Australia Eastern & Central Daylight Saving Extension Read On..........
| Date Posted | Name | Condition |
|---|
| 19 Jul 2004 |
Win32.Mydoom.N Also known as: I-Worm.Mydoom.l (Kaspersky), W32/Mydoom.n@MM (McAfee), Win32/MyDoom.N.Worm , ZIP.Mydoom.N, Win32Mydoom.N!ZIP |
| 21 Mar 2004 |
Win32.Netsky.P Also known as: Win32.Netsky.P!corrupt, Win32.Netsky.P!unpacked, Win32/Netsky.P.Worm, W32/Netsky.P@mm (F-Secure), W32/Netsky.p@MM (McAfee), I-Worm.Netsky.q (Kaspersky), ZIP.Netsky.P, Win32/Netsky.P!ZIP |
| 22 Jan 2007 |
Win32/Luder.K Also known as: Downloader-BAI!M711 (McAfee), W32/Downloader.AYEV (Trend), W32/Dref-X (Sophos), Win32/Luder.K!corrupt, Win32/Luder.K!Worm, Trojan.Peacomm (Symantec), Email-Worm.Win32.Zhelatin.a (Kaspersky) |
| 28 Aug 2007 |
HTML/Phishbank.BSH |
| 02 Sep 2007 |
JS/Teeodl Also known as: Trojan:JS/Redirector.B (MS OneCare) |
Scam Spam On The
Increase
Manisha Kanetkar - Friday, 15 June
2007
Scams and fraud spam emails are on the increase in the Asia Pacific region, according to the latest spam report from Symantec. However, image spam emails are dropping off.
Overall spam emails continue to make up about 65 percent of all email traffic. Scams and fraud spam has risen from 9 percent of overall spam to 13 percent in May.
According to Symantec senior director of anti-abuse engineering, Doug Bowers, "This upward trend is indicative of the continued shift in spammer behaviour to targeted, financially-motivated attacks and the success that they are generating."
Scams spam accounts for 17 percent of all spam attacks in the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region. This compares with a global figure of 9 percent for this type of spam.
"Symantec has observed an increase in fraud and scams globally, particularly in the APJ region. This could be due in part to the prominence of invoice spam in that region. With invoice spam, spammers will create fake invoices associated with ‘legitimate' companies and try to sell them to generate profits. It's a trend we'll continue to monitor to see if it spreads worldwide."
On the upside though, image spam is on a downward trend, dropping t o 16 percent of overall spam, down from 27 and 37 percent in the months of April and March respectively, and 52 percent when it peaked in January.
Said Bowers, "The drop in image spam this year has been significant. It's clear that spammers are focusing on other techniques such as using links to hosted images to try and get their messages through. Spammers are always going to follow the money."
Watch out for data charges on your GPS phone
Thanks to the an almost undocumented feature on the Nokia 6110 Navigator, we unwittingly racked up over AU$50 in data charges the first month we used it. Read on to find out how to avoid our fate.
We got a rather rude shock when we checked our phone bill last month: almost AU$50 in unexpected Internet data charges. We didn't once surf the Web when reviewing the Nokia 6110 Navigator, so we were surprised and had to dig a little deeper to discover the root cause of our Internet expenditure. The big attraction of the 6110 is that it is one of the first phones to double as a GPS navigation device. GPS devices normally don't cost you anything to use, but the 6110 has a little feature called 'assisted GPS' which can cost you -- if you pardon the pun -- a packet.
What is GPS? And what is
assisted GPS?
In a
nutshell, GPS determines your location by communicating
with three or more satellites in orbit around the Earth.
