Iran: Scholar Haleh Esfandiari Free at Last

Released US academic leaves IranHaleh Esfandiari is one of the leading US authorities on Iran

(BBC News)

A leading Iranian-American academic who was jailed for three months in Iran on spying charges has left the country.

Haleh Esfandiari’s husband, Shaul Bakhash, told the Fars news agency that she had flown to Austria, and would later return to the US.

Ms Esfandiari works for a research institute in Washington.

Three other Iranian-Americans are being detained in Iran – academics Ali Shakeri and Kian Tajbaksh, and journalist Parnaz Azima.

Blogger Under Attack: Malicious Hackers Posting Fake Entries to Blogger Blogs Via Email

For all you Blogger users out there:

Bloggers battered by viral storm

(BBC News)

Some blogs have been found hosting booby-trapped links

Google’s Blogger site is being used by malicious hackers who are posting fake entries to some blogs.

The fake entries contain weblinks that lead to booby-trapped downloads that could infect a Windows PC.

Infected computers are being hijacked by the gang behind the attacks and either mined for saleable data or used for other attacks.

The Blogger attack is the latest in a series by a gang that has managed to hijack hundreds of thousands of PCs…

…Security researcher Alex Eckelberry from Sunbelt Software first noticed the booby-trapped links turning up on Blogger on 27 August.

Now many hundreds of blogs on the site have been updated with a short entry containing the link.

Mr Eckelberry said it was not yet clear how the links were posted to blogs. The bogus entries could have exploited a Blogger feature that lets users e-mail entries to their journal.

The blogs themselves could also be fake and set up solely to act as hosts for spam.

Commenting on the attack a Google spokesperson said: “The blog posts are likely from users’ whose machines have been compromised by a virus…

Fake subject lines to look for:

STORM WORM SUBJECT LINES

are you kidding me? lol
Dude dont send that stuff to my home email…
Dude your gonna get caught, lol
HAHAHAHAHAHA, man your insane!
I cant belive you did this
LMAO, your crazy man
LOL, dude what are you doing
man, who filmed this thing?
oh man your nutz
OMG, what are you thinking