Written on
September 10, 2010
by
editor
Maybe you asked yourself a few times already, “What is the most secure internet browser? Firefox? IE? Safari? Opera?” and the list goes on of popular internet browsers. A lot of us spends a lot of your time surfing the internet, everyone of us should make sure that we use the most secure internet browser to make sure that our private information are safe. According to Symantec, the least secure browser is Mozilla Firefox, which got 122 reported vulnerabilities for the past year. This is quite alarming because I use Firefox a lot. On the other hand, Opera is the most secure internet browser which got 19 reported vulnerabilities last year.
via Softpedia
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Written on
August 10, 2010
by
Jerson
5. Swedish Urology Group — Urine Trouble!
Victims: “Hundreds”
Class Action Outrage Scale: 1 out of 10 lawyers
Doctors lost three hard drives containing patients’ personal information, and we mean personal!
4. The Nature Conservancy — Think of It as Recycled Data
Victims: 14,000
Class Action Outrage Scale: 9 out of 10 lawyers
Someone at the Conservancy was thinking locally but acting globally by apparently visiting a website of questionable provenance. The site was poisoned with malware. Soon, malicious hackers were clear-cutting names, home addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers of employees and their dependents, and, yes, direct deposit bank account numbers. Let’s hope there’s been a climate change in the group’s security department.
3. TSA, Part II – Still Doing DHS Proud!
Victims: 100,000
Class Action Outrage Scale: 3 out of 10 lawyers
Thieves stole a computer hard drive with the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and bank account and routing information of current and former employees, including federal air marshals. Don’t worry, though. How easy could it be to pose as an air marshal with only that information?
2. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs — One Regrets the Error
Victims: 25 million
Class Action Outrage Scale: 10 out of 10 lawyers
Two CDs containing personal data on about 7 million families went missing in the mail, and the HMRC chancellor resigned. Frankly, we included it just so we could quote sentences like: “The chancellor seeks the advice of the Serious Organised Crime Agency,” and “Mr Cable said he sincerely hoped the discs would not fall into the hands of ‘the criminal fraternity,’” and “Police have visited London rubbish tips in their hunt for missing computer discs.” Makes the worst breach in Britain’s history sound kind of lovely.
1. TJX — ’Sorry About That. Here’s a Gift Card. Come Back Soon for our Sale!’
Victims: Millions of bargain shoppers worldwide
Class Action Outrage Scale: 8 out of 10 lawyers
No breach got more ink this year than TJX’s, which involved some, OK, tens of millions, OK, 50 million, all right all right around 100 million credit and debit card records. Priceless moments included TJX’s defense in press accounts that “our security was comparable to many other major retailers” and the portion of TJX’s proposed settlement with consumers in which the company would hold a three-day “Customer Appreciation Sale” and give some customers $30 store vouchers. (Sorry about the e. coli in the meat in our store; here’s a gift card to buy more meat in our store). After consumer advocates raised a stink, the vouchers were changed to $15 checks. Sad as the whole episode was for consumers, TJX’s stock has remained healthy. Don’t you just love a bargain?
via [CSOOnline]
Posted in : : Hacks - Info - Network Security - Threats - Web Security : : Comments Off
Written on
July 10, 2010
by
editor
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If you have a MySpace or Facebook account, then you better be on the look out for apps or widgets that may have trojan viruses running in the background. According to researchers at Finjan, cyberattackers are now going to these social networking sites such to get more victims.
“Attacks will become more sophisticated by combining several services in order to heighten infection ratios and decrease the detection rate, while providing more robust and scalable attack frameworks,” Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer, Finjan, said in a news release. “The focus will be on trojan technology as it enables maximum flexibility in terms of command and control. This adds another potentially malicious element to the ‘legitimate’ web traffic that needs to be examined by security solutions.”
In short, before installing the app or widget that your friend sent you, confirm if it came from them. If it didn’t, kindly delete it immediately. If it did come from them, research on the app or widget from previous users.
