By its very nature, the architecture and limited rules governing the Web make it difficult to track individuals who might be involved in improper activity. Cyber-sleuths often must navigate through a maze of dead-end records, pseudonyms or anonymous corporations, usually based overseas. The success rate is fairly low. Even if you manage to trace one link in the chain -- such as a payment processor or Web host -- the business or person involved claims that he or she was merely providing a legal service to an unknown client who turns out to be a scammer. But every so often, subtle links between the various layers suggest a more visible role by various parties involved. This was what I found recently, when I began investigating a Web site name called innovagest2000.com. This Innovagest2000 domain has for at least four years now been associated with spyware and so-called "scareware," surreptitiously installed

Last week, Security Fix told the online banking saga of Slack Auto Parts, a company in Georgia that lost nearly $75,000 at the hands of an extremely sophisticated malicious software family known as "Clampi". I only mentioned the malware in passing, but it deserves a closer look: Research released this week by a top malware analyst suggests that Clampi is among the stealthiest and most pervasive threats to Microsoft Windows systems today. Joe Stewart, director of malware research for the Counter Threat Unit at computer security firm SecureWorks, said Clampi appears to have spread to hundreds of thousands of Windows systems, since its debut in 2007. Unlike other malware families designed to steal credentials -- which are frequently sold and used among the larger cyber criminal community -- Stewart said Clampi appears to be the ever-evolving weapon used by a single organized crime group operating out of Eastern Europe that

Update, 2:15 p.m. ET: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that files were found on P2P networks that listed the location of nuclear missile silos in the United States. A spokesman for the committee said the information regarding nuclear installations is related to sensitive documents accidentally published on the Web site of the Government Printing Office recently, which included a "detailed list of the civilian nuclear complex, including precise locations of weapons grade nuclear fuel." An earlier version also incorrectly stated that on information the location of a safe house for Michelle Obama was compromised. The safe house was designed for former First Lady Laura Bush. The text below has been changed. The latest caches of sensitive data reportedly found on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks are shocking: A highly sensitive document dated July 2009, listing the precise location of installations bearing weapons grade nuclear fuel in the United

As Security Fix predicted earlier this week, Microsoft says it plans to issue at least two out-of-band software updates next week to plug a series of unusually stubborn and critical security holes in the Windows operating system and its Internet Explorer Web browser. Microsoft says it will issue two patches -- one to deal with problems in Internet Explorer, and another to fix a bug in its Visual Studio software suite. From Microsoft: While we can't go into specifics about the issue prior to release, we can say that the Visual Studio bulletin will address an issue that can affect certain types of applications. The Internet Explorer bulletin will provide defense-in-depth changes to Internet Explorer to help provide additional protections for the issues addressed by the Visual Studio bulletin. The Internet Explorer update will also address vulnerabilities rated as Critical that are unrelated to the Visual Studio bulletin that were

A former cyber cop in the United Kingdom is heading up a new online portal that claims to offer a searchable database of about 120 million consumer records that have been phished, hacked or otherwise stolen by computer crooks. Visitors who search for their information and find a match can verify which data were stolen -- for a £10 ($16.50) fee. Colin Holder, a retired detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, said the idea for lucidintelligence.com became obvious shortly after he resigned from the U.K. fraud squad in 2004. "About six months after I retired, I was contacted by an old source who said he was seeing a vast amount of credit card and other personal data being exchanged between criminals, and what could he do with it,'" Holder recalled. Many companies scour e-crime chat rooms and message boards for stolen data, and share that data with banks and companies