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Three and a half years prison sentence for rogue locksmith
Westminster City Council, Westminster Trading Standards and the Master Locksmiths Association have seen their hard work in bringing a rogue trader case to court, come to fruition. In what was one of the worst cases of fraud Trading Standards have ever seen, former ‘locksmith’ Mark Makowski is facing the start of a four year sentence behind bars.
Sentenced at the Old Bailey, Makowski was given a three and a half years prison sentence after being found guilty of 15 counts of fraud which cost members of the public thousands of pounds. Makowski – who has previously been investigated by BBC’s Rogue Traders – received a further six months for committing an offence whilst on bail.
At the trial on 22 July 2010, the jury ruled Makowski was responsible for installing inferior products, breaking down doors, replacing locks unnecessarily, miss-quoting, over-charging and operating under a number of company names. The case is the biggest brought against a ‘locksmith’ in Trading Standards... [ more ]
W32 Stuxnet-B rootkit can install itself automatically from a USB memory stick onto a fully-patched PC
Sophos has detected a rootkit that can install itself automatically from a USB memory stick onto a fully-patched PC, even if the user has disabled the Windows AutoRun and AutoPlay feature.
The W32/Stuxnet-B rootkit exploits a vulnerability in the way Windows handles .LNK shortcut files, that allows them to execute automatically if the USB stick is accessed by Windows Explorer. Once the rootkit is in place it effectively enters "stealth-mode", cloaking its presence on the infected PC.
Curiously, the suspicious driver files carry the digital signature of Realtek Semiconductor Corp, a major supplier of computer equipment.
"Threats such as the infamous Conficker worm have spread very successfully via USB devices in the past, but were in part reduced by disabling AutoPlay. The risk is that more malware will take advantage of the zero-day exploit used by the Stuxnet rootkit, taking things to a whole new level," explained Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "The ... [ more ]
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