Terry Zink: Security Talk
Discussing Internet security in (mostly) plain English
Speaking of viruses…
I haven’t been that active on this blog in the past few days because I’ve been fighting off a real...
Author: tzink Date: 12/29/2009
Malware infection update
Well, I finally got my other home PC (the one in my parents’ place) cleaned up from all of the...
Author: tzink Date: 12/23/2009
Has my family learned nothing?
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have sometimes referred to myself as Jack Bauer. ...
Author: tzink Date: 12/20/2009
An adventure in Peru, part 2
Note: this story is (mostly) fiction. But it could be a true story if you use your imagination...
Author: tzink Date: 12/15/2009
Now this is funny
I interrupt my unfolding Peruvian story to share this very funny video about Windows 7. ...
Author: tzink Date: 12/13/2009
An adventure in Peru
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now know that during October, 2008, I was...
Author: tzink Date: 12/10/2009
Management tips and tricks
As a Program Manager, it’s my job to assign work items to people and then track everything. ...
Author: tzink Date: 12/10/2009
This picture is so true
The one near the top is completely valid (click for ginormous image).
Author: tzink Date: 12/04/2009
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
I don’t normally comment on things I see on TV… wait a minute, what am I talking about? I do...
Author: tzink Date: 11/26/2009
If only she knew who she was talking to
This is another vignette that I am posting while I am out traveling. The other day, I popped into...
Author: tzink Date: 11/24/2009
Another story about social engineering
I’m still out traveling, so below is a personal vignette about social engineering. A couple of weeks...
Author: tzink Date: 11/23/2009
Some Microsoft humor
Did you ever wonder what it’s like to work at Microsoft? Click on the link below to check out...
Author: tzink Date: 11/22/2009
Some antispam humour
While I am out, I am posting some random stuff from around the web. From AppleGeeks:
Author: tzink Date: 11/21/2009
A positive (?) story about social engineering
I’m currently on vacation in South America* so I thought I’d pre-write a few stories about how...
Author: tzink Date: 11/20/2009
Traveling for the next little while
I am going to be traveling in Peru for the next little while, but fear not! I shall still be...
Author: tzink Date: 11/17/2009
Virus attachments vs email classified as malware
This probably belongs in the “Well, no kidding” category but I thought I would post it anyhow. ...
Author: tzink Date: 11/16/2009
FireEye knocks Mega-d offline
From the Register: A botnet that was once responsible for an estimated third of the world's spam has...
Author: tzink Date: 11/13/2009
Changing the title of this blog
For the very first time since I created this blog back in July of 2006, I am changing it’s...
Author: tzink Date: 11/10/2009
The Story of Conficker, part 3
Setbacks and Triumphs The domain registration task became exponentially more challenging on March 4,...
Author: tzink Date: 11/06/2009
The Story of Conficker, part 2
The Conficker Working Group Is Born In January 2009, representatives from a number of security...
Author: tzink Date: 11/05/2009
The story of Conficker
One of my favorite stories in the recent edition of the Microsoft Security and Intelligence Report...
Author: tzink Date: 11/04/2009
Microsoft’s Security and Intelligence Report, v7, now available
Every 6 months or so, Microsoft releases its Security and Intelligence Report for the previous 6...
Author: tzink Date: 11/02/2009
Live Free or Die Hard
Spoiler alert. This past weekend, I got a chance to watch the 4th installment in the Die Hard...
Author: tzink Date: 10/29/2009
Things we can learn from Animaniacs
Does anyone remember that cartoon from the 1990’s, Animaniacs? It was a pretty good cartoon for its...
Author: tzink Date: 10/20/2009
Keeping track of botnets
A couple of months ago, I posted a one-day snapshot of how much spam we see from individual...
Author: tzink Date: 10/19/2009
I don’t know what it is…
I don’t know what it is, but whenever I hear the name of the waledac botnet, I always think of Wario...
Author: tzink Date: 10/17/2009
Fooled today… almost
Today, I got a spam in my junk mail folder that nearly fooled me. Below are the headers with...
Author: tzink Date: 10/16/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 10 - Results
Results Forefront Online (ie, us) has come a long way in reclaiming its outbound reputation. The...
Author: tzink Date: 10/14/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 9 – disabling offenders
Continuing on in my 9 part series, the process of mitigating an outbound spam problem occurs in a...
Author: tzink Date: 10/13/2009
Are we seeing more spam from Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo?
Last week, I commented on the the Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo username and password leak. The question...
Author: tzink Date: 10/12/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 8 – More pattern analysis
Islands Islands are named that way because their appearance looks like an island – a time zone...
Author: tzink Date: 10/08/2009
Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail compromised
I wasn’t going to comment on this until later, but the story is spreading; there’s a link off the...
Author: tzink Date: 10/08/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 7 – Pattern analysis
Mountains A mountain pattern is when each subsequent monitoring of an outbound spam problem is worse...
Author: tzink Date: 10/07/2009
The multinational nature of spam
I received a spam message the other day that went to my Junk Mail Folder. I decided to take a...
Author: tzink Date: 10/03/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 6 – Noise reduction
Pattern Detection and Noise Reduction The amount of noise inherent in outbound spam detection is...
Author: tzink Date: 10/03/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 5 - Monitoring
Monitoring FOSE has implemented a lot of different mechanisms to mitigate the spam problem. These...
Author: tzink Date: 10/02/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 4 – More options
Option 3 - Keep track of the mail disposition and cut off the entire organization This was one of...
Author: tzink Date: 10/01/2009
I wonder if I’ll ever see this in a spam campaign?
I’m back from Europe and my body clock is a little messed up. I got home yesterday a little...
Author: tzink Date: 09/30/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 3 - Options
Options Since outbound spam was poisoning our reputation, we decided that there were two angles we...
Author: tzink Date: 09/30/2009
How to reclaim your sender reputation, part 2 – The Damage
This is the second part of a paper that I presented at Virus Bulletin. Check out their web...
Author: tzink Date: 09/29/2009