Organized Crime Increasing Activity on the World Wide Web

Research findings from Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) latest Security Intelligence Report indicates that organized crime activity on the Internet is increasing and more general awareness and education should be increasing as well.

Mohammad Akif, national security and privacy lead for Microsoft Canada, explains the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report is conducted semi-annually, with its most recent volume spanning the six-month period from January 1 to June 30, 2008. Data is collected by analyzing over 450 million unique computers around the world, in addition to utilizing other security and vendor Web sites, such as the National Vulnerability Database
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Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the report, Akif said, is realizing that organized crime on the Internet continues to increase.

“As the operating system (OS) becomes harder to attack, hackers and criminals are moving to the application layer,” Akif said. “In the last six months, 90 per cent of the vulnerabilities that were disclosed affected applications, whereas only 10 per cent affected the OS.”

Akif said the majority of today's malicious activities are driven by a motive for financial gain. As such, in Canada, he said the rise of malware or potentially unwanted software (PUS) is increasing. To put things into perspective, Akif said for the first six months of the year, there were 72 per cent more distinct computers found in Canada that reported malware or PUS, compared to findings from the last report.

The top two categories that were reported for disinfected machines in Canada were Trojan downloader and droppers at 24.7 per cent, and Adware at 23.2 per cent. PUS ranked third, coming in at 21.8 per cent. In Canada, Akif said the top threat is Zlob, a Trojan downloader and dropper. Zlob, he explains, takes advantage of Internet users by opening up pop-up boxes that appear to be official, but in fact, aren't.
“These will be boxes like, ‘You have spyware, so click here for free software to get your computer clean,'” he said. “Depending on the intensity and severity of this, your computer can then be breached and compromised. We saw 86,000 variants of Zlob in the last six months and we feel the reason this number is so high is because there's a financial upside to it.”

PUS is also another problem for users to be cautious of, Akif said. PUS will notice end-user buying patterns and behaviour on the Internet. In Canada, this PUS is better known as ZangoSearchAssistant. By monitoring end-user purchasing habits and online behaviour, reports are then sent back to servers, which in turn store and sell the information to companies that can then solicit messages out to try to make money.
The key to solving these vulnerability problems, Akif said, is to raise general awareness levels. Akif said some people aren't educated about, or are simply unaware of security practices they could use to protect themselves and their workplace and information.

“Customers should be enabling a firewall, enabling automatic updates with Windows Vista, Windows Server and Windows XP, and they should also be installing up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware programs,” he said. “Users should also not go to Web sites they don't trust and should uninstall software they don't frequently use.”
To further help educate the market on security practices, Microsoft is currently in the process of updating its partner portal and is working to get programs such as its Hack and Defend workshops in place. Hack and Defend, Akif said, is a workshop designed for Microsoft partners and customers.

“This is a free workshop that Microsoft is conducting for partners to come in and see how some of these attacks are being conducted,” he said. “We show them what can be done to protect against and to prevent them from happening. These workshops will be conducted in the Q3, February and March 2009 timeframe. We're still figuring out which cities we'll have these workshops in, but we'll also have them available as Web casts for customers to participate in too.”

Thanks to Maxine Cheung

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"What're you going to do now, tough guy?"

A jailed reputed mobster was charged on Monday with the 1977 slaying of a gangland rival who used his last words to taunt him in a motel parking lot.

"What're you going to do now, tough guy?" Giovanni "Coca Cola" Larducci asked when Michael Coppola's gun jammed during the New Jersey confrontation on Easter 1977, prosecutors said.

Coppola has bragged to cooperators that he responded by pulling out another pistol from an ankle holster and shooting Larducci dead, prosecutors said.

The slaying was recounted in court papers alleging Coppola also infiltrated and shook down a labor union for the Genovese organized crime family.

Coppola pleaded not guilty on Monday in federal court in Brooklyn to murder, extortion and other charges.

Defense attorney Henry Mazurek said outside court that the evidence against Coppola is flimsy. His client, he said, was "more than optimistic about beating these charges."

Coppola, 62, was arrested last year after becoming one of New Jersey's most-wanted fugitives. He went underground in 1996 with the help of his wife to duck a court order requiring him to submit a DNA sample in the Larducci slaying.

Over the next 11 years, the couple used various aliases while splitting time between an apartment in Manhattan owned by a Genovese associate and a home in San Francisco, prosecutors said. Following Coppola's capture in New York, investigators said they discovered a book in his apartment titled "The Methods of Attacking Scientific Evidence
."

