Just a shoutout - we have gotten a new admin asssistant (Jess) to help out with the database work! Let’s bring ParasiteDB to greater heights!
This is what was on their website (BestOfferNetworks.com)
Best Offers and Direct Revenue have ceased operations. To service legacy consumers we are maintaining this page of uninstall instructions, an uninstall software tool, and an email based support service.
For email support contact bestoffers-support@gmail.com
Direct Revenue has come under legal fire in federal court for deceptive practices, and been investigated and fined by the Federal Trade Commission, and sued by New York and in federal court.
New York’s investigation of the company exposed advertisers fined for using the service, including Priceline.com, Travelocity.com and Cingular Wireless.
So have they really cleaned up their business? Only time and investigation can tell.
We have identified and logged a new rogue security program: WebSpyShield.
According to Sunbelt employee Patrick Jordan:
It installs a toolbar and an exe in a webspyshield folder however, it is a fake web based scam. You have to be connected for it to run and I would hate to think what anyone may pay for to register it as it is no real software but only a new form of their online scanner scams.
More information available here:
Internet Explorer is now available for everyone, even if they are not running a legitimate version of Windows.
According to the IEBlog,
Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users.
Now this is great news, even though we don’t recommend running bootleg versions of legitimate software. Nevertheless, if you don’t have IE 7, get it now! Take advantage not only of the additional security features, but the other major improvements to Internet Explorer.
More at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.aspx
Good news!
The Media Motor spyware program has been permanently halted by the FTC (Federal Trade Comission).
The operators of Media Motor have been accused of infecting more than 15 million computers around the world with their software. They were first charged in November 2006.
The FTC order will permanently bar the defendants from distributing software that interferes with consumers’ computers, including software that tracks consumers’ Internet activity or collects other personal information; generates disruptive pop-up advertising; tampers with or disables other installed programs; or installs other advertising software onto consumers’ computers. The defendants will also be required to fully disclose the name and function of all software they install on consumers’ computers in the future, and to provide consumers with the option to cancel the installation after viewing the disclosure. The defendants will give up $330,000 in ill-gotten gains. Should the court find that the defendants misrepresented their financial status, $3,595,925 – the total revenues from their scam – will be due.
The Commission vote to accept the stipulated order was 5-0.
More information available at:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/motorspyware.shtm
Many people have been asking us via our contact form which anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall programs they should install on their computers.
We have thus created a new resource:
ParasiteDB Recommendation Page
At this page, we post some of the protection programs that we have tried - and liked. Love them? Hate them?
Let us know. 
We have gotten wind of that a new threat database website has emerged.
Threat Expert has been developed by the same team who created PC Tools‘ flagship Spyware Doctor.
Kurt Baumgartner and Sergei Shevchenko, chief security researchers on the project, claim that the site provides rapid, detailed descriptions and analysis of the behavioural effects and changes that malware makes to a computer on infection.
“Threat Expert marks a new era in malware detection as it produces reports with the level of technical detail that exceeds antivirus industry standards,” said Simon Clausen, chief executive at Threat Expert.
“Threat Expert can analyse and generate up to 1,000 highly detailed threat descriptions per server per day. This provides for virtually unlimited scalability to handle hundreds of thousands of threats a day.”
Clausen explained that combating malware is no longer about populating databases with new signatures, but about dealing with the constant influx of new threats.
Threat Expert claims to be able to ‘trick’ a threat into communicating across a simulated network and recording its behaviour in minutes.
System administrators, industry experts and the media can then use Threat Expert to identify new threats and minimise the impact of infection on a computer or network, according to its creators.
Read more at:
http://www.pcw.co.uk/vnunet/news/2199328/security-experts-launch-tool
Recently there has been a worm going around rapidly, and it spreads via USB drives.
If you find the following messages on your computer, you may have been infected.
1.“I DNT HATE MOZILLA BUT USE IE OR ELSE…” when you launch Firefox
2.”ORKUT IS BANNED, Orkut is banned you fool`, The administrators didn’t write this program guess who did?? ” when you try to launch Orkut
3. “youtube IS BANNED,youtube is banned you fool`, The administrators didn’t write this program guess who did??`r`r MUHAHAHA!!,30″
We have, of course, updated the ParasiteDB database to reflect this worm. More details available here: