70 months in jail for convicted AOL phisher
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos’s global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have welcomed the news that a man has been sentenced to 70 months in prison after phishing credit card information from internet users.
47-year-old Jeffrey Brett Goodin of Azusa, California, has been sent to jail for nearly six years after using several different compromised Earthlink email accounts to send thousands of unsolicited emails posing as AOL’s billing department. The phishing emails directed recipients to bogus payment websites. Goodin was also convicted on a number of other counts including wire fraud, possession of unauthorized credit cards, misuse of the AOL trademark, and attempted witness harassment.
The court heard that it cost Earthlink nearly $1 million to detect and fight the phishing attempt, and he was ordered to pay a total of $1,002,885.58 to victims by US District Judge Christina Snyder. Read more (Sophos)…
‘Italian Job’ Web Attack Sweeping the ‘Net
Online criminals have launched a widespread Web attack that has turned tens of thousands of legitimate Web sites into weapons, security vendors said Monday.
The attack began late last week and by Monday morning, more than 10,000 Web sites had been compromised, according to security firms Trend Micro Inc. and Websense Inc. Read more (PC World)…
Safari ushers in better browser colors
Apple’s Safari may not be rewriting the rules for Web browsing on Windows just yet, but it’s leading the way with one significant change: photographs with better color.
Unlike the prevailing browsers on the Internet–Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox–the Apple browser supports different ways of encoding images that can mean richer, deeper colors. With the beta version of Safari now on Windows, Mac OS X users aren’t the only ones who’ll be able to see the difference.
However, Apple won’t keep that edge for long. Mozilla’s forthcoming Firefox 3 browser, due to ship in beta form this July, likely will include support for richer color, said Vlad Vukicevic, a technical leader at Mozilla and a photo enthusiast. Read more (CNET News)…
Blockbuster backs Blu-ray
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Blockbuster Inc. will rent high-definition DVDs only in the Blu-ray format in 1,450 stores when it expands its high-def offerings next month, dealing a major blow to the rival HD DVD format.
The move, announced Monday, could be the first step in resolving a format war that has kept confused consumers from rushing to buy new DVD players until they can determine which format will dominate the market. Read more (CNN)…
Microsoft sues Immersion for contract breach
Microsoft said on Monday that it has filed suit against Immersion, a company whose technology adds tactile feedback to joysticks and other controllers.
Immersion had originally sued Microsoft, along with Sony, back in 2002, but the two companies reached a settlement in 2003. Under that deal, Microsoft agreed to pay Immersion $26 million for licensing rights and for a stake in the company. However, Microsoft said Monday that Immersion has not lived up to other terms of that deal, including a provision that requires Immersion to pay Microsoft “based on certain business and IP licensing arrangements.” Read more (GameSpot)…
WordPress 2.2.1 is now available. 2.2.1 is a bug fix release for the 2.2 series. Since 2.2 was released a month ago, the WordPress community has been improving fit-and-finish by identifying and fixing those little bugs that can be so annoying and by fine-tuning some small details. The result is a nicely polished 2.2.1 release.
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