Inside a ‘Reveton’ Ransomware Operation

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In an alert published last week, the FBI said that The Internet Crime Complaint Center — a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center — was “getting inundated with complaints” from consumers targeted or victimized by the scam, which uses drive-by downloads to hijack host machines. The downloaded malware displays a threatening message (see image to the right) and blocks the user from doing anything else unless he pays the fine or finds a way to remove the program

via Inside a ‘Reveton’ Ransomware Operation — Krebs on Security.

Apple owns US smartphone market while Samsung dominates worldwide

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Smartphone market share numbers for the second quarter of 2012 reveal that occasional bitter rivals Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the market, while competitors fight over the leftovers. Market research firm IDC shows Samsung holding a 30 percent share worldwide, while Apple trails with 17 percent. But NPD’s recent data paints a different picture domestically, with Apple garnering 31 percent of the US smartphone market share, and Samsung holding 24 percent.

via Apple owns US smartphone market while Samsung dominates worldwide | Ars Technica.

Groupon shares fall 27% on disappointing results

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Meanwhile, stiff competition from rivals such as LivingSocial, Amazon.com and Google, may be compressing margins, by offering participating merchants higher shares of deal revenue. Gross margin in the second quarter fell 2.4 percent from the first quarter, to 76.2 percent.

via Groupon shares fall 27% on disappointing results – chicagotribune.com.

Revenue from Groupon’s international business fell 4 percent in the second quarter from the first. The international business accounted for about 54 percent of total revenue in the second quarter.

Canadian hacker dupes Walmart to win Def Con prize

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In short, he got all sorts of information that could be used in a hacker attack. How? A bit of research and an ability to spin a few lies over the phone.

As security systems get increasingly difficult to crack, hackers are turning toward a new source of information: people.

via  Canadian hacker dupes Walmart to win Def Con prize

Hackers have always utilized people or social engineering.

Chris Hadnagy, who organizes the Def Con contest, said social engineering is a “hardly discussed, trained or defended against” threat.

“Social engineering is the easiest and most widely used way to infiltrate companies,” Hadnagy said.

Inside the real economy behind fake Twitter accounts

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Fake Twitter accounts need some information — an image to use as an avatar, perhaps some bio content, maybe even some tweets. For merchants that need to create an inventory of 20,000 accounts quickly, this simply cannot be done manually

via Inside the real economy behind fake Twitter accounts.

By now, though, even this process has been open sourced. First-page results on a Google search for “program to make fake twitter accounts” return this forum on Freelancer.com, titled “Software create fake twitter users jobs.” There, several development projects are posted for bidding that request a program that grabs information from Twitter users’ accounts.

Open Source | Twitter Developers

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Twitter is built on open source software, from the back-end to the front-end. Twitter engineers use, contribute to and release a lot of open source software. We of the Twitter Open Source Program Office support a variety of open source organizations and are grateful to the open source community for their contributions, and want to maintain our healthy, reciprocal relationship.

via Open Source | Twitter Developers.

If you’re interested in the projects we have released, check out our official organization on GitHub.

Book Review: Navigating Social Media Legal Risks

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Social media makes it relatively easy for organizations to find and retain customers and increase sales, amongst many other benefits. At the same time, it can expose an organization to significant and highly-expensive legal risks and issues, and find themselves at the receiving end of a subpoena.

via Book Review: Navigating Social Media Legal Risks – Slashdot.

At $30, Navigating Social Media Legal Risks: Safeguarding Your Business is the cheapest legal advice you can get, and is worth every penny. If you are looking for crystal clear and detailed advice on social media law, you won’t find a better book.

Red Hat Announces Preview Version of Enterprise-Ready OpenStack Distribution

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RALEIGH, NC – August 13, 2012 – Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the immediate availability of the preview release of Red Hat’s OpenStack distribution based on the popular open source OpenStack framework for building and managing private, public and hybrid Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds. With this, Red Hat delivers the next step in its plans for the industry’s only enterprise-ready OpenStack distribution with Red Hat’s award-winning commercial support, certified ecosystem of hardware and application vendors and leadership in delivering trusted open source clouds for organizations worldwide requiring enterprise-grade solutions and support.

via Red Hat | Red Hat Announces Preview Version of Enterprise-Ready OpenStack Distribution.

Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth (Part One)

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Renaud had written 52 essays in total. Eleven were set in Times New Roman, 18 in Trebuchet MS, and the remaining 23 in Georgia. The Times New Roman papers earned an average grade of A-, but the Trebuchet papers could only muster a B-.

And the Georgia essays? A solid A.

via Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth (Part One) – NYTimes.com.