Written on
November 20, 2009
by
Jerson
“Mendacious machines controlled by hackers that reroute Internet traffic from infected computers to fraudulent Web sites are increasingly being used to launch attacks, according to a paper published this week by researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Google Inc.
The paper estimates roughly 68,000 servers on the Internet are returning malicious Domain Name System results, which means people with compromised computers are sometimes being directed to the wrong Web sites — and often have no idea.
The peer-reviewed paper, which offers one of the broadest measurements yet of the number of rogue DNS servers, was presented at the Internet Society’s Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego.
The fraud works like this: When a user with an affected computer tries to go to, for example, Google’s Web site, they are redirected to a spoof site loaded with malicious code or to a wall of ads whose profits flow back to the hackers.
The hackers who hijack DNS queries are looking to steal personal information, from e-mail login credentials to credit data, and take over infected machines.
The spoof sites run the gamut. Some are stunningly convincing, others amusingly bogus with spelling errors and typos.”
Source
Posted in : : Hacks - Info - Threats - Web Security : : Comments Off
Written on
October 17, 2009
by
editor
The FBI called for new legislation that allows the federal police to keep close look at internet activity to track down illegal activities. This seem to go beyond a current plan to monitor traffic on federal-government networks, and that the bureau should have a broad “omnibus” authority to conduct monitoring and surveillance of private-sector networks as well. This could violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. In general, courts have ruled that police need search warrants to obtain the content of communication
Source
Posted in : : Info - Network Security - Threats - Web Security : : Comments Off
Written on
September 15, 2009
by
editor
Suspecting a spyware in your system? Here are some tips on how you could get rid of spyware in your computer:
1. Get, install and periodically run Ad-aware and Spybot Search & Destroy.
2. To prevent reinfection by Aureate/Radiate – search for advert.dll on your system. If it’s there and if you can, delete it (Ad-aware will do this for you). Then create an empty text file, name it advert.dll, make it read-only and save it in your Windows/System directory. Then configure Ad-aware (version 5 or later) to ignore advert.dll.
Posted in : : Hacks - Info - Network Security - Prevention - Threats - Tips - Web Security : : Comments Off
Written on
August 23, 2009
by
editor
by: Djai Tanji
McAfee and Yahoo announced their partnership on Web’s security wherein Yahoo’s search engine is making available to users the warnings about unnecessary and malicious code on Web sites that will be detected through McAfee’s security technology. McAfee calls the technology, SiteAdvisor and this has been integrated into Yahoo’s search engine mechanism making a user, after performing a search, obtain the flagged sites after clicking “searchscan.” However, no Yahoo advertisers will be picked up and flagged in the SiteAdvisor. The yahoo security warning system does not block users from accessing the page but will recommend to avoid the flagged content. With all this preclusion of users from visiting malicious websites, yahoo will lessen the channels obtainable for spam, adware, malware and phishing to spread.
Posted in : : Information : : Comments Off
Written on
July 20, 2009
by
editor
by: Djai Tanji
The substantial SQL injection attacks that struck Microsoft-based websites claimed as one of its victims Autoweb which is a U.K. based advertising and marketing site. The continuous attack that hits Autoweb exploited susceptibility in a single line of code in the web application to cut through the company’s Microsoft SQL database and knock the site offline. Autoweb’s IT staff then realized that database tables which stores content provided by car dealers had been overwritten with a 30-character script and that gave them a window of opportunity. Autoweb blocked the attacks by looking at log files which originated from IP addresses in China. Autoweb did an everyday backing up and asked assistance from Secerno, a U.K. based firm to build a database security appliance.
Posted in : : Information : : Comments Off
Written on
June 29, 2009
by
Jerson
A man is convicted to serve five years in jail after being convicted of being the creator of a botnet that had in it’s peak infected almost half a million computers, spreading spam and adware. The man, Jeanson James Ancheta at a young age of 21 is set to serve a total of 57 months in prison, which is considered to be one of the the longest ever sentence for computer crimes. He drew the curiosity of government cyber-security people when he tried to infiltrate computers owned by the US Naval Warfare Center and the Defense Information Systems Agency, both of which were being constantly attacked by hackers and botnets. Please tell me more! »
Posted in : : Information - Network Security : : Comments Off
Written on
May 29, 2009
by
Jerson
The software giant announced that it will be releasing their own Windows embedded anti-virus that raises some eyebrows in the IT industry. Why, well the company has been known to be the most attacked PC platform on earth compared to other operating systems due to their ways of old. This hatred of the company stems back from the days when Microsoft was involved in what can be called “steal then deal”, when they were involved in getting nifty software form the many start up firms who produced respectable programs they embedded within their OS releases. This is sure to result in lawsuits which the company then opted to settle out of court, buying out the rights and even the company in a hostile take-over. Please tell me more! »
Posted in : : Information - Network Security - Threats : : Comments Off
Written on
April 29, 2009
by
Jerson
Meanwhile, the cure the anti-virus programmers are not always perfect, so it can be considered a first response which may not fully contain the situation. This is where people make the biggest mistake in their security platform, that the programs they have installed are there to protect and prevent whilst the truth cannot be farther from the truth for the infection has already been active, way before it was detected. The follow-up security updates to security software makes the necessary adjustments enough to cope with the spread, halting it in it’s track, hopefully. The false security we feel works only if the threat is known which is true for variants of already known threats. New viruses are only known as much as the programmers who race to find a cure for it can work. Please tell me more! »
Posted in : : Information : : Comments Off
Written on
March 29, 2009
by
Jerson
The world of cyber-crime has grown so much in these past few years due to the explosion of growth with respect to the number of internet users the world over. It has not only expanded on the side of normal people but on the side of cyber-criminals who now operate on their own networks, spanning the globe and ready to spread their products, malicious code that first scans the globe for weak points in the security net that we all put up to somewhat give us a sense of security from the ever-growing threat which is actually futile to some extent. Please tell me more! »
Posted in : : Hacks - Information - Network Security - Threats : : Comments Off
Written on
February 18, 2009
by
editor
It is unfortunate that many people nowadays see passwords as an annoyance rather than a necessity. They only learn their lesson when important files are compromised. Today’s fast-paced world is no excuse to leave our personal information in the hands of those who seek to abuse it.
The best way to avoid this is to make a strong password. The habit of making easy to guess passwords should stop with you. Stop using passwords that use your birthday or wedding anniversary, because these are the first things hackers use when they try to access your system. Make a password that is your own, preferably alphanumeric, which uses both letters and numbers. If you have a hard time remembering it, write it on a small piece of paper and keep it somewhere safe.
Posted in : : Prevention : : Comments Off
