Hacking used to be quite taboo on the internet but with some of the greatest minds at work on the wrong side of internet law, the battle rages. People have experienced quite a drop in spamming or junk mail but with respect to other threats that comes to our internet doors, the figures just keep growing. Malware, viruses, Trojans and worms continue to plague the places we go to on the net and nothing seems to be safe, even the social web is subject to hacking as many of us know. From elaborate programs that takes your private information for use later to more destructive ones that denies you access to your favorite sites, along with millions of other users who are denied access, left high and dry with servers choked of messages leaving them quite baffled. (more…)

At least the version of the package that is supposedly to be bundled for release this coming October 22, 2009, the set date for the release of the new and improved Windows 7 Operating System. The new operating system is Microsoft’s next gamble to cope with losses suffered from the failure of Vista to capture the market once held by XP. The many flavors and versions of the Vista Operating system confused a lot and the pervasive UAC system that was designed to remind you (kinda’ too much I’d say!) that ou have to have admin access or privileges to do certain things on the computer you own and bought. This problem plus more security issues resulted in many people opting to downgrade their Vista installs and revert them back to XP which was stable and quite enough for those who overcame the initial curiosity of what the fuss was all about. (more…)

It’s not the breath-taking Three-Gorges Dam but a screening software that aims to provide an automatic internet policing force for the government, filtering out illegal content. Saying that, they really mean anything that the government deems not suitable for their citizens. The screening program is explained as an extension to screen illegal images that have resulted from Google’s Image search facility, in what it calls as a breach of the company’s contract with the government. The company has expressed regret over the oversight and say they will be addressing the issue promptly. (more…)

The company has grown tired with security companies lambasting their operating system and how weak they are with their security system they have finally decided to again field a free anti-virus for their many clients to handle threats as effectively as their paid counterparts. They have previously had another program, BitDefender which was included with their other operating systems but focus was shifted to developing other more profitable software till they got a lot of headache being the target of most malware attacks. (more…)

If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.

That’s and old saying right? But it nevertheless rings true in the face of ‘Phishing’ a process where your personal and sensitive information like credit card numbers, and passwords are stolen for you by a site pretending to be legit.

Most often, phishing begins when a person receives unsolicited email that tells him or her that he or she has won a prize or is entitled to a certain amount of money. The user is then directed to a website where personal information is gathered, under the guise of “verifying” whether or not you are the intended person for the prize or money. In the end, the person has given away his or her personal information for nothing, and has compromised the security of his or her information.

There are many other phishing methodsout there, so best be careful.

The move to get data out of the many data centers and to send them somewhere confidential for safekeeping has long been an option considered for implementation by security experts. Why, well considering the number of alarming security breaches the many secure sites have suffered (even the White House has been breached) why not? The need for continuance of existence is one of the reasons why the many developed governments are sure to have a secure and off-the-record data storage facilities in some remote location out of reach by the rest of the world that would allow our modern lives to exist even after a major disaster. Remember the many fictional movies that has the human race almost wiped-out due to say a nuclear war, some way to recover is necessary and having information in a secure location would be a good place to start. Banks, major financial groups and other vital data stores are regularly backed-up and sent to off-site secure locations where they lie in wait to take over should one of the data centers in amajor city fail due to a terrorist attack or some devastating event that alters our lives. The information may not be totally current but it’s a place to start picking up the pieces.

Malicious sites with trojans or nasty things embedded in them are on the rise, but the people clicking their links or viewing their sites have gone down:

The investigation, conducted by McAfee(R) SiteAdvisor(TM), studied the five major U.S. search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Ask) and found that the overall chance of clicking through to a risky site declined by 12.0%. Still, McAfee estimates that consumers click through to risky sites more than 268 million times each month.

“It’s good to see that clicking on search engine results has gotten modestly safer,” said Chris Dixon, director of strategy, McAfee SiteAdvisor. “But when almost one of 12 sponsored links still clicks through to a risky site, there remains significant room for continued improvement.”

Although it may seem impossible that the numbers go down to 0%, at least it’s going down. Yay for Internet Security!

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Image Source: tlcpromotions.net

Online provide so much ease, convenience and fun for the buying customer. it is also known that some of the items sold online, in retail stores or in auctions in the net are sometimes hard to find,. That makes it even more exciting and provides much more customer satisfaction. But as the online stores and shopping malls are spreading like mushrooms, so do the scammers. Whats worse, they have phony websites to fool you even more. There are ways to know if you’re dealing with a legitimate business or not. But first and foremost, what you need to do is update your anti virus security. This provides the first line of defense. The next thing is to check that the site has an SSL logo, a service that provides security for online retail and banking. You can detect that it is also secure if you see “https” on the address bar rather than just “http”.

Image Source:filebuzz.com

Recently, two Swiss researchers namely, Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini, both working with Swiss Security and Cryuptography Laboratory at LASEC/EPFL haveproven that they can recover remotely, keystrokes from a wired keyboard even at a distance of 20 meters or 65 feet. It can detect keystrokes even through walls. It simply reads the EM or electro magnetic emissions from the device. In this case, the subject was the wired keyboards of a personal computer. It was attached either with PS/2 or USB connections. On the first test, only the keyboard was monitored. The second test, a battery powered laptop with a wired keyboard attached to it was placed several rooms away, with walls. It was still able to retrieve the typed message. This poses a great threat in the oevrall security of these devices, including ATMs and other computer machines. It is therefore recommended that the wired keyboard not be used to transmit users’ passwords and names. Not surprisingly, the US government already established an organization that will tackle the same type of security vulnerability that the two researches have unfolded. It is called TEMPEST or Telecommuncations Electronics Material Protected from Emanating Spurious Transmissions. The government hopes to alleviate standards of electronic emissions that are escaping government institutions and offices. It is strongly suggested that hardware manufacturers use the standards in creating equipments to minimize electronic signals.

Image Source: smh.com.au
Identity theft and corporate security breaches is common nowadays. It’s time for us, users, treat passwords with a level of seriousness. Most computers users see passwords as annoying and just a nuisance and so they create easy to remember codes. Which unfortunately for us, is a big, big mistake. Hackers are plain and simple, geniuses. They can work around anything that you leave behind. Protect yourself by creating strong passwords. When i say strong, i mean… really strong. It must be something that a hacker can not simply work around with, and manipulate.

Using alphanumeric is an effective way. Meaning, you use not only letters in the alphabet, but numbers. This increases the possible password combination by millions.
The longer the password, the harder it is for programs to hack your account.
Do not use personal data like your birthday, wedding anniversary, or anything like that because chances are, it can be easily guessed by the hacker. And keep the password to yourself.

I am hoping this simple steps help you out in completely securing yourself from the evil “monsters”.