Norton Safe Web scanner is also free, and by choosing the ‘Enable Auto-scan’ option, it can identify any dangerous links that may be posted on customer’s news feeds of Facebook ‘wall’.

Jens Meggers, vice president of engineering at Norton, says, “Cybercriminals are always looking for the next opportunity to find victims, as evidenced by the high volume of SEO poisoning. Unfortunately for consumers, simply searching for a popular topic and clicking on a poisoned link can have serious consequences. Consumers need to arm themselves with tools like Norton Safe Web Lite that are specifically designed to defend against these types of threats.”

The internet security antivirus company has been leading a number of studies to try to design and develop technology that helps users deal with this far-reaching problem.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

The latest anti virus review from the Symantec MessageLabs Intelligence unit, produced by the company which develops the Norton Antivirus software, warns that spammers are making greater use of shortened hyperlinks.

The anti virus review shows that over the last 12 months, the percentage of spam which contains shortened hyperlinks has dramatically increased from a one-day peak of 18% on 30 April, 2010, compared to just short of 10% in 2009.

And 18% equates to just over 23 billion emails. Another way to see it is that for some days in 2010, around 5% of all spam messages contained shortened hyperlinks.

Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, at Symantec Hosted Services, the team behind Norton Antivirus, said:
“As far as spammers are concerned, any tactics that make it harder to block their spam emails are going to be exploited. When spammers include a shortened URL in spam messages, these shortened hyperlinks contain reputable and legitimate domains, making it harder for traditional anti-spam filters to identify the messages as spam based on the reputation of the domains found in the spam emails.
“While botnets are often the source of short URL spam, 28% of this type of spam originated from sources not linked to a known botnet such as unidentified spam-sending botnets or non-botnet sources such as webmail accounts created using CAPTCHA-breaking tools.”

The anti virus review also stated that spammers shortened hyperlink strategy is working. For every 74,000 spam emails which contained a shortened url link, one website visit was generated. Furthermore, the most often used shortened hyperlink contained within spam got more than 63,000 website visits.

The various Norton Antivirus Software packages are continually updated from information supplied by the Symantec MessageLabs Intelligence unit.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Via their latest Symantec MessageLabs Intelligence antivirus review, Norton is warning that the risk from web threats has rocketed about 20% over the same time last year. And that analysis revealed the worrying statistic that of the domains which were blocked in 2010 as malicious, nearly 90% of them were legitimate, but had been compromised with malware that had been embedded without the owners being aware there was a problem.

The antivirus review also highlighted a new phishing threat which attacks under the guise of a PDF Reader Update. More than 26,000 attacks using this technique had been stopped and the scam was built around trying to collect victims’ bank and credit card details.

In general, phishing emails accounted for one in every 558 emails, or roughly 0.18%.

In July, the number of email-borne viruses which originated from new and what the industry call previously unknown sources, totaled one in just over 300 emails, or 0.3%, which was down a touch on June.

Endpoint threats – those that attack endpoint devices which include servers, PCs and laptops – continue to be a major hazard; one made worse by the increasing use of removable drives and memory sticks. And one of the most dangerous pieces of malware is reported to be the Sality.AE virus, which spreads as a download from the internet and via removable drives.

The Norton antivirus review also detailed the various vertical trends when it comes to spam and viruses. Amongst other findings, it concluded that the most spammed industry sector in June was engineering. This had the dubious distinction of achieving a spam rate of 92.6%.

Next came the retail sector with 89.9 and ironically, the IT sector scored an unimpressive 89.6% and education on 89.1%. The chemical and pharmaceutical sector weighed in with 89%, followed by 87.4% for finance and 87.3% for the public sector.

The engineering sector continued to cover itself in glory; in July it became the most malware targeted industry with roughly one in 112 emails being blocked as having malicious intent, or containing malicious content. As for the other sectors, the number of malicious emails was one in 227 for education; for finance (1-246); IT (1-377); chemical and pharmaceutical (1-449); and, retail (1-706).

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Internet protection for kids is a vital part of being a modern day parent. Keeping your children safe on the internet can be hard work and constant monitoring of what your child is doing is not always possible. So what do you do if your child is obsessed with the internet but you don’t have enough time to watch what they are doing all of the time? The answer is simple; let someone else lookout for the safety of your child for you with internet security.

What is OnlineFamily.Norton?

Being supportive of your child’s online activities is important but there is a way of allowing them more freedom without putting them at risk with enhanced internet security. The OnlineFamily.Norton program is designed to help parents to ensure their children come to no harm online while at the same time allowing them a certain level of freedom.The OnlineFamily.Norton service is free allowing yout to protect your kids online at no cost.

