WASHINGTON, D.C. Testing in-house and vendor-built software for security holes should be an enterprise priority, said a group of vulnerability research experts speaking on a panel at the Gartner IT Security Summit held here this week.
Read More… (From Network World on Security)

Data-leak prevention provider Reconnex and BigFix, an IT service-delivery company, on Tuesday announced plans to provide an integrated offering that enforces compliance across customers desktops, servers and laptops.
Read More… (From Network World on Security)

Today was not a great day. A little humbling, if you will.

I was asked to participate in a conference call with a customer who was checking out our services because I knew our technology better than the account representative for this customer. Fair enough, I thought. I know our services like the back of my hand.

During the meeting the customer was pointing out a flaw in our technology. To illustrate their point they sent themselves an email that should have hit one of our sender authentication rules but instead the message sailed right on through. Earlier in the day, this customer had forwarded the email along with a bunch of other emails to our account representative who forwarded them on to me.

Now, let me explain something. As a spam analyst, we have to look at email headers all the time. We can’t do this in Outlook easily. Microsoft Outlook makes it difficult to do this, you have to right-click on the messageand go down to message options in order to view the headers. Then you have to copy and paste them into Notepad because it’s impossible to see them in the tiny popup window that appears. This tedious process makes it difficult for us to process spam. So, instead we used to use Thunderbird (press Ctrl + U to view the message source) and later on we built a custom application for viewing mail. I wasn’t involved in development, but it’s a nice app.

Anyways, viewing headersofanemail in Outlook is not intuitive. Viewing the headers of attached messages is fricking impossible. Or, at least it seemed that way while I was in the meeting. During the conference call, I asked to see the message and our representative said the message was one of the attached ones that was forwarded to me. I went to the email and saw the attached message. I double-clicked on it and had to open another attached message. Oh, there’s the message in question! Now, how do I view these headers? I clicked on the little Office 2007 button in the corner and saw nothing to view headers. There was nothing in the ribbon to view the headers. How do I view them? I needed them but I couldn’t figure out how to do it!

I feared asking how to view the headers, I didn’t want to look like an incompetent dope on the call in front of the customer. Here’s how the situation went in my head:

My Brain: Don’t ask how to view the headers! Don’t ask how to view the headers!

Me: Uh, how do I view the headers in this message?

My Brain: That’s it, I’m out of here. (Sound of person descending a set of stairs… door opening… car driving away).

Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, when the account rep told me how to do it, I couldn’t figure that out either. The options that were supposedto be there on the side (what Options tab? What drop-down box?) simply weren’t there. Gee, I bet that inspires confidence in the company. I had to bite the bullet and ask the account rep to copy and paste the headers and forward them into an email to me where I could view them. Locating those headers using Outlook was like searching for the Holy Grail. But at least Indiana Jones found the Grail.

Sigh… a very humbling experience.

Read More… (From Terry Zink’s Anti-spam Blog)

Dave Cherry Call 12 for Action Jun. 1, 2007 05:39 AM See example of dangerous image spam There is a new kind of annoying spam that uses pictures rather than words. via KPNX-TV Phoenix
Read More… (From Email Spam News)

Direct magazine, a news magazine for direct marketers has a little bit more on the story of the alleged cracker who broke into E360’s systems and sent porn spam to nearly 300,000 people on one of E360’s client’s email lists. E360 CEO Dave Linhardt claims that they subsequently lost that customer’s emailing business.

Linhardt also made sure to mention that two of the defendants in the SLAPP suit he filed against various anti-spammers live in the region where the cracker was operating, and that he believes the defendants have been helping Spamhaus, a defendant in another SLAPP suit he has filed.

Linhardt says that he’s notified the FBI and other authorities of the break-in.

For an example of the cracker’s work, see this wonderful Snopes article about the email alleging that folks with AIDS can fly Southwest airlines for free.

Other examples attacked with American Airlines and Wendy’s Hamburgers.
Read More… (From The Spam Diaries)