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Patrick Walsh

Job title:
CTO, eSoft

Areas of expertise:
Web threats, email threats, social networking, web filtering

Biography:
Patrick has over 10 years of experience in computer security and software development and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine. In addition to his entrepreneurial past, other past roles include software engineer, engineering manager, product manager, marketing manager.

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blackhat seo Web Security malware spam compromised sites virus WiFi Rogue AV

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All Bloggers » Patrick Walsh
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Adobe CS7 Searches Saturated With Dangerous Results
Looking to save a few bucks on software will almost always lead users down a dangerous path. Users either end up at “OEM Software” sites offering unlicensed and illegal software, or to downloading cracks or keygens laced with malware.  One of the big issues here is that the ...
Posted 30 July 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: oem software , malware , blackhat seo , pagerank bomb , adobe , microsoft
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Red Button SEO Poisoning and Malware Campaign
eSoft researchers have been tracking a new campaign by cybercrooks, compromising and creating websites for use in SEO poisoning and malware distribution. Thousands of these sites have been detected that use elaborate techniques to trick search engines and are ready to serve malware in an i ...
Posted 30 June 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: malware , blackhat seo , pagerank bomb , web security , exploits
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New Email Phish Targets Twitter Users, Abuses Google Groups
A new twitter spam campaign is making rounds, infecting users with rogue anti-virus malware. The spam mail attempts to convince the user that someone was trying to steal their Twitter account information, and to download a “secure module” to protect their account. The email that begi ...
Posted 08 June 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: twitter , malware , virus , compromised sites
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135 000 Fake YouTube Pages Delivering Malware
The eSoft Threat Prevention Team has uncovered thousands compromised web servers hosting fake YouTube pages. Attempting to play the video on these fake pages prompts the user to install a ‘media codec’ which then infects the machine with malware. The fake YouTube pages are well ...
Posted 07 June 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: compromised websites , youtube , malware , virus
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Phishing Scams Lure Twitter Users
The newest phishing scam on Twitter has snared thousands of users hoping to increase their number of followers.  Instead, users are sent off to a phishing page where cybercriminals steal their Twitter logins using them to generate more spam. Thousands of spam messages are floating around on ...
Posted 14 May 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Phishing , Twitter , Spam
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Google Groups Latest Hot Spot for Rogue AV and Malware
eSoft researchers have been tracking a recent campaign abusing Google Groups to spread malicious links in Spam emails. Users following the link are infected with a Downloader Trojan, silently infecting the machine with various types of malware including Rogue Anti-Virus. The scam starts with an e ...
Posted 12 May 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: spam , virus , malware , compromised sites
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Pharma-Fraud Continues to Dominate Spam
Have you taken a look inside your Spam folder recently?  Without a doubt you’ll find the folder full of pharmacy Spam, pitching everything from Cialis and Viagra to Vicodin and Hydrocodone.  The problem is almost none of the linked web sites are legitimate certified pharmacies. Ph ...
Posted 22 April 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: pharma-fraud , spam , fraud
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Tiger Woods (Searches) Not to Be Trusted
Tiger Woods’ personal life and marital affairs have attracted constant attention from the press and has certainly damaged his public reputation.  With his return to the Masters, Nike has released a new commercial in an effort to rebuild Woods’ image.  This compelling commer ...
Posted 08 April 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: malware , blackhat seo , pagerank bomb , rogue av
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Affiliate Programs Rising Cause of Fraud and Abuse
What happens when you offer up money to anyone who can drive traffic to your website? Hackers, scammers, spammers and fraudsters come to your aid. That’s the case with online movie site zml.com, which offers 30% of each sale and 5% of rebills paid via anonymous means to anyone who re ...
Posted 05 April 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: web security , spam , affiliate , abuse
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Cinderella Story Leads to March Madness Malware
The first week of March Madness has brought about many compelling stories, with a good deal of upsets and bracket busters. The most newsworthy of these has been the University of Northern Iowa’s ousting of #1 overall seed Kansas. This ‘Cinderella’ story has deservedly gotten a grea ...
Posted 22 March 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: blackhat seo , malware , rogue av
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Virus Alert! Twitter, Google, Hallmark and Others Subject To Attack
The eSoft Threat Prevention Team is warning customers today of a new email scam circulating very quickly.  These fraudulent emails claim to be from Google Staffing, Hallmark, Twitter as well as other social networks and legitimate businesses. The email persuades the user to open the attached ...
Posted 05 March 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: virus , bot , spam
