Category Archives: Thoughts
Megaupload is down, a fake Megaupload website appears
Megaupload.com , the well known file-sharing website was taken down by authorities(read FBI) and its co-founder Kim Dotcom and several other members from the staff were charged for: Conspiracy to Commit Racketeering, Conspiracy to Commit Copyright Infringement, Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering, Criminal Copyright Infringement by distributing a Copyrighted Work Being Prepared for Commercial Distribution on a Computer Network & Aiding and Abetting of Criminal Copyright Infringement and Criminal Copyright Infringement by Electronic Means. The full indictment is here. The indictment was filed in The United States District Court for The Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. Dotcom and three other members were arrested Thursday, January 19 in Auckland, New …
Tokyo, we have a problem
Tokyo, we have a problem Japanese space engineers have admitted one of their computers has been infected by a Trojan that may have leaked sensitive data, including system login information, to hackers. Data exposed by the breach may have included emails, technical specifications and operational information as well as login credentials. The space agency has reset potentially exposed passwords while it continues to investigate the scope of the breach. Source It’s often in today’s connected world that we hear of servers, networks, and individual computers hacked into or that have picked up some malware. Mostly it tends to deal with money, banks, and financial houses. Ever so often it deals …
Wi-Fi routers security flaw allows uninvited guests
In December 2011 Stefan Viebhock published a report about a vulnerability discovered and analyzed by him in Wi-Fi Protected Setup(WPS) previously known as Wi-Fi Simple Config. Introduced by Wi-Fi Alliance in 2007 year, WPS allows users without an advanced knowledge about Wi-Fi router’s configurations to easily setup their home Wi-Fi networks, adding new devices or enabling the security. The user can add a new device in the wireless network either by pushing a button on both wireless router and new device(Push-Button-Connect) or by introducing a 8 characters PIN into the new device “connection wizard” interface. Simply said the PIN is functioning as the authentication method for registering a new device …
Viruses stole City College of S.F. data for years
Viruses stole City College of S.F. data for years Personal banking information and other data from perhaps tens of thousands of students, faculty and administrators at City College of San Francisco have been stolen in what is being called “an infestation” of computer viruses with origins in criminal networks in Russia, China and other countries, The Chronicle has learned. “Given the outright mismanagement of our networks, if someone’s information is stolen, are we liable for that?” Jackson asked. Source So for 10 years or so, the Russian Business Network has been in the data banks of City College, along with the other usual suspects. What none of the antivirus/malware programs …
Facebook Evading Privacy Questions
Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, and Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, are complaining Facebook is not answering questions about how the company tracks its users via cookies. Source In my mind, security and privacy are two sides of the same coin. To have privacy means you must have security to obtain it. Should security demand access to your data for security reasons, then privacy is invaded. A good demonstration of that in practice, is laws on the books involving sexual harassment, the liability that corporations bear in providing emails and communications between workers, and the ability to disprove sexual harassment charges by being able to show the source info through …
Your printer is spying on your network !?
Ang Cui, a researcher on embedded devices demonstrated at this year’s Chaos Communications Congress (28C3) that is possible to embed malware in a HP printer firmware using the RFU mechanism, a presentation of an extraordinary importance for any corporate or small networks since the printers are ubiquitous in any office . RFU stands for remote firmware update and is an important feature assuring the best performance and security for the printers, sort of update feature for your operating system or antivirus. Because the operating system in a printer is much simpler than Windows for example, it runs from a ROM(read-only memory) as a smart phone or let’s say electronic wash machine, …
A Prime Target for Cybercrime
This infographic in the source link provides clues to why Facebook is such a prime target. Source It all has to do with numbers; who has the most to have malware target. Why turn to a small community when you have millions of folk to target for the same effort. Microsoft battled all comers during the days of DOS to become the over-all winner. The results of that winning the battle of the Operating Systems has resulted in what is called the computer monoculture. According to Wikipedia, during Aug of 2011, personal computer users were using these OSes. Microsoft accounted for 87.1% worldwide Apple accounted for 6.7% Linux accounted for …