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Written on
June 10, 2010
by
Jerson
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack
How is a DDoS executed against a website?
A website DDoS is executed by flooding one or more of the site’s web servers with so many requests that it becomes unavailable for normal use. If an innocent user makes normal page requests during a DDoS attack, the requests may fail completely, or the pages may download so slowly as to make the website unusable. DDoS attacks typically take advantage of several computers which simultaneously launch hundreds of thousands of requests at the target website. In order not to be traced, the perpetrators will break into unsecured computers on the internet, hide rogue DDoS programs on them, and then use them as unwitting accomplices to anonymously launch the attack.
Is there a quick and easy way to secure against a DDoS attack?
No. From a simplistic perspective, the best solution is to secure computers from being hijacked and used as attack platforms. This cuts the problem off before it can ever manifest. Thus many experts suggest that we “pull together as a community” to secure our internet computers from becoming unwitting accomplices to such malicious intruders. Unfortunately, for every business that has the knowledge, budget, and inclination to make such changes, there are many more which lack such resources.
Plus, the attackers are most likely going to use non-commercial computers as attack platforms, because they are usually easier to break into. University systems are a favorite, because they are often understaffed or the systems are set to minimum security levels to allow students to explore the systems as part of their education. Further, this is not just a national problem. Any internet server in the world could be used as an attack platform.
Still, the simplest and most effective solution for preventing DDoS is through a global cooperative effort to secure the internet. The first step in the process, therefore, is concerned with scanning your internet computers to make sure they are not being used as unwitting DDoS attack platforms. This is not just good internet citizenry, however, because this also serves to document and verify that your internet computers are not suspect when DDoS attacks occur.
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Written on
May 10, 2010
by
Jerson
Denial of Service (DoS) is an attack designed to render a computer or network incapable of providing normal services. The most common DoS attacks will target the computer’s network bandwidth or connectivity. Bandwidth attacks flood the network with such a high volume of traffic, that all available network resources are consumed and legitimate user requests can not get through. Connectivity attacks flood a computer with such a high volume of connection requests, that all available operating system resources are consumed, and the computer can no longer process legitimate user requests. The high-profile attacks of the week of February 6th, 2000 were primarily bandwidth attacks, and all of the targets were high-profile internet web sites. A complete description of Denial of Service attacks is available from CERT on http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/denial_of_service.html.
Distributed Denial of Service attack
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack uses many computers to launch a coordinated DoS attack against one or more targets. Using client/server technology, the perpetrator is able to multiply the effectiveness of the Denial of Service significantly by harnessing the resources of multiple unwitting accomplice computers which serve as attack platforms. Typically a DDoS master program is installed on one computer using a stolen account. The master program, at a designated time, then communicates to any number of “agent” programs, installed on computers anywhere on the internet. The agents, when they receive the command, initiate the attack. Using client/server technology, the master program can initiate hundreds or even thousands of agent programs within seconds.
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Written on
April 10, 2010
by
Jerson
YOUR IP ADDRESS IS PUBLIC
Accessing the Internet is a security risk.
When you are connected to the Internet, an IP address is used to identify your PC. If you don’t protect yourself, this IP address can be used to access your computer from the outside world.
A fixed IP address is a larger security risk.
If you’re using a modem with a dial-up connection, you will get a new IP address every time you connect to Internet, but if you have a fixed Internet connection (cable, ADSL, fixed line), your IP address will never change.
If you have a fixed IP address, you give potential Internet crackers all the time they need to search for entrances to your computer, and to store and share (with other crackers) information they might find about your unprotected private data.
Your Network Shares
Personal computers are often connected to a shared network. Personal computers in large companies are connected to large corporate networks. Personal computers in small companies are connected to a small local network, and computers in private homes often share a network between family members.
Most often networks are used to share resources like printers, files and disk storage.
When you are connected to the Internet, your shared resources can be accessed by the rest of the world.
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Written on
March 10, 2010
by
Jerson
Unfortunately, many Microsoft Windows users are unaware of a common security leak in their network settings.