Because these GPS satellites are in a fixed orbit around
the little blue globe we call home, your GPS receiver
can triangulate your location based on the time it takes
for signals to get to and from the satellites. The more
precise your receiver's clock and the more satellites it
can communicate with, the more accurate your location
will be. Receivers in typical consumer GPS devices, like
the
6110 or your run-of-the-mill
TomTom, Navman or
Mio, are accurate to within a few metres. Everyday
GPSes work fine in relatively clear areas, like the bush
or the suburbs, but they are easily confused in city
centres where signals bounce off the tall concrete and
glass buildings. And forget about using them inside any
building.This is where assisted GPS is designed to help
out. If your GPS device has assisted GPS, it can send
the little bits of GPS signal that it receives to an
assistance server on the Internet. The server is
thousands, if not millions, of times more powerful than
your GPS and, in theory, can paste together your little
bits of GPS data to figure out your location. Naturally,
to communicate with the assistance server, your portable
GPS device will need access to the Internet. In the case
of the 6110, Internet connectivity is via your mobile
network, which is where the Internet data charges come
in.
Avoid getting charged in the first place
We were understandably very keen to get cracking on our
review of the 6110, so the first time we fired up the
Navigator application -- it's activated by pressing the
compass button below the five-way control pad -- and
were presented with a few obligatory setup questions, we
just blindly clicked Yes to everything. Don't do
this. This is not some software licensing agreement
where you just click Yes and go on your merry way
without reading the fine print.One of those Navigator
start-up questions was "Access point is required for
secure position. Define now?" By selecting Yes instead
of No, we set ourselves up for the data charges that
shocked us come invoice time. If you select Yes, you'll
be presented with a list of methods for accessing the
Internet. At this point you can still avoid using
assisted GPS, and the associated charges, by pressing
Cancel.
But I've used the Navigator already...
Don't fret, you can still disable assisted GPS. You
should also follow these steps if you aren't sure what
you did when you first fired up the Navigator or want to
make doubly sure that assisted GPS is turned off.
That's it. If you want to re-enable assisted GPS, make sure you re-check the items Integrated GPS with Assist and Network Based. Also make sure that under Positioning Server you've defined a method for accessing the Internet under Access Point.
But isn't assisted GPS meant to be better?
Devices with assisted GPS are supposed to provide more
reliable positioning when you're driving around the city
canyons. They're also meant to be able to calculate your
position even when you're inside a building. Both of
these situations usually have your run-of-the-mill
portable GPS device flummoxed. Try as we might, even
with assisted GPS on, we've never been able to get a
lock on our position when inside a building, be it an
office block, apartment or free-standing house. Even if
this feature worked as it's meant to, we're not sure
when we'd ever need it except for showing off in front
of friends. When driving around Sydney's CBD, the 6110
suffered the same problem as all the other portable GPS
devices we've tested, regardless of whether we had its
assisted GPS off or on. We'd be driving along George
Street, for example, and one moment the 6110 would be
happily tracking our progress and the next it'd believe
that we'd teleported ourselves onto a parallel street or
up some dark, dingy alley. So, we effectively spent
upwards of AU$50 for nothing.
Editorial comment
We're fine with extra functionality. It's what gets us
going in the morning and what, in the end, CNET
reviewers are paid to test. What we don't like, though,
is functionality that adds little benefit to a product.
It riles us that this feature can end up costing users a
fair wad of cash and they won't know it until they get
their first bill. But what we find particularly irksome
about the 6110's assisted GPS feature is that it's
hidden. The only mention of it in the manual is this
line on page 18: "Your device supports assisted GPS
(A-GPS) service which utilizes packet data connection,
and your network operator may charge you for this
according to your network subscription. Contact your
service provider for the correct internet access point
and charges related to the service." There's no mention
of how it gets activated, what it does or, importantly,
how to turn it off. Granted, as professional product
reviewers we should have paid more attention when
starting up the Navigator application for the first
time. And the alarm bells should have been tolling at
full blast when we were presented with the option of
selecting an Internet access point. Nonetheless, if we
can be suckered into paying AU$50-plus in data charges,
we're sure that more than a few 6110 Navigator owners
have too. We'd love to hear about your experiences with
the 6110's assisted GPS feature. Just leave your
comments below.