What do malware authors do when the stock market is down? Increase their rate of malware distribution in an effort to capitalize on economic fears. And to do so, they're having to revert to some older tactics as the number of financial institutions dwindle taking with them the number of phishing opportunities.

This week, I talked with Ryan Sherstobitoff, chief corporate evangelist for Panda Security, about his findings on how stock and malware market activities mimic each other and other eyebrow-raising malware trends. You can hear my conversation with Ryan here.

Security flaw spotted in G1 Google phone
Researchers at Independent Security Evaluators say they've discovered a security flaw in the Android browser that could make users of phones with the browser vulnerable to attack. Android, Google's open-source software that is currently only running on one phone, HTC's G1, is based on outdated open-source components, the researchers say. As a result, the vulnerability they have discovered was previously known and fixed, but Google didn't incorporate the fix into Android, they say. IDG News Service, 10/27/2008.
Also: Exploiting Android
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Four new updates from Mandriva:

Lynx for 2008.0, 2008.1, 2009.0 (multiple flaws)

Lynx for Corporate 3.0, Corporate 4.0, Multi Network Firewall 2.0 (multiple flaws)

emacs (code execution)

wireshark (denial of service)
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Two new fixes from Debian:

OpenOffice.org (multiple flaws)

clamav (denial of service)
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Two new patches from rPath:

libxslt (buffer overflow, code execution)

pcre (buffer overflow, code execution)
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Today's malware news:

Worm uses Google to squirm around Facebook
A malicious program that sprang up on Facebook.com in late July has surfaced again, this time using Google's Web sites to sneak around security filters. On Tuesday, researchers at unified threat management vendor Fortinet noticed that a program similar to the Koobface worm had started using the Google Reader and Picasa Web sites to spread. IDG News Service, 10/29/2008.
Fortinet: Facebook Worm drives by Google Reader and Picasa

More USB Keys and Malcode
We recently installed a wireless AV system from Teq AV. One of the things they give you is a set of USB keys with the software on it to drive the laptop. Turns out the USB keys have malcode on them. Another one of those situations! Arbor's Security to the Core blog, 10/27/2008.

Jason Meserve is multimedia editor at Network World.