False-positive swindles grow rapidly online

Fake anti-virus programs set to rule the roost

By John E. Dunn, Techworld

The phenomenon of fake anti-virus (AV) software is growing at such a pace that it could grow to eclipse all other types of malicious software, one security company has suggested.

The Business of Rogueware, the latest threat report from PandaLabs, the research wing of Spanish AV company Panda Security, contains the usual round of statistics on malware growth found in all such vendor reports, but it is the section on rogue anti-virus that should make PC users sit up and pay attention.

In the first quarter of 2009, the company detected more bogus anti-virus files or variants than in the whole of 2008, 111,000 in total. Unconfirmed second quarter figures show that this rose during the second quarter to 374,000. This rise accords with similar statistics published last week by rival Sophos, which said that it was now detecting 15 new bogus AV sites a day, compared to five a day in the latter half of 2008.

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~Sandy G.

Microsoft rushes patches to fix 'big deal' programming flaw

Developers who used the buggy code 'library' must redo software, update customers

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

As promised, Microsoft Corp. today patched six vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and Visual Studio with the first "out-of-cycle" update since last October, when it plugged a hole that the Conficker worm later used to run rampant.

Microsoft has been working on the Visual Studio bugs, and coordinating with third-party developers who may have crafted vulnerable software using Visual Studio, since early 2008.

As some had speculated, Microsoft rushed the patches to users this week to preempt a presentation slated for tomorrow at Black Hat by several security researchers. The researchers plan to demonstrate a way for attackers to bypass the "kill-bit" defenses that Microsoft frequently deploys as a stop-gap measure for fixing bugs.

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~Sandy G.