FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Advertisements placed by Google in Web pages are being hijacked by so-called trojan software that replaces the intended text with ads from a different provider, Romanian antivirus company BitDefender says.

The trojan redirects queries meant to be sent to Google servers to a rogue server, which displays ads from a third party instead of ads from Google, BitDefender said in a statement.

Google said on Wednesday: “We have cancelled customer accounts that display ads redirecting users to malicious sites or that advertise a product violating our software principles.”

“We actively work to detect and remove sites that serve malware in both our ad network and in our search results. We have manual and automated processes in place to detect and enforce these policies.” Read more » »

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek

AVG said Wednesday that it has filed subpoenas under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act against Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Internet domain registrar GoDaddy.

The antivirus company, also known as Grisoft, is seeking the identities of search advertisers responsible for fraudulently promoting AVG antivirus products through sponsored text ads.

It is also seeking domain registration information associated with these search advertisers in order to identify those behind the sites selling counterfeit AVG software.
Read more » »

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek

AVG said Wednesday that it has filed subpoenas under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act against Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Internet domain registrar GoDaddy.

The antivirus company, also known as Grisoft, is seeking the identities of search advertisers responsible for fraudulently promoting AVG antivirus products through sponsored text ads.

It is also seeking domain registration information associated with these search advertisers in order to identify those behind the sites selling counterfeit AVG software.
Read more » »

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek

Most people involved in computer crimes are nameless and faceless to the organizations they attack, with the obvious exception of insiders. A few become known as a consequence of getting caught.

There’s Adam Sweaney, 27, of Tacoma, Wash., who pleaded guilty in September to running a botnet. There’s Azizbek Takhirovich Mamadjanov, 21, a Florida resident who was sentenced to 24 months in prison for a phishing scheme that led to millions of dollars in losses for a financial institution in the Midwest. There’s Jason Michael Downey, 24, of Dry Ridge, Ky., sentenced in October to 12 months in prison for operating a botnet. Read more » »

San Francisco - The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has voted to investigate claims by Trend Micro of competitors’ patent infringement involving antivirus products.

Trend Micro filed a trade complaint Nov. 21 against fellow cybersecurity vendors Barracuda Networks of Campbell, California; Panda Software International, based in Spain; and Panda Distribution of Glendale, California.

Trend Micro’s complaint accuses the three companies of infringing its patent for virus detection and removal apparatus for computer networks. The technology “represents a dramatic departure from the traditional antivirus methods of safeguarding individual computers,” the company says in its complaint.

The Trend Micro complaint accuses Barracuda of importing antivirus software Read more » »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday gave investors an easier way to compare executive compensation at 500 U.S. companies with an online, interactive tool.

The online tool includes direct links to full proxy statements, including footnotes and the companies’ explanation of their compensation decisions.

The site — www.sec.gov/xbrl — also lets users compare pay data by industry, executive type and size of company, among other specifications.

“Gone are the complicated data expeditions that forced investors to hunt through financial statements, footnotes, proxy statements, and other disclosure documents to figure out how much a company pays its top executives,” SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement.
Read more » »

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tough-guy actor and martial arts expert Chuck Norris sued publisher Penguin on Friday over a book he claims unfairly exploits his famous name, based on a satirical Internet list of “mythical facts” about him.

Penguin published “The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 facts about the World’s Greatest Human” in November. Author Ian Spector and two Web sites he runs to promote the book, including www.truthaboutchuck.com, are also named in the suit.

The book capitalizes on “mythical facts” that have been circulating on the Internet since 2005 that poke fun at Norris’ tough-guy image and super-human abilities, the suit said.

It includes such humorous “facts” as “Chuck Norris’s tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried” and “Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits,” the suit said, as well as “Chuck Norris can charge a cell phone by rubbing it against his beard.” Read more » »