OnlineFamily.Norton can be set up very easily. You register, then add each of your children to the service. None of their personal information is provided you only need to enter their age and gender. The internet protection rules are automatically set up based on the year your child was born. You can further customise security rules for each child on their profile page. The OnlineFamily.Norton website makes the set up of the service very simple with easy to follow instructions.

Here are some of the most important features provided by the OnlineFamily.Norton service that provides great internet protection for kids:

• Personal Profiles – Every child is different and you have the ability to manage your child’s profile information based around their individual interests, age and tastes
• Web Monitoring – This service allows you to see exactly which web pages your child has visited to enable you to check if they have been exposed to any harmful material or inappropriate content
• Block websites – Being able to block certain websites is vital if your child enjoys surfing online
• Chat Monitoring – The option to monitor who your child is friends with online is important as this allows you to see who is talking to your child
• Time Settings – You can use the OnlineFamily.Norton service to set times your children can be online. This is great if your children have a computer in their bedroom.

Other vital offerings from the internet security service include social network monitoring and a time limit for how long your child is allowed to spend online per day. Ensure your child is safe with the OnlineFamily.Norton service it offers internet protection for kids. For more information please visit www.onlinefamilyinfo.norton.com.

You can find furhter information on how to protect your kids online from these articles. Keep Kids Safe Online

Guest Article by Louise Goldstein

Norton has notched up another award; this time its OnlineFamily.Norton, a free online safety service, which has walked off with the iParenting Media Award in the Best Software category.

Norton is the brand name of Symantec, the US NASDAQ quoted group, and is one of the main players in the computer security industry.

OnlineFamily.Norton is all about creating a service, based on the internet, that hands parents the power to connect with their children’s online experiences. The idea is to understand what the kids are seeing, learning and actually doing whilst online. And this process is known as ‘The Talk’ – the communication between parent and child to help keep the latter safe on the internet.

Created in 1996, iParenting.com is a parents and parents-to-be online community website. It is part of the Disney empire and sits alongside such other sites as FamilyFun.com, Kaboose and DisneyFamily.com. Indeed, it is part of a 40 website network which grew from one single website, www.PregancyToday.com.

And iParenting Media is the team behind the iParenting Media Awards Programme which is certified as a product review system.

Marian Merritt, Norton Internet Safety Advocate, said:
“We are extremely pleased that iParenting Media has recognized OnlineFamily.Norton as the best solution to protect kids online. Unlike existing parental controls software, which focus primarily on blocking objectionable sites and applications, OnlineFamily.Norton helps protect kids online by fostering a dialogue between parents and kids about their online lives.”

An iParenting spokesperson said:
“Unlike many parental control products, OnlineFamily.Norton aims to create dialog between parents and kids, not assert draconian control.”

Symantec is behind the Norton Antivirus series of products which protect computer users from cybercrime in all its manifestations, including viruses, spyware and phishing. It develops software programmes to combat such nasties, whilst trying not to absorb too much computer power to run them in the background.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Norton has compiled a list of the top US kids online searches last year and near the top of the pile was the somewhat predictable searches for “sex” and “porn” which were number four and five respectively with those aged 18 and under.

Norton, which is the anti-virus software made by Symantec, make the point that whilst parents may live in hope their teenage offspring are searching for things like the blockbuster movie hit New Moon, or in the case of the seven and unders Sesame Street, their kids will also be finding out a few other things as well.

However, the good news is that the top three kids’ searches in 2009 were YouTube, Google and Facebook.

But Norton advises parents to be aware of what their children are searching for, as each of the first three choices above can of course lead to highly inappropriate content. They are also recommend using a software package to help parents keep an eye on their kids online searches. The Norton OnlineFamily is one such choice for those parents keen to get help.

And when the stats are shown for those searches including the words Sex and Porn, there seems little differences between the boys and the girls. For example, although for boys the search term sex came in at number four, for girls it was only one less at number five. In case you were wondering, girls put the search words Taylor Swift in at number four.

As for the boy’s top 25 searches, they were mostly concerned, apart from the adult related words, with social networking and shopping sites, and games. The girls also had a panache for social networking sites, but were more interested in music, TV, film and celebrity sites.

Not surprisingly perhaps, recently deceased pop mega star Michael Jackson was the most popular celebrity search last year with kids, coming in at number 12, with Taylor Swift at number 13. Other top celebrity searches included Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Lil Wayne, Megan Fox, Eminem, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, the Black Eyed Peas, the Jonas Brothers, Rihanna, and Chris Brown.

