Download Squad

In an email to members of its Amazon Associates program, Amazon.com started promoting Twitter integration for affiliate links. People have been posting Amazon links to Twitter for just about as long as Twitter's been around, but now it's an insanely easy two-click process, using the toolbar on any product page. This is good news for Associates, making Twitter a viable place to pick up some extra clicks and sales.

It's bad news if you hate product spam, though. Get prepared for a whole mess of folks starting up spammy Twitter accounts to take advantage of the new feature. Also get ready for well-intentioned friends who don't grasp Twitter etiquette to post some product links here and there. I'm not predicting a big storm, just a new minor nuisance.

The messages don't auto-post to your account, they just redirect you to Twitter.com with a pre-filled tweet. The text before the product names seem to rotate, and it includea stuff like "Great deal on," "Check out," and "Just saw on Amazon." I guess that'll make people who post frequent product links look a little bit less like spammers.

These days, cybercriminals seem to have one thing on their mind: your money. Gone are the days where a virus would simply infect your .exe files and make your system hard - or damn near impossible - to use.

It's bad enough that the bulk of the malware and malicious web scripting we're confronted with on daily basis wants to trick us into installing rogue antivirus software - which tries to trick users into paying to register the useless scareware. Now, they're moving up to hostage taking.

Yep. Digital hostages could be the next big thing in cybercrime, whether it be your iPhone or your important .DOC files.

Ars Technica reported recently about one hacker who exploited vulnerabilities in jailbroken iPhones to gain access, alter the lockscreen to display the warning in the screenshot, and ask for €5 to leave users alone. He also promised to provide a link to instructions on how to prevent this particular hack.

In this particular case, the hacker had a change of heart and has now posted said removal instructions at no charge. If we hear about one, chances are good there are dozens more - many of whom won't show this kind of courtesy after-the-fact.

iPhone aren't the only thing under attack. Computer Associates have discovered a new ransomware variant called LoroBot which targets a PC user's data - specifically doc, xls, zip, mp3, txt, docx, xlsx, and others. Once a system has been infected, the malware then goes to work encrypting those files so you can no longer access them.

The only way to gain access again? Why, to pay the piper, of course. $100 will get you the necessary file to undo the encryption. Fortunately, CA has also provided a tool to do it for free (download here) if you've been victimized. Rogue antivirus apps were once fairly uncommon and now they're everywhere. Could ransomware be the next big thing?

One thing is for sure: if you're running Windows you're using the most popular OS in the world - and because of its massive market share, it's the number one target for malware. Make sure your system is fully updated and you're running a good antivirus app.

I make no bones about the fact that I'm a fan of Malwarebytes. It's easily the best free malware removal app in my toolkit, and it's the first program I turn to when cleaning up an infected system. The Malwarebytes team has worked incredibly hard since their application burst onto the scene, and countless technicians and PC users appreciate the phenomenal work they've done.

Now, for the past few weeks I've been reading numerous blog posts about how IOBit is giving away their security software for free. The offer was timed to coincide with the launch of Windows 7, and has popped up in my Google Reader several times since.

How do the two relate?

A few weeks ago, Malwarebytes staffers came across an interesting post on the IOBit forums. The post detailed a keygen for Malwarebytes and reported it using the same name MBAM reports. The crew dug further and found more evidence of copycat detections.

To confirm their suspicions, a fake signature implanted in the Malwarebytes database.

"The final confirmation of IOBit's theft occurred when we added fake definitions to our database for a fake rogue application we called Rogue.AVCleanSweepPro. This "malware" does not actually exist: we made it up. We even manufactured fake files to match the fake definitions. Within two weeks IOBit was detecting these fake files under almost exactly these fake names."

If this is proven to be true, I certainly hope that Malwarebytes is successful in prosecuting IOBit. For another company to use a tactic as underhanded as this - let's face it, it's outright theft - to build a product and label it as their own is appalling.

IOBit are, of course, defending themselves in their forums. They respond:

"We have never used the database of any other companies. And hope Malwarebytes stop spreading malicious rumors for hyping itself[...]A legal letter will be released later, which will prove that there is no problem with Intellectual Property Rights.

For the sake of avoiding dispute and possible problems, we have deleted all disputed items in our database temporarily, and have updated IObit Security 360's database."

Nevertheless, IOBit's reputation is taking a beating now on WebOfTrust - Malwarebytes supporters have been all too happy to head over and vote down IOBit's trust, privacy, and vendor reliability ratings.

If you're a Mac user who's considering giving iPhoto a try, and you're also a fan of sharing photos on Flickr, you might want to give FlickrImport a try. On its face, it's just a utility that imports your Flickr images into iPhoto, but there's more to this little gem than meets the eye. It preserves photo info, including EXIF and TIFF metadata.

Even better, FlickrImport works for more than just your own account. You can also use it to import photos from your contacts accounts, as long as those photos are visible to you. If you have more than one Flickr account, for some reason, you can add yourself as a contact and import from both accounts that way. One caveat: FlickrImport doesn't play nicely with Snow Leopard. To make it work, do a Get Info on the app and check the "Open with Rosetta" box.