This is a common setup for network computers in Microsoft Windows:
- Client for Microsoft Networks
- File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks
- NetBEUI Protocol
- Internet Protocol TCP/IP
If your setup allows NetBIOS over TCP/IP, you have a security problem:
- Your files can be shared all over the Internet
- Your logon-name, computer-name, and workgroup-name are visible to others.
If your setup allows File and Printer Sharing over TCP/IP, you also have a problem:
- Your files can be shared all over the Internet
Computers that are not connected to any network can also have dangerous network settings because the network settings were changed when Internet was installed.
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Written on
February 10, 2010
by
Jerson
- Place your web server(s) in a DMZ. Set your firewall to drop connections to your web server on all ports but http (port 80) or https (port 443).
- Remove all unneeded services from your web server, keeping FTP (but only if you need it) and a secure login capability such as secure shell. An unneeded service can become an avenue of attack.
- Disallow all remote administration unless it is done using a one-time password or an encrypted link.
- Limit the number of persons having administrator or root level access.
- Log all user activity and maintain those logs either in an encrypted form on the web server or store them on a separate machine on your Intranet.
- Monitor system logs regularly for any suspicious activity. Install some trap macros to watch for attacks on the server (such as the PHF attack). Create macros that run every hour or so that would check the integrity of password and other critical files. When the macros detect a change, they should send an e-mail to the system manager.
- Remove ALL unnecessary files such as phf from the scripts directory /cgi-bin.
- Remove the “default” document trees that are shipped with Web servers such as IIS and ExAir.
- Apply all relevant security patches as soon as they are announced.
- If you must use a GUI interface at the console, remove the commands that automatically start the window manager from the .RC startup directories and then create a startup command for the window manager. You can then use the window manager when you need to work on the system, but shut it down when you are done. Do not leave the window manager running for any extended length of time.
- If the machine must be administered remotely, require that a secure capability such as secure shell is used to make a secure connection. Do not allow telnet or non-anonymous ftp (those requiring a username and password) connections to this machine from any untrusted site. It would also be good to limit these connections only to a minimum number of secure machines and have those machines reside within your Intranet.
- Run the web server in a chroot-ed part of the directory tree so it cannot access the real system files.
- Run the anonymous FTP server (if you need it) in a chroot-ed part of the directory tree that is different from the web server’s tree.
- Do all updates from your Intranet. Maintain your web page originals on a server on your Intranet and make all changes and updates here; then “push” these updates to the public server through an SSL connection. If you do this on a hourly basis, you can avoid having a corrupted server exposed for a long period of time.
- Scan your web server periodically with tools like ISS or nmap to look for vulnerabilities.
- Have intrusion detection software monitor the connections to the server. Set the detector to alarm on known exploits and suspicious activities and to capture these sessions for review. This information can help you recover from an intrusion and strengthen your defenses.
Source
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Written on
January 10, 2010
by
Jerson
How can you protect your computer against the above-mentioned Internet security incidents? There are a number of free Internet security programs available online that you can use for this purpose. Given below is a checklist of few simple things you do:
- Assess your risk/risk potential
- Use good antivirus software. There are a number of free Internet security solutions that you can download for this purpose.
- Keep all your software up-to-date (download and apply updates and patches regularly)
- Check your security settings
- Use a firewall (hardware/software)
- Create tough-to-crack passwords (ideally 13 characters long, that includes numbers)
- Conduct regular security maintenance
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Written on
December 31, 2009
by
editor
Here are some simple ways on how to could keep yourself same from threats and vulnerabilities on the Internet.
• Install anti-spyware and anti-virus on your personal computer
• Update your operating system and software (especially your anti-virus and anti-spyware) promptly for security patches and other important updates.
• Install Firewall too. Most operating systems have built-in firewall all you have to do is to enable them.
• Avoid visiting malicious websites.
• Avoid downloading files that are malicious (especially .exe files).
• Do a regular maintenance of your personal computers (Update, Defrag, Virus scan and other things that can improve the security and stability of your system).
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