Marian Merritt, Norton Internet Safety Advocate, said:
“When it comes to online threats, parents need to be concerned about more than just their child running into inappropriate content. What makes OnlineFamily.Norton unique is that it gives parents insight into kids’ online activities and what interests them most so that parents can ensure they have a discussion with them about topics they’re curious about, as well as protect them from cyber threats.”

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Learn how to control your kids surfing here

Symantec has just announced the worldwide release of Norton Ghost 15.

Symantec, which develop and produce the renowned Norton security suite, claim that the Norton Ghost 15 is one of the industry’s most advanced PC backup and recovery solutions. It is also compatible with Windows 7 and offers 25G and 50G Blu-ray Disc support. What’s more, this latest version introduces a new cold imaging feature that images computers without installing the product. Furthermore, Norton Ghost uses Symantec’s ThreatCon indicator to automatically back up PCs in the event of a severe security threat.

Norton Ghost 15 is pitched as a professional-grade backup solution for both home users and small businesses. Amongst it’s many attributes, lost, or damaged files can be recovered and restored in the event of a system failure, even if the computer’s operating system does not start. Additionally, it provides a backup of an entire system, or specific files, and folders, whilst saving recovery points to offsite locations using FTP.

Dave Cole, senior director of consumer products, Symantec, said:
“Norton Ghost has been the essential imaging and recovery product since 1996. Consumers PCs have never been more central to people’s lives, or more at risk due to cybercrime and critical failures. Ghost 15 not only is a powerful disaster recovery tool, but also it adds important features such as Windows 7 compatibility and Blu-ray Disc support to keep current with the way people are using their computers today.”

Symantec highlights the fact that their Norton Ghost 15 is also supported by Windows 7 Bitlocker. This provides enhanced data protection through drive encryption and integrity checking, keeping stored data safe and protected. They also point out that it works with both 25G and 50G Blu-ray Discs and most storage drives. This includes external hard drives, networked drives and recordable, and rewritable, CDs and DVDs. And the hot backups feature allows users to back up their computers without having to shut it down first.

The cold imaging technology employed by Norton Ghost 15 effectively backs up files without installing the product which, says Symantec, saves time and money. A handy feature is that after purchasing a new computer, users can image the PC immediately before any software is loaded which means that factory settings remain intact. It also allows easy back up of a system by simply booting to the recovery environment (which is a light version of the Windows operating system) from the Norton Ghost CD, and then initiating a backup.

Guest Article by Neil Camp 

Cyber crime has become bigger than drug trafficking for the criminal fraternity. Whats more, say security company Symantec who develop the Norton software range of anti-virus products, one in five people will become a victim of cybercrime in the future.

Symantec research has shown that every three and a half minutes a crime is committed on the streets of New York City, and that every two and half minutes a crime is committed on the streets of Tokyo. Compare that though with every three seconds an identity is stolen online; that’s nearly 10,512,000 identities each year.

And one of the real attractions for cyber criminals is not only the profitability of such crimes, but their anonymity as well, which makes online crimes much more difficult to prosecute than offline crimes.

In response, Symantec has launched a self-styled ‘crusade’ against viruses. It claims to be exposing the inner workings of one of the largest illegal industries in the world and in doing so, hopes to help provide the information that people need to stay protected through a collection of educational and actionable assets and corporate actions.

These include:

• Internet Black Market video series. These videos invite people to take a virtual tour and learn how the online criminal marketplace operates, including what is for sale and highlight the latest cyber thief schemes;
• Every Click Matters website. This takes what they claim to be an entertaining and educational look at the world of cyber crime, exploring digital dangers and who’s behind them, understanding whether cyber crime can actually do to people and educate them on what you can do about it;
• Norton Online Risk Calculator. Could be a useful add on as it offers a quick and free tool to evaluate a user’s risk level and provides an estimated value of their personal data to thieves in the criminal underground;
• “Cyber Crime Exposed” Booklet. This educates on the threat of cyber crime, the risk it poses and how to safeguard against it through simple everyday steps;
• Norton Internet Security 2010 and Norton AntiVirus 2010. Symantec lobbies governments and other agencies and organizations around the globe to support and influence legislation, policy and public education as it relates to online crime, Internet safety and privacy.
• Making it harder for cyber criminals to scam computer users. Symantec educate on the threat of cyber crime, the risk it poses and how to safeguard against it through simple everyday steps;
• Norton Internet Safety Advocate. Via one Marian Merritt who is a nationally recognized representative for Symantec’s ongoing efforts surrounding Internet safety. She works alongside educators and public and private organizations to help families enjoy the Internet safely and securely.

So there you have it; viruses are now more popular than drugs.

Guest Article by Neil Camp