It’s been a month since the last update to this site. Reality sets in and I realize I don’t have time to maintain this site and my other site. So I’ll be adding any new security and spam related content to The OS Quest. No more updates to the Spam Chronicles for awhile. What’s already here will remain.
So head on over to The OS Quest for future updates. This week we have:
Security Quest 1a: Recent Security News and Getting Caught Up
Security Quest 1b: Microsoft Patch Tuesday info
Microsoft patch Tuesday for August 2007 brings us 6 critical and 3 important security updates from Microsoft. Microsoft summarizes the patches in their August summary. Every supported desktop version of Windows is affected by one or more patches. Several Microsoft Office versions are also affected along with several versions of Virtual PC and Virtual Server. Microsoft Office for Mac also needs patching.
Rather than repeating all the patches I’ll direct you to news.com which has a good summary of the patches along with links to the individual bulletins. The patches are available through automatic updates or individual downloads.
Happy patching and good luck.
These are some Spam related articles that caught my attention recently.
Google Mistakes Own Blog For Spam, Deletes It (via Yahoo News) - Google thought one of its own blogs was a spam blog so turned it over to someone else. Oops. Google does usually send a notification but they say the bloggers “overlooked” it.
The Storm Worm has been spreading to alarming levels according to several articles around the net. The jist of the article that the botnet (Storm installs bots on it’s targets) has grown so big there’s probably plans to change it from use as a spam sender (which is a common use). Some speculate it may be rented out to launch denial of service (Dos) attacks. The story made it to the Slashdot from page.
Slashdot also has a posting about a popup that can’t be stopped. It circumvents popup blockers, they can be sized to fill the entire screen, and cannot be closed by the user. Oh joy.
Techdirt has the story of a guy who sued a spammer being told to pay the legal fees of the company he sued. The CAN-SPAM act limited who could sue spammers to ISPs. So some people found a loophole (they thought) to become ISPs and they sued. The judge ruled the business was set up for the sole purpose of suing. Part of me is happy he has to pay because he did manipulate things to sue. On the other hand he probably *should* be able to sue but that’s the fault of our Congress which defined legal spam in the CAN SPAM law and gave spammers legal cover.
Security Fix is reporting about scam tax rebate sites. They’re popping up even though it’s not April 15th. October 15th is the deadline for people who filed for an extension. If you get an unsolicited email saying you’re due a refund but need to supply a credit card number to get it your probably (is there any doubt?) getting scammed. Another scam promotes the site as part of the IRS e-File program. Sometimes they submit the return but the refund goes to them.
Apple almost made it through the month of July without an operating system security update which would have been a first for the year. But OS X Security Update 2007-007 was released on the last day of the month.
Thirteen components are updated. Click the thumbnail to see the component list or visit the Apple Support Page for the complete details. Of special note is the Samba vulnerability that Apple has finally patched. Samba is an open source windows file sharing application that is bundled with OS X. A critical vulnerability was found in late may and almost immediately patched by the Samba team. Apple has released several security updates since then but none have included the Samba patch, until now. Samba is off by default but is enabled when turning on Windows sharing in System Preference -> Sharing.
The update is for both Intel and PPC based Macs running OS X 10.3.9 or OS X 10.4.10 including the standard OS and the Server OS. It’s available through Apple’s built-in software update service or as a standalone download. A computer restart is needed after applying the patch.
Apple also released Airport Extreme Update 2007-004. Details are lacking and Apple’s only comment is:
This update is recommended for all Intel-based MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini computers and improves the reliability of AirPort connections.
I usually don’t mention Wordpress vulnerabilities here, but since I use Wordpress and the vulnerable plugin I figured I’d mention it (now that I’m patched).
The Wordpress Stats plugin by Automattic (Andy Skelton ) had a critical SQL injection vulnerability that could allow admin credentials to be stolen. The vulnerability was patched in version 1.1.1 and was released July 27th.
I typically turn off (deactivate) plugins before updating them and in this case I had to re-enter the API key when activating the updated plugin.