Tag Archives: security

Corporate Data Security

Corporate data is one of the prized trophies in the circles of information underground. Despite the fact that there are elaborate corporate data security policies in place, new threats keep on emerging every once in a while. While most of the threats are easily contained if you follow a proactive approach to corporate information security, the process of management of information security is not an easy one and you must be aware of new threats to deploy countermeasures in time.

The main threat in these new generation issues is the emergence of Botnets. Botnets use the power of distributed computing and connectivity provided by the internet. It is mainly used for attacks like distributed denial of service. They are something of an evolution of run of the mill computer virus or a worm. They are something like a set of interconnected computer worms working in tandem.

The process of deployment of a Botnet is simple. Anyone who can write a computer virus can easily modify it to take orders from a precoded computer over an IP connection. Every computer that gets infected with the said virus and is not healed in time becomes a part of the Botnet. As of now, Storm Worm has been the widest spread Botnet. It has since been contained but the worst of Botnet is yet to come.

Phishing attacks are another form of emergent threats to data security management. In fact phishing is turning into the worst nightmare every information security manager. The concept behind phishing emerged on AOL network. The main reason that phishing is becoming a very critical threat is because the attacker poses as the official entity. People find it really hard to differentiate between what is real and what is unreal. The result is that social engineering becomes ridiculously easy.

In most of the cases, the phishing attacks have been launched against banking institutions. Phishers would lure customers of these banks to reveal their account information by present a page which is designed in such a manner that it looks as realistic as can be. In the recent times there has been a wave of phishing attacks where the attackers pose as the Internal Revenue Service. They are known to attack people for procuring their social security numbers and other taxation related data.

Another threat to corporate data security is Pharming. This attack works on the principle of DNS poisoning which allows the attacker to divert the traffic coming to a corporate web site to any other web site. The main victims of Pharming are again banking institutions but they are also known to be used for intra organizational social engineering to steal crucial company data.

A number of technologies are in development to prevent the damage dealt by these corporate data security threats. The best solution as of now is to educate the users and make sure that they do not fall victim to social engineering.

Corporate Data Security

Corporate data is one of the prized trophies in the circles of information underground. Despite the fact that there are elaborate corporate data security policies in place, new threats keep on emerging every once in a while. While most of the threats are easily contained if you follow a proactive approach to corporate information security, the process of management of information security is not an easy one and you must be aware of new threats to deploy countermeasures in time.

The main threat in these new generation issues is the emergence of Botnets. Botnets use the power of distributed computing and connectivity provided by the internet. It is mainly used for attacks like distributed denial of service. They are something of an evolution of run of the mill computer virus or a worm. They are something like a set of interconnected computer worms working in tandem.

The process of deployment of a Botnet is simple. Anyone who can write a computer virus can easily modify it to take orders from a precoded computer over an IP connection. Every computer that gets infected with the said virus and is not healed in time becomes a part of the Botnet. As of now, Storm Worm has been the widest spread Botnet. It has since been contained but the worst of Botnet is yet to come.

Phishing attacks are another form of emergent threats to data security management. In fact phishing is turning into the worst nightmare every information security manager. The concept behind phishing emerged on AOL network. The main reason that phishing is becoming a very critical threat is because the attacker poses as the official entity. People find it really hard to differentiate between what is real and what is unreal. The result is that social engineering becomes ridiculously easy.

In most of the cases, the phishing attacks have been launched against banking institutions. Phishers would lure customers of these banks to reveal their account information by present a page which is designed in such a manner that it looks as realistic as can be. In the recent times there has been a wave of phishing attacks where the attackers pose as the Internal Revenue Service. They are known to attack people for procuring their social security numbers and other taxation related data.

Another threat to corporate data security is Pharming. This attack works on the principle of DNS poisoning which allows the attacker to divert the traffic coming to a corporate web site to any other web site. The main victims of Pharming are again banking institutions but they are also known to be used for intra organizational social engineering to steal crucial company data.

A number of technologies are in development to prevent the damage dealt by these corporate data security threats. The best solution as of now is to educate the users and make sure that they do not fall victim to social engineering.

Computing's Dirty Dozen: Malware (Page 1 of 2)

It seems that no sooner do you feel safe turning on your computer than you hear on the news about a new kind of internet security threat. Usually, the security threat is some kind of malware (though the term “security threat” no doubt sells more newspapers).

What is malware? Malware is exactly what its name implies: mal (meaning bad, in the sense of malignant or malicious rather than just poorly done) ware (short for software). More specifically, malware is software that does not benefit the computer’s owner, and may even harm it, and so is purely parasitic.

The Many Faces of Malware

According to Wikipedia, there are in fact eleven distinct types of malware, and even more sub-types of each.

1. Viruses. The malware that’s on the news so much, even your grandmother knows what it is. You probably already have heard plenty about why this kind of software is bad for you, so there’s no need to belabor the point.

2. Worms. Slight variation on viruses. The difference between viruses and worms is that viruses hide inside the files of real computer programs (for instance, the macros in Word or the VBScript in many other Microsoft applications), while worms do not infect a file or program, but rather stand on their own.

3. Wabbits.Be honest: had you ever even heard of wabbits before (outside of Warner Bros. cartoons)? According to Wikipedia, wabbits are in fact rare, and it’s not hard to see why: they don’t do anything to spread to other machines. A wabbit, like a virus, replicates itself, but it does not have any instructions to email itself or pass itself through a computer network in order to infect other machines. The least ambitious of all malware, it is content simply to focus on utterly devastating a single machine.

4. Trojans. Arguably the most dangerous kind of malware, at least from a social standpoint. While Trojans rarely destroy computers or even files, that’s only because they have bigger targets: your financial information, your computer’s system resources, and sometimes even massive denial-of-service attacks launched by having thousands of computers all try to connect to a web server at the same time. Trojans can even

5. Spyware. In another instance of creative software naming, spyware is software that spies on you, often tracking your internet activities in order to serve you advertising. (Yes, it’s possible to be both adware and spyware at the same time.)

6. Backdoors. Backdoors are much the same as Trojans or worms, except that they do something different: they open a “backdoor” onto a computer, providing a network connection for hackers or other malware to enter or for viruses or spam to be sent out through.

7. Exploits. Exploits attack specific security vulnerabilities. You know how Microsoft is always announcing new updates for its operating system? Often enough the updates are really trying to close the security hole targeted in a newly discovered exploit.