Shady RAT (not to be confused with Dirty Rat, or Damn Dirty Ape)
Ok, some brief thoughts on Shady RAT (not to be confused with Dirty Rat, or Damn Dirty Ape). McAfee and Symantec both have blog posts up, with their analysis of the pattern of attacks that McAfee has included under the Shady RAT banner.
McAfee’s blog post:
Symantec’s blog post is here:
(cc^2)+k’s photostream
(cc^2)+k’s photostream on Flickr.
Stick a fork in this vacation
We’re on our way back from a 2-week vacation in New Brunswick, most of which was at lake Washedamoak.
Our trip back home has been… While in the air from Fredericton, Air Canada sent us email to let us know our flight was cancelled. Apparently while we were in the air, AC completely lost their shit. Western air travel is messed up to and from Vancouver and Calgary. They put us on another flight, a huge Boeing 777-300. That’s all fine and good, but the delay might just push our carefully planned return timing into 3yo Freak Out territory.
In any case, it’ll be great to be home.
Pintley!
Do you like beer? I’ll assume yes, because “no” means you just haven’t found your beer yet. Anyway, come join me on Pintley. Beer recommendations, reviews, community, and prizes.
Donate to help Japan
US (How To Donate Money By Cellphone To Japan Quake Victims)
- To donate to American Red Cross Relief, text REDCROSSto 90999
- To donate to Convoy of Hope, a faith-based organization that does community outreach and disaster response, text TSUNAMIto 50555
- To donate to GlobalGiving, which focuses on “grassroots projects in the developing world,” text JAPAN to 50555
- To donate to World Relief Corp., the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, text WAVE to 50555
Canada (Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami)
- Donating online
- Calling 1-800-418-1111
- By texting the word ASIA to 30333 to make a one-time donation of $5*
- By contacting their local Red Cross office. Cheques should be made payable to the Canadian Red Cross, earmarked “Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami” and mailed to the Canadian Red Cross National Office, 170 Metcalfe Street, Suite 300, Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 2P2.
One quick additional note: I am not advocating donating to “faith-based” organizations. I am advocating helping Japan, but would just as soon see the money go to a secular organization that isn’t going to try capitalizing on the tragedy to increase their number of worshippers. Still, better to help than not.
XBL customer service fail WTF?!
Microsoft and I have been getting along really well the last several years, and even with my love of all things UNIXy, I’ve also been a big advocate for the awesome things going on in Redmond related to infosec.
In that context, imagine my surprise to discover the way that XBL (Xbox Live) treats their customers… especially an owner of a few Xbox 360s since launch. A few? Of right… ya. I’m looking at my fourth Xbox 360 right now, one of the pre-HDMI version. 2 Red Rings of Death and 1 optical drive failure. That’s not why I’m pissed off. Microsoft did the right thing, they extended warranties, etc. All my failed consoles have been replaced under warranty. So kudos for that, XBL folks.
That brings us to how you fail. (more…)
Dell Holiday Gift Hunt contest
I like gadgets. There is no shame in that.
Hence, I feel obliged to share a link to the Dell Holiday Gift Hunt contest thing. Winning stuff like laptops and trips to Mexico seems like a good idea to me, and if you sign up then you get a chance and I get a few more rolls. Ya, that’s right… something in it for me. If anyone who reads this signs up, let me know in a comment and I’ll send you a duplicate game tile “present” thingy to help you out. That’s fair, right?
Update: This is all about you now. I’ve maxed out my added “rolls” from sharing this out, so don’t bother commenting :)
Sophos pimps free AV for Macs
One of the stupidest utterances to ever come out of Apple has been the “you don’t need antivirus!” lie. Macs being invulnerable to malware makes for great marketing material, but the fact is that it is a bold-faced lie. Surely Steve Jobs and his minions would never lie, would they. Damn right they do. Frequently. Their attack ads against Windows (rather than extolling the virtues of OS X, of which there are many) are full of them too.
Anyway, I didn’t start this out as a rant against the distortion-field-dwellers in Cupertino. I love my OS X boxes. I really do. Sometimes I kinda hate Apple though, not the least of which due to how douchey they can be about security. (more…)
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