Geekonomics

This must be one of the best public service announcements ever.

City Alive! held in conjunction with the annual Chingay Parade is going to be the BIGGEST and FUNKIEST street party in Singapore! And It’s happening tonight!

Maxim’s world’s sexiest DJ Sassy Pandez is in town and this photo was taken at the media event at TOPSHOP, Vivocity last night.

So quickly get your tickets from SISTIC and I’ll see you later in town, on the streets!

I read a Gartner report just 1-2 years back that Nortel was the market leader in Unified Communications (UC). That perception seemed to hold even as I talked to people in this industry over the past 1-2 years, although the CISCO/Microsoft UC solution set was always a very strong contender for market leadership.

For a while, I thought maybe Nortel was a company that could have a strong future in UC. Alas, Avaya took over the leadership recently and that seems to have sounded the death knell for Nortel as they file for Chapter 11. Another victim of the economic crisis? Or just the overdue death of a weak company?

Too bad I’ll be on the plane - will miss the inauguration ceremony totally. But here’s an interesting piece of news from Symantec :

As anticipation builds around President-elect Barack Obama’s upcoming inauguration ceremony, Symantec Security Response’s global sensors have detected a new wave of malicious spam messages trying to capitalize on the popularity of the new President.

A new threat - W32.waledac Read more…

RSA FraudAction Research discovers “Cease- Fire Trojan Attack”
Online Fraudsters Prey Upon the Media and Public Interest in Current Events to Launch “Cease- Fire Trojan Attack”

 
Yesterday morning, the RSA FraudAction Research Lab discovered a social engineering scam designed to lure people, via an email spam attack, to a fake news website designed to look like CNN.com. This “Cease-Fire Trojan Attack” attempts to bait readers leveraging recent news and “graphic and striking” images regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. Today, RSA is initiating the shutdown process to take down this attack.
The result of this attack is the infection of computers with a Trojan. The attack began shortly after our discovery and is still being perpetrated. The fake website is designed to look like CNN.com, but is not a legitimate CNN.com webpage nor is it directly associated with CNN, its parent company, or its affiliates in any manner.
The scam is yet another example of how adept fraudsters are in engineering attacks with near real-time response to breaking news. It also underscores the opportunistic nature of fraud purveyors who increasingly prey upon public interest and/or concern regarding national or global events of broad importance (such as the recent global economic crisis or the U.S. presidential election).
This is a call to action for Internet users to remain vigilant and educated regarding the latest online threats. Infection by the Trojan is accomplished via a silent “drive-by-download” infection kit such as Neosploit, or via social engineering. If the Internet user clicks on the link within the email, they are directed to the fake website.
The fake webpage (see below), designed and hosted by the online criminals, is embedded as a link within the spam attack email (see below). This fake webpage includes another link to what appears to be a legitimate video but is actually a form of crimeware. When visitors click on the video, they get an error message asking them to install Adobe Flash Player 10 in order to play the video, and a link is provided. The associated and completely fake download is not a product of Adobe or its affiliates in any way.
The Trojan that is launched when the link to the fake software installation is accessed is called a Trojan “SSL stealer” that captures financial and personal information of the infected user found on their computer. This particular Trojan is not new or a newly advanced piece of crimeware. What is new is the socially engineered application of this Trojan that exploits users concerned about the recent events in Gaza.
The gang behind this Trojan is known, and others have blogged about this gang’s previous attacks(e.g. Fake certificate, Classmates reunion, etc.). RSA advises Internet users to be wary of unsolicited emails that ask them for personal information, or entice them to look at something interesting online - even if it seems “normal”, like an email from a friend, financial institution, or a social networking website.

Driven by record sales at retail along with an 84 percent jump in online consumer spending; global install base lead over PlayStation 3 expands to more than 8 million units.

SINGAPORE — Jan. 7, 2009 — Despite a tough economy, the gaming industry held strong in 2008 and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system recorded the biggest year in Xbox history, with more consoles, games and online entertainment experiences sold than any previous year. It was a year in which life-to-date unit sales of Xbox 360 systems climbed to 28 million consoles worldwide — expanding the product’s lead over Sony PlayStation 3 to more than 8 million units. The Xbox LIVE community also grew to more than 17 million active members, as online consumer spending increased 84 percent from last year. Since the launch of the Xbox 360 three years ago, more than $1 billion has been spent on Xbox LIVE. This amazing growth was fuelled by the launch of the New Xbox Experience[1]; the broadest selection of hit games, TV shows, and movies available; and mass-market price points, starting at $199.

Xbox 360 is experiencing record-setting sales Read more…