SECURITY WARNINGS & Notices - Please post them here

[Asyn]

Security Advisory – High severity – WP-Statistics WordPress Plugin
http://blog.sucuri.net/2014/11/security-advisory-high-severity-wp-statistics-wordpress-plugin.html

[Para-Noid]

Cigarettes with malware

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Chinese-Electronic-Cigarettes-Have-Malware-Planted-In-the-Charger-465664.shtml

(And they wonder why many people don't use WPS Office Free)

[bob3160]

Look out for these Top Telemarketer Area Codes.
Aside from the popularly used toll-free number exchanges (800, 866, 877, 888, 855), the top spam area codes are:
1. 313 – Detroit
2. 713 – Houston
3. 954 – Fort Lauderdale
4. 404 – Atlanta
5. 484 – Eastern and Southeastern Pennsylvania
6. 407 – Orlando
7. 214 – Dallas
8. 202 – Washington, D.C.
9. 972 – Dallas
10. 205 – Birmingham

[Pondus]

Regin: Top-tier espionage tool enables stealthy surveillance
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/regin-top-tier-espionage-tool-enables-stealthy-surveillance

http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2013-121221-3645-99

[polonus]

Regin advanced malware undetected from 2008 onwards:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/regin-spyware-us-uk,news-19950.html

polonus

[Pondus]

F-Secure   

The Regin Espionage Toolkit   https://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002766.html

[Para-Noid]

16% of British adults hit by cyber attacks!

http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/11/24/16-british-adults-hit-cyber-attacks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eset%2Fblog+%28ESET+Blog%3A+We+Live+Security%29

[merckxist]

The following was posted in Avast Free/Pro/Suite yesterday, but no responses, yet. Perhaps this is a more appropriate topic to get the opinion of those concerned about security.

I was wondering if the issue mentioned here has been seen and addressed :

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/securitymonkey/bypassing-email-av-is-ridiculously-easy-64458

If you go to the link, the implication for avast users seems to be that the mail shield has a potential gap.

[Asyn]

Amnesty and EFF launch a scanner to detect government spyware:
Read about Detekt here: https://resistsurveillance.org/

UPDATE: The tool „Detekt“: what you should know about it
https://blog.gdatasoftware.com/blog/article/update-the-tool-detekt-what-you-should-know-about-it.html

[REDACTED]

Regin advanced malware undetected from 2008 onwards:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/regin-spyware-us-uk,news-19950.html

polonus

Forgive me for being green and stupid, but when I clicked on polonus's link, as soon as the page appeared, a pop-up  appeared with the message that a serious piece of malware had been blocked. If I had had a computer which was unprotected (and I do know of two such computers), what would the consequences been of clicking on polonus's link. I do appreciated the the clicking on the link and the the pop-up may have been purely co-incidental but I was just browsing the thread trying to understand what it was all about and for no particular reason clicked on the link.

[Pondus]

Regin advanced malware undetected from 2008 onwards:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/regin-spyware-us-uk,news-19950.html

polonus

Forgive me for being green and stupid, but when I clicked on polonus's link, as soon as the page appeared, a pop-up  appeared with the message that a serious piece of malware had been blocked. If I had had a computer which was unprotected (and I do know of two such computers), what would the consequences been of clicking on polonus's link. I do appreciated the the clicking on the link and the the pop-up may have been purely co-incidental but I was just browsing the thread trying to understand what it was all about and for no particular reason clicked on the link.

vital info is missing ..... what does the popup say?

[REDACTED]

Sorry pondus, it all happened so fast that I didn't really take it all in. I dont even know whether it was avast or mbam. However, since my computer survived the first visit to your link, I will click on polonus's again and see what happens

[REDACTED]

Second click on polonus's link and no pop-up appeared  What might have caused it to appear the first time?

[REDACTED]

Regin advanced malware undetected from 2008 onwards:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/regin-spyware-us-uk,news-19950.html

polonus

Forgive me for being green and stupid, but when I clicked on polonus's link, as soon as the page appeared, a pop-up  appeared with the message that a serious piece of malware had been blocked. If I had had a computer which was unprotected (and I do know of two such computers), what would the consequences been of clicking on polonus's link. I do appreciated the the clicking on the link and the the pop-up may have been purely co-incidental but I was just browsing the thread trying to understand what it was all about and for no particular reason clicked on the link.

vital info is missing ..... what does the popup say?

What I've highlighted in red is roughly what the pop-up said pondus

[Pondus]

Second click on polonus's link and no pop-up appeared  What might have caused it to appear the first time?

well the popup would have all the info of what was bloked .... file / url .... so without that info impossible to say

if you have not rebooted since the popup, right click avast tray icon .... select show last popup