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Facebook has helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) track down the cybercriminals whose "botnet" is said to have caused losses worth more than $850 million. A total of 29 local FBI offices and departments worked on the case, along with a ... half dozen foreign police and crime agencies. Ten people have now been arrested in the United States, the United Kingdom, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, and Peru. (Source: fbi.gov ) Those accused of participating in the botnet scheme allegedly helped spread a worm virus called 'Yahos.' This virus reportedly self-replicated ... (view more)

To our Valued Readers, In our quest to improve upon Infopackets.com and overall visitor satisfaction to our site, we've rolled out some major changes this past week and will continue to make improvements in the weeks ahead. Some of the changes we've ... rolled out this past week include: additional content: 5 more articles per week added: payment link for donations by PayPal, card, and by mail inclusion of "How To" articles to the site removal of Vibrant Media ads (blue double-underscore links / pop up ads) removal / change of Google ads added: 'Help Support Infopackets' tab at top of page ... (view more)

At the request of many users, I've put a link to this page on our tab menu (near: Home, Archive, Contact, etc), which is accessible on every page of our site. Refer back here any time you need to. This article was originally published November 22, ... 2012, and has been amended. Article Summary: This article describes our current financial situation, as well as instructions on how to support Infopackets using Amazon. Your support is greatly needed and appreciated and allows us to continue publishing. Update 2012/11/23: I've added links to Amazon.com (USA), Amazon.co.uk (UK), as well as Amazon.ca ... (view more)

Be careful when using Bing, Microsoft's search engine, says a security expert. According to the expert's report, Bing is more likely than other search engines to offer users links to malicious websites. The report comes from Fraser Howard, a ... computer security researcher with SophosLabs. In the report, Howard suggests that users of Bing are twice as likely as users of Google to find malicious links on their results pages. Bing Bad, Google Less Bad That's a startling number, given that Google has more than four times the market share of Bing. However, it remains unclear how accurate and ... (view more)

A new report suggests that Microsoft may be blocking users of its Windows Live Messenger service from sharing links to the controversial torrent downloading site: The Pirate Bay. The report is supplied by TorrentFreak, which covers the lively ... copyright debate surrounding the use of torrent sites. For those not familiar with torrents, they are a type of file and a specialized file transfer system that allow users to rapidly upload and download extremely large files, such as those containing copyrighted movies, music, and TV shows. Pirate Bay and All Torrents Occupy Legal Grey Area On the ... (view more)

There's a new malware attack on Facebook and it's significant for multiple reasons. This attack in particular spreads through bogus links, and it appears to change form in line with news events. While there have been several similar scams in the ... past, they've usually involved tricking users into handing over personal data or outright hijacking accounts. Malicious Drive-by Downloads Initiated on Click The new Facebook attacks tricks users into clicking on a link to a supposed online video. Once the link has been clicked, a Trojan virus is automatically downloaded to the users' computer without ... (view more)

There's no doubt that many are curious to know more details of Osama Bin Laden's recent demise . Security experts, however, are warning that clicking on some links related to that subject may end up getting your PC infected with malware. "I suppose ... this was just inevitable," said McAfee Labs' director of security research, Dave Marcus. "The reported death of Osama Bin Laden is just too good a lure for cybercriminals and scammers to pass up." (Source: chicagotribune.com ) Emails, Google, Facebook Tainted with Infected Links Lucas was referring to a number of emails now circulating the web that ... (view more)

Those who tweet on Twitter can rest a little easier now that their social network medium is taking effective measures to keep phishing attacks (and cyber criminals in general) away from the site. The new service will scan all links to keep online ... goons from spreading their malware across the popular micro blogging destination. Once the service is launched, all links submitted to Twitter will be routed through the system so that malicious links can be detected. This will prevent users from clicking onto corrupt links under false pretenses. In a recent blog post, Del Harvey, director of the ... (view more)

While millions of people clamored to hear late-breaking news and updates on the sudden passing of the Prince of Pop, hackers and online deviants around the world rushed to their computers to spread spam and malware to an endless sea of vulnerable ... mourners. Hundreds of cases of malicious messages masquerading as information about Jackson's death were reported Thursday night. The emails claimed to have contained "vital information" about the circumstances surrounding his death, while also asking users to respond in order to become privy to the "secret" details. (Source: infoworld.com ) ... (view more)

Google has introduced a new feature called 'Google Profile', which lets users control how their information appears when someone else searches for that person's name via Google's products (such as the Google Search Engine). Using Google Profile, it ... is possible to create a personal page that links to your blog or other profiles and keep family and friends up to date with your contact information and pictures. (Source: google.com) Control Over What Others See According to Google, a profile is simply how you present yourself on Google products to other Google users. You control how you appear on ... (view more)