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Hotmail Users Look for Answers in Dangerous Places
An outage of the Windows Live ID service affected a large number of MSN users today, including users of the popular Hotmail email service. Hotmail is one of the largest web-based email outlets and not surprisingly news of the outage spread quickly as users were not able to access their email. Th ...
Posted 17 February 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Blackhat SEO , PageRank Bomb , Rogue AV , Fake AV , Rogue Anti-Virus
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IRS Tax Avoidance Scam
Today, eSoft is alerting customers to a new targeted email scam. This newest twist to the common IRS email scam seems to be targeted to organizations, notifying the recipient of a tax evasion complaint being filed against the company. Opening the file infects the user's machine with dangerous t ...
Posted 08 February 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Fraud , Virus , Malware , Scam
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Fake Firefox Update Pages Push Adware
Since its’ release on January 21st, the newest version of the Firefox web browser has received a great deal of attention. In just a short time it has achieved over 30 million downloads. Adware pushers are capitalizing on the success of Firefox, packing ad serving software in with the prog ...
Posted 03 February 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: firefox , adware , web security
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Super Bowl associations: football, nachos, big screens and … malware?
The Super Bowl is the one of the biggest and most watched television events of the year in the United States. People everywhere scour the internet looking for predictions, gambling spreads and news before the event and scores, stories and clips after the event. In anticipation of the increased ...
Posted 19 January 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Blackhat SEO , PageRank Bomb , Web Security , Rogue AV , Google Search
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Lack of Egress Filtering Spurs Success of Injected IFrame Attack
The security community at large and the eSoft Threat Prevention Team have recently noticed an uptick in sites compromised by a new injection attack that results in an injected iframe. This attack can be recognised by its attempts to masquerade the malicious script as GNU, GPL or LGPL.  GPL and ...
Posted 18 January 2010 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Web Security , Injection Attack
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Live.com Exploited as Pharma-Fraud Cover
The FDA crackdown on online pharmacy sites has driven a lot of attention to illegal and fraudulent online pharmacies and in particular to their methods for tricking people to visit their sites. These practices include prolific spam and search engine poisoning. eSoft’s Threat Prevention Team h ...
Posted 23 December 2009 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Spam , Fraud , Pharma-Fraud
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Boeing 787 searches hijacked by rogue anti-virus
Today, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet completed its much awaited first flight. As users searched to find videos and news articles related to the story, blackhats quickly moved in for yet another attack against Google search results. The most popular search for several hours today was “787 fi ...
Posted 16 December 2009 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Web Security , Rogue AV , Google Search , Blackhat SEO
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Blackhats Unleash Fake Blog Campaign Spreading Rogue AV
In September, eSoft reported as many as 720,000 compromised sites hosting fake blog pages and being used to distribute rogue anti-virus programmes. Many of these sites are still active and continue to plague searches with malicious results. Earlier today, Cyveillance issued this report of a nearl ...
Posted 18 November 2009 by Patrick Walsh
tags: web security , compromised sites , rogue AV , malware
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CoolerEmail Hit by Phishing Scam
CoolerEmail is notifying customers of a new phishing scam used to steal login credentials. The web based email marketing programme carries an impressive client list including Walmart, Toyota, Pepsi and dozens of other big name brands. Any phished credentials can be used to impersonate these companie ...
Posted 13 November 2009 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Phishing , Web Security
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Compromised Web Servers Host Koobface Malware Cocktail
The Koobface gang has struck again using compromised web servers to deliver a potent mix of malware. eSoft threat researchers have found hundreds of newly exploited sites hosting malware which includes downloaders, keyloggers and multiple variants of the Koobface worm. Attackers using compromised ...
Posted 21 October 2009 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Web Security , Koobface , Social Networking , Social Engineering , Compromised Sites
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Unresolved Compromised Fox Sports Host Heading Into Third Week
eSoft first detected a compromise on the Fox Sports website two weeks ago and as of today, at least one Fox Sports host continues to contain automatic links to a multitude of dangerous exploits.  Even with media coverage and direct emails, this compromised host has not be taken offline or clean ...
Posted 17 October 2009 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Compromised Sites
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Recapping the Fox Sports Website Compromise
On October 2nd eSoft published a blog warning visitors of the Fox Sports website about compromised pages with the potential to serve malicious software. To date, the threat remains on their website despite direct warnings to Fox Sports webmasters and domain contacts of the infection. This website ...
Posted 09 October 2009 by Patrick Walsh
tags: Compromised Sites , Web Security
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