One year ago Google and Dell closed a deal under which Dell installed several Google tools, including its Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search, on shipped computers. Dell also set Google as the default search engine in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.

The Register has a story on how malware dark force Jedi have created a trio of smartphone Trojans that send out premium-rate SMS messages from infected Symbian S60 devices.The Trojans, all members of the Viver strain, pose as utility programs for Symbian phones and have been uploaded to at least one popular file sharing site, anti-virus firm F-Secure reports.

Security expert Frank Boldewin said on his website reconstructer.org that he had recently noticed an e-mailed trojan - a type of program or message that looks benign but conceals a malicious payload - which was exploiting a Windows program known as the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS).

There is a list of "rogue/suspect" anti-spyware applications, none of which can be recommended for anti-spyware protection. Be sure to consult the notes  section at the bottom of the list for more information about the list and how it is constructed.

MessageLabs, a principal supplier of integrated messaging and web security services to businesses worldwide, today announce the findings of its MessageLabs Intelligence Report for April 2007. In this report, MessageLabs  presents a new level in the convergence between spam and viruses through intercepted cyber-criminal activity, whilst highlighting the boost in spam levels and the surfacing of new techniques which have led to decreased rates in traditional virus and phishing threats.

Keylogger is a program that captures and logs keystrokes as they are entered on the computer for the purpose of monitoring the user. The logged data, which may be encrypted, is saved or sent to the person who installed the key logger. That's what happened to the users of Omerta online game.

The Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) has concluded its landmark "best practices" for the anti-spyware community. The document offers a critical tool to customers and software developers.

At first, they said that Skype collects user data. Then the details came in: it’s not Skype who reads your computer’s BIOS, it’s a separate piece of code which is used under license by Skype. All in all, your motherboard serial number is being read by somebody other than you and Skype facilitates this.

GRISOFT offers a FREE AntiSpyware tool which provides:

• Daily database updates,
• Heuristics to detect unknown threats,
• Automatic Cleaning Engine,
• and most of all ... great user satisfaction !
  

Bank customers of at least two Australian banks have become victims of a phishing scam in which malicious payload discloses the physical location of attacked IP addresses using Google Maps. Bank of America and Germany's Deutsche Bank were also attacked.
Wow ..Would you think of that ? Read on.