blog » Multisystem Trojan Janicab attacks Windows and MacOSX via scripts On Friday, July 12th a warning from an AVAST fan about a new polymorphic multisystem threat came to an inbox of AVAST. Moreover, an archive of malicious files discussed here were attached. Some of them have been uploaded to Virustotal and therefore they have been shared with computer security professionals on the same day. Windows version A chain of events that installs a malicious Visual Basic script on Windows platform looks like this: In the beginning there is a malicious Office Open XML Document containing two embedded binary files. The step that follows is decrypted from the second embedded binary with a name ActiveX1.bin. The dropper simply loads and executes two files in resources that are unencrypted. Seeking the pattern on the web in cached YouTube pages it turned out that an expression “111.90.152.210/cc” could have been returned as a C&C server address. Persistence on the infected system is decided by C&C: Spying functionality is not present in this variant. MacOsX version
On The Decline Of Magazines People love a good a good funeral (and as David Hepworth put it "in the digital age they don't even have to dress for it"). In only the past few days I've read two articles that pronounce the 'death' of marketing (only to then go on to explain how marketing is still very much alive, albeit changing. *Sigh*). So it is not without some disheartenment that I read articles about the troubles of a medium which is close to my heart: magazines. David Carr's piece in the New York Times focuses on the difficulties at Newsweek but makes a broader point about how magazines, like newspapers, have been in a steady slide that has now brought them to "the edge of a cliff". Last week's ABC release revealed hefty declines in US newstand circulation across just about every major magazine category: "When 10 percent of your retail buyers depart over the course of a year, something fundamental is at work". Finding a solution to this dilemma undoubtedly requires different thinking. 1. 2. 3.
Why plagiarize when you can rip off a writer's thoughts? I could frame this piece about plagiarism by starting with a little verse about a renowned professor who won his fame by appropriating the work of another: Let no one else’s work evade your eyes Remember why the good Lord made your eyes So don’t shade your eyes But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize… Only be sure always to call it please ‘research.’ I might credit the author of those lines, the satirist and folk singer Tom Lehrer, but you’d likely think me less clever for merely quoting someone when I could have used an idea of my own. Perhaps I should start off with what put plagiarism back in journalism’s center court—a series of allegations against prominent writers such as CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell, and BuzzFeed’s Benny Johnson. Those last two sentences, I admit, are not mine. Both journalism and plagiarism have fallen into a murky new reality in which there’s no clear consensus about the old rules. But plagiarism is not that simple.
Equal-opportunity malware targets Macs and Windows Researchers have uncovered a family of malware that targets both Windows and OS X. Janicab.A, as the trojan is known, is also unusual because it uses a YouTube page to direct infected machines to command-and-control (C&C) servers and follows a clever trick to conceal itself. The threat first came to light last week, when researchers from F-Secure and Webroot documented a new trojan threatening Mac users. Like other recently discovered OS X malware, Janicab was digitally signed with a valid Apple Developer ID. It also used a special unicode character known as a right-to-left override to make the infection file appear as a PDF document rather than a potentially dangerous executable file. On Monday, researchers from Avast published a blog post reporting that Janicab can also infect computers running Windows. Like the Mac versions, Janicab randomly chooses a YouTube link from a hard-coded list to find the C&C server that issues updates and instructions.
So you still think the internet is free... Lines on Plagiarism Blur for Students in the Digital Age “Now we have a whole generation of students who’ve grown up with information that just seems to be hanging out there in cyberspace and doesn’t seem to have an author,” said Teresa Fishman, director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University. “It’s possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take.” Professors who have studied plagiarism do not try to excuse it — many are champions of academic honesty on their campuses — but rather try to understand why it is so widespread. In surveys from 2006 to 2010 by Donald L. McCabe, a co-founder of the Center for Academic Integrity and a business professor at Rutgers University, about 40 percent of 14,000 undergraduates admitted to copying a few sentences in written assignments. Perhaps more significant, the number who believed that copying from the Web constitutes “serious cheating” is declining — to 29 percent on average in recent surveys from 34 percent earlier in the decade. Ms. Photo Ms. In the view of Ms.
nelletorres's blurblog It’s another whimsical Sunday morning, a perfect time to re-examine assumptions, and the one I’m working on this morning is when smaller business is actually better, where by “better” I might mean from the perspective of someone inside the business or from the perspective of the public. I came to this question by way of two articles I’ve read recently. Women CEO’s First up we havethis article from the Wall Street Journal, written by Sharon Hadary, which is entitled, “Why Are Women-Owned Firms Smaller Than Men-Owned Ones?” Hey, that seems super irrational of women! But you know what? Women start businesses to be personally challenged and to integrate work and family, and they want to stay at a size where they personally can oversee all aspects of the business. Well that was kind of too easy. Of course, that mindset is not the entire story. CEO pay Now let’s move to a New York Times article, or really a series of articles, about CEO pay and how it’s big and only getting bigger.
The new media industry - Australia Council for the Arts By Jennifer Wilson Before we go too far, let’s take a look at the digital world as a whole, cover some of the history, developments and services most relevant for writers, and take a look at a few Australian companies in this space. This chapter provides an overview of the new media industry landscape and a foundation upon which writers can build as they launch themselves into cyberspace. Regardless of how you want your content to work in the digital space – as a stand-alone product, a game or linked to a product published elsewhere – you need to know the basics of the digital industry as a whole. The information and resources provided here are designed for writers in Australia and internationally and, as in each section of this book, links to articles, podcasts and websites are provided online at [ Industry overview: what is the industry? Sit back vs lean forward The Internet industry The Internet has several social roles: BigPond: Telstra owned company.
The high cost of not finding information By Susan Feldman On Sept 23, 1999, NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft disappeared. The spacecraft had flown nine-and-a-half months and 416 million miles flawlessly. Scientists were stumped at first about what had gone wrong. They had checked and rechecked the calculations. It turned out that unbeknownst to the metric-based NASA, its contractor had submitted acceleration data in pounds of force instead of the metric equivalent, newtons. In an increasingly information-based world, we turn out complex products that are less tangible than they are knowledge-based. Information disasters There are all kinds of information disasters. Missing or incomplete information plagues many projects. Finally, there is the increasing problem of too much information. Disasters of lesser or similar proportions happen every day to enterprises that are dependent on good information delivered in a timely manner to the people who need it. The costs of not finding information How successful are most searchers?
nelletorres's blurblog It’s another whimsical Sunday morning, a perfect time to re-examine assumptions, and the one I’m working on this morning is when smaller business is actually better, where by “better” I might mean from the perspective of someone inside the business or from the perspective of the public. I came to this question by way of two articles I’ve read recently. Women CEO’s First up we havethis article from the Wall Street Journal, written by Sharon Hadary, which is entitled, “Why Are Women-Owned Firms Smaller Than Men-Owned Ones?” Hey, that seems super irrational of women! But you know what? Women start businesses to be personally challenged and to integrate work and family, and they want to stay at a size where they personally can oversee all aspects of the business. Well that was kind of too easy. Of course, that mindset is not the entire story. CEO pay Now let’s move to a New York Times article, or really a series of articles, about CEO pay and how it’s big and only getting bigger.