Hoax Bird Flu Email Used to Spread Virus and Hijack Computers; How to Protect

June 26th, 2006 A World Health Organization probe revealed that the bird flu virus mutated within an Indonesian family. An Indonesian man who died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu almost certainly caught the disease from his 10-year-old son.

July 17th, 2006 Scientists of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have succeeded in developing an indigenous vaccine against bird flu (H5N1 virus). This feat has been achieved by scientists working at the Bhopal-based High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) in a record time of four months under a Rs 8-crore project.

May 4th, 2009 Lawyer: Probation recommended in MySpace hoax case LOS ANGELES — A defense lawyer says officials have recommended probation and a $5,000 fine for a Missouri woman involved in a MySpace hoax on a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide. Attorney Dean Steward said Monday that the punishment for Lori Drew was outlined in a presentencing report filed by probation officials.

August 6th, 2006 AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition has the annoying habit of popping up a virus alert everytime it detects an email virus. There is no way to stop the alert in the free edition (on Windows).

January 8th, 2009 We have seen and discussed many anti-virus software earlier in our blog. Even today, when we use an anti-virus software it is either for prevention or for cure.

March 17th, 2006 I am tired of reading news everyday along the lines of - x number of chickens were culled at y to prevent (fear of) spread of bird flu. These chicken are being mercilessly killed, mostly by wringing their neck or worse.

February 17th, 2006 Why do we use "virus" to describe malicious replicating computer programs? Most of these programs are very complicated and intelligent (comparatively), which resembles more like a bacteria than a virus. Viruses are very simple organisms, very unlike todays "computer viruses".

May 9th, 2009 Feds want 3-year term for Mo. mom in MySpace hoax LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors say a Missouri mother should serve three years in prison for her role in a MySpace hoax on a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

June 12th, 2005 With the rapid proliferation of RSS Feeds and offline aggregators it is presumable that virus writers will try to exploit this avenue to spread the virus. But the question is whether it is feasible? In short technically a resounding YES.

June 21st, 2006 A new e-mail worm, Sixem-A, is on the loose that preys on the intense worldwide interest in the football World Cup. It began circulating earlier this week, and has just recently been blocked by few antivirus vendors.

July 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A computer security website has issued a warning that hackers are misusing a video that has naked shots of glamorous ESPN sports reporter Erin Andrews as a lure to attack PC's. The illegally taped peephole video, showing Andrews as she disrobes, gets viewers and web surfers to download dangerous malware to their computers, reports CBS News.

September 8th, 2005 Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong, China, and Intradigm in Maryland, have reported the first successful use of Interfering RNA (siRNA) against the viral respiratory disease SARS, in primates (Nature Medicine, DOI: 10.1038/nm1280). Two siRNA sequences that matched bits of the SARS virus genome largely protected macaques against SARS when given as nasal sprays shortly before, or four hours after, infection.

June 28th, 2006 Sometime back Sony BMG released DRM rootkit software. At that time Sony insisted that no one should care about the Sony BMG rootkits because most people had no clue what rootkits were.

December 1st, 2008 Very surprisingly enough but Apple has asked all the Mac users to use anti-virus softwares for their computers. Though Apple says that there is nothing alarming in it and it is not that Mac has gone insecure, but something is not right I feel.

April 17th, 2006 I found a super-simple way to block access to external email providers like GMail or HotMail or Yahoo Mail in firewall. The process while trivial to configure has a caveat.