Terry Zink: Security Talk
Discussing Internet security in (mostly) plain English
Request for input on a survey
I received this request from a member of the team I work in to post this survey request on my...
Author: tzink Date: 12/13/2010
Recovering a hacked Hotmail account
From time to time, I get asked about what to do if your Hotmail account credentials are stolen and...
Author: tzink Date: 12/13/2010
Humor – The Most Ridiculous CAPTCHA ever
A reader of mine wrote a humorous article about the most ridiculous CAPTCHA ever. Check it...
Author: tzink Date: 12/04/2010
CollegeHumor – If spammers wrote ads
I’m currently traveling, but here are some humorous things I have come across on the web. See...
Author: tzink Date: 12/03/2010
Humor – new CAPTCHA system
Via XKCD.
Author: tzink Date: 12/01/2010
The death of email? Hardly.
Well, I’ve currently got a bit of spare time at work so I thought I’d write up a blog post. ...
Author: tzink Date: 11/22/2010
What’s worse than paid for antivirus? Free antivirus
Recently, Microsoft started packaging its free antivirus software Microsoft Security Essentials with...
Author: tzink Date: 11/20/2010
Our latest outbound spam mitigation technique
One of the things that has kept me busy the past few weeks (read: months) is outbound spam –...
Author: tzink Date: 11/18/2010
Facebook’s new messaging platform
Yesterday, Facebook announced that they were introducing a new messaging platform. You can...
Author: tzink Date: 11/16/2010
My prediction came true
Ugh. Sometimes I hate to be right. Three and a half years ago, when I was being asked for my...
Author: tzink Date: 11/16/2010
A fitting proverb
Yesterday, I came across the following proverb: Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but...
Author: tzink Date: 11/15/2010
Rethinking the term “false positive SLA”
This is a topic that I have written about before, but I will continue to write about it until I see...
Author: tzink Date: 11/12/2010
.com – the spammiest TLD
Following up from my post yesterday, I thought I would take a look at how spammy each particular TLD...
Author: tzink Date: 11/10/2010
.com – the riskiest TLD
A couple of weeks ago, NetworkWorld published an article indicating that the .com TLD was the...
Author: tzink Date: 11/09/2010
Measuring incremental efficacy and the value of statistics
Inspired by my previous post on measuring false positives, and spam effectiveness, I thought I’d...
Author: tzink Date: 11/05/2010
Video vignettes
Some of the folks associated with the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report were recently...
Author: tzink Date: 11/04/2010
Bredolab botnet infiltrated
I’m a bit behind on writing about this, but last week the Bredolab botnet was infiltrated and shut...
Author: tzink Date: 11/03/2010
You know you’ve made it when others start to copy you
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then this has to be good news for Microsoft. ...
Author: tzink Date: 10/27/2010
My broker is giving out cyber advice
I have a stock trading account (actually, I have 4 – two that I used to use but no longer do and...
Author: tzink Date: 10/26/2010
Measuring spam effectiveness – the flip side of false positives
As I was saying in my previous post, when it comes to measuring effectiveness you need to take a lot...
Author: tzink Date: 10/22/2010
Why you need large data sets to measure yourself effectively
There are a few organizations out there that measure the effectiveness of various vendors – Virus...
Author: tzink Date: 10/21/2010
MSRT tool cleaning up Zeus-related malware
Two weeks ago, Microsoft started detecting the Zeus malware in its Malicious Software Removal Tool,...
Author: tzink Date: 10/20/2010
Should vs Must
This morning, my co-worker and myself had another disagreement. This time, it was on the...
Author: tzink Date: 10/19/2010
Some Dilbert humor
Via Dilbert.
Author: tzink Date: 10/19/2010
Microsoft IP space caught hosting spam
Well, this doesn’t reflect well on Microsoft. Two IPs belonging to the Microsoft-owned IP...
Author: tzink Date: 10/14/2010
Does handing out business cards constitute opt-in?
Over the past year, one of the complaints that we have gotten around spam filtering is filtering out...
Author: tzink Date: 10/13/2010
Does the computer security industry give good or realistic advice?
As a guy who works in the computer security industry, I am well aware of all the advice that we...
Author: tzink Date: 10/10/2010
The RPZ
At the end of July, Paul Vixie wrote a post entitled Taking Back the DNS wherein he proposed the use...
Author: tzink Date: 10/09/2010
ISPs cutting off infected users
I was reading Richi Jennings blog and his recent post about whether or not ISPs should cut off...
Author: tzink Date: 10/09/2010
A unique approach to measuring effectiveness
Last week, I was at the Virus Bulletin conference where one of the presenters, Igor Muttik of...
Author: tzink Date: 10/07/2010
What not to do in email
Via The Oatmeal, posted by a friend of mine on Facebook: The joke here is that sending a file via...
Author: tzink Date: 10/05/2010
Off to Virus Bulletin
I’m off to the Virus Bulletin conference in Vancouver for the rest of the week. While there, I...
Author: tzink Date: 09/28/2010
Q&A: Microsoft's botnet wrangler on the fight against Internet crime
TechFlash has an interview with a Microsoft senior attorney Richard Boscovich. Boscovich is a...
Author: tzink Date: 09/27/2010
Latest Facebook scam
This past week I got a message from a spammer who was spoofing Facebook. I didn’t notice this...
Author: tzink Date: 09/24/2010
Spam? Or not?
Today, I got an email from my car insurance, Geico. I quite like Geico. I find their...
Author: tzink Date: 09/23/2010
Flurry of malware this past week
Over the past week or so, I have seen a flurry of malware activity that has been escalated to me. Of...
Author: tzink Date: 09/22/2010
Microsoft gets ownership of Waledac domains
Back in February of this year, Microsoft got a court order which ordered various registrars to...
Author: tzink Date: 09/21/2010
Falling for phishes
Last weekend, myself and numerous other sources reported on the “Here you have” email worm. As...
Author: tzink Date: 09/19/2010