A DNA sample taken from Coppola last year was compared to that from hair found on a hat left at the motel parking lot. The FBI analysis found that "Coppola could not be excluded as the source of the hair," court papers said.

Coppola already was serving time after pleading guilty to charges related to his flight. If convicted of the new charges, he faces life in prison.

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What Happens to Chicago's Top Mob and Corruption Fighter After the Presidential Election?

Despite the national media's childlike fantasy that Illinois is something like Camelot—where the knights rise to power without staining their shining armor—we're still neck deep in corruption and sleazy pay-to-play politics.

The Chicago Outfit, though wounded, still reaches out to friendly pols. The bipartisan Illinois Combine that runs things isn't finished, though a Republican boss was indicted last week. The Democratic half of the Combine, Chicago's Daley machine, is now poised to leverage the awesome power of the White House. And what the machine wants is control of the federal hammer in its backyard.

Readers keep asking me the same question: Will the next president keep Patrick Fitzgerald as the U.S. attorney in Chicago?

I really can't say. What are political promises worth from politicians with debts to pay? But here's what I do know. There is no story more important to the people of Chicago and of Illinois than the future of Fitzgerald, who has systematically hunted down the corruption.

Corruption the Chicago Way doesn't only waste money and burden taxpayers. This isn't only about isolated instances of graft and amusing, earthy rapscallions. That is a cartoon. The reality is that Illinois political corruption is an infection that spreads. The people either are numbed and deny it, or they feel pressured to suck up to their overlords. That's not American. That's positively Medieval.

That's how important this is. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have promised to keep Fitzgerald here.

"If we lose him, we lose everything," said a Chicago FBI agent wise in the ways of Chicago politics and its symbiosis with the Chicago mob. "I can't imagine it happening. He's the guy who pulls the trigger on all these investigations. If it happens, if they get rid of him, forget it."

Fitzgerald, brought here as an independent with no political connections and no ambitions to run for governor or knock down seven figures at a law firm, has done more in a few years than could have been imagined.

A corrupt former Republican governor in prison. A Democratic governor with a creeping case of feditis that appears to be politically terminal. City Hall patronage bosses convicted. And the leaders of the Chicago mob are scheduled for sentencing in December, which means the Outfit is in no mood to play the enforcer for their favored politicians.

History shows us that governors are expendable, but mayors are not. In this city's fantastic history of corruption, a mayor has never gone down. Chicago mayors are like the queen bee, and all other bees protect her, because she lays the magic eggs. Without the eggs, what's the point of public service? After years of climbing, Fitzgerald is getting close to the hive.

McCain has no loyalty to the Republican half of the Combine, which backed Mitt Romney, who made it clear he would dump Fitzgerald if elected. But McCain was unequivocal in his support for Fitzgerald and said the prosecutor should remain where he is, fighting political corruption in Illinois, not promoted up or out.

"I'd keep him. I'd keep him," McCain said last November when I asked him at a session with the Tribune's editorial board, of which I am not a member. "I think he has done a good job and I think the American people are crying out for having this corruption cleaned up."

Obama, meanwhile, talks reform. But he's backed by the Chicago machine. And Obama's own longtime friend and real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, has been convicted of corruption and is believed to be preparing to talk to the feds.

Mayoral brother Bill Daley has been rumored for a Cabinet post in an Obama administration, and is expected to be on the transition team if Obama is elected. Bill Daley will look to protect his brother first. Although Bill is a thoughtful politician, somehow I just don't see the phrase "Barack, we've gotta keep Pat Fitzgerald" on Billy's lips in the personnel meetings.

Another Chicago connection, U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Tomczak), is being rumored as a possible White House chief of staff. Emanuel would also look first to protect the mayor. Washington Beltway reporters won't tell you this, because they must figure that what happens in Chicago stays in Chicago, but a few years ago, Emanuel was elected with the help of a massive patronage army of stooges on the City Hall payroll who pounded the precincts.

The fellow who directed this army for Emanuel is the corrupt former city water boss Donald Tomczak. He now sits in federal prison in Duluth, Minn., while Emanuel prepares to reform us all. It was Fitzgerald's office that put Tomczak away.

Back in March, Obama visited the Tribune's editorial board. He said that if elected president, he would keep Fitzgerald in place.

"I still think he's doing a good job," said Obama. "I think he has been aggressive in putting the city on notice and the state on notice that he takes issues of public corruption seriously."

Does your wanting to keep Fitzgerald in the job threaten any other political entities here in Chicago?

"I can't speculate on that," Obama said then. "I can't."

But you can.

Thanks to John Kass

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