A group of hackers who collectively call themselves as Anonymous has been involved in a string of security attacks on US Government Agencies.Recent victim of these attacks is the Federal Reserve website. From one of its internal website, personal Information of 4,000 US bank officials were reportedly stolen from its server.The hackers' publication has revealed information such as names, email addresses, contact numbers and even login credentials. The Federal Reserve has toned down the Continue Reading
February 7, 2013
Potential Security Risk with Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Internet applications like Facebook, online shopping and online banking are now part of our daily routine. To save time and minimize effort, most of our transactions or communications are done online.Most of us are enjoying the benefits of online activities but at the same time are also aware of the possible dangers that come with it. As much as we try to be responsible and careful, there will always be someone or something that would compromise the whole system.Let us take Transport Continue Reading
February 5, 2013
Botnet: A Lone Cyber Criminal’s Greatest Ally
When people hear the word "hacker", they generally associate it with the idea that they are all shadowy individuals that are brilliant with computers and try to break into government facilities on a daily basis.For the most part though, what many people would call "hackers" are just regular people like you and me. Alone, most hackers have a hard time with some malicious activities. It's extremely difficult to shut down a website on your own for example. This is why, in most cases, you don't Continue Reading
February 3, 2013
New York Times Hacked By The Chinese
Hackers from China reportedly broke into the system of The New York Times. This was after an article about the immense affluence of the relatives of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was published on October 25th, 2012. Consecutively, the Wall Street Journal also came out to report the same incident as well as Bloomberg.The New York Times was the first to write on the Chinese Premier's personal wealth which would be considered as controversial given the poverty rate in China. Many Chinese citizens Continue Reading
January 31, 2013
Red October Virus Explained
Rocra, which is short for Red October, was detected by Kaspersky. Kaspersky started to look into the malware last year in October. They found that a group of hackers were using exploits in order to steal information worldwide from high level departments.They also believe that the attacks have been occurring for over five years.How does it work?The malware operates by using exploits in Microsoft Word and Excel. The primary technique they hackers used is a form of phishing called Continue Reading
January 30, 2013
Gozi Virus Creators Found and Arrested
Recent news of about the three Europeans namely Nikita Kuzmin of Russia, Mihai Ionut Paunescu of Romania and Deniss Calovskis of Latvia charged with using Gozi virus used to steal millions of dollars from banks around the world has caught our attention. But we would ask ourselves, how did the Gozi virus cause this much theft?The Gozi virus is also considered a Trojan. Just like any other Trojan virus, users would receive this virus through emails containing fraudulent links, PDF attachment Continue Reading
January 30, 2013
How Secure Is Skype?
Not long ago, the thought of using a voice over Internet protocol program to effectively communicate would have been surprising. Since the Internet has become more commonplace though, many people use Skype daily to stay in contact with people over a distance. Skype is also used by many businesses as well. With all that in mind though, how secure is Skype?Skype as a TargetMalware authors are always trying to find more new ways to get infiltrate people's computers. Skype has become a Continue Reading
January 29, 2013
Google Android Malware Threat
Android is an ideal target for malware creators and spammers for a couple of reasons. First of all, Android has the largest market share among mobile phones. This means that when a malware writer creates a new piece of software, it will get the most exposure on the Android platform.Additionally, when compared to Microsoft's Windows phone or an iOS platform, the Android platform is much easier to work on. This is partially due to the amount of freedom developers are given for creating Continue Reading
January 29, 2013
Java Is Becoming A Constant Security Issue
Java is an extremely common software that is used around the world by thousands of people. If you keep up with tech news, you probably know that the Java platform is also particularly insecure.Recently, the insecurity was found to be such a threat that the United States Department of Homeland security has instructed people who have it installed on their computer to have it disabled. Apple also responded to the security threat by having the Java plug-in blocked on their OS X.The Main Continue Reading
January 28, 2013
Attack on Web Servers via Apache Module and SSH Backdoor
Web servers are being hacked by injecting false Apache modules and SSH backdoors. Hackers are not taking advantage of system’s security weaknesses but rather stealing the login information from the web servers.Several alterations to the web server files such as httpd.conf file and /etc/httpd/conf.d were caused by this bug. It can be difficult to detect as it is random and often changes. The SSH binary files were also changed, allowing hackers to extract user’s credentials. The Continue Reading
