Tag Archives: used
A Stuxnet Malware FAQ and How to Avoid It
Stuxnet is a new piece of malware that is spreading widely through the use of USB flash drives. It is starting to be quite a danger, especially in industrial plants, and many in the security business are getting very nervous. What follows is an FAQ about the Stuxnet malware.
How does Stuxnet spread?
Stuxnet spreads through USB devices. A recently discovered Microsoft Windows vulnerability has been found to allow a program to run just by browsing to a folder that contains a shortcut to it, or a “.lnk” file. Once the worm runs it scans to see if the computer is running software created by a company known as Siemens, which is very popular in certain industries. If this is the case, the worm is able to install itself on the victim computer. It will infect all future removable media that is connected to the computer and installs a rootkit, a very sophisticated type of software that deletes all record of the worm existing on the computer. After that the computer continues to steal as much data as possible from the computer and transmit it back to a remote location.
What does Stuxnet do?
Stuxnet is considered by many people to be the first-ever “control system” malware. What this means is that it has the capability of infecting control systems for large companies and factories that use software created by Siemens. Unfortunately, this software is very widely used, especially in large industrial manufacturing organizations, small and large utilities, and even defense systems. In one case it was found that this software could infect nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
How widespread is Stuxnet and where is it most common?
At the moment Stuxnet is not that widespread. It is most common in India, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States, and Malaysia, in that order. However, it has the potential to spread very rapidly. It only affects computers running Siemens software, but computers without that software can still act as “carriers,” infecting other removable media that is inserted into them. Other countries have seen infections, but mostly they have been localized and have not caused any damage so far.
How dangerous is Stuxnet?
This is always the big question with a large virus outbreak. Right now Stuxnet is not that dangerous. Unfortunately, it is targeted at “Control Systems.” Siemens is most known for making software for sophisticated systems used in such areas as the military, large industrial plants, and utility plants. If any of these were to be infected the damage could be irreparable. The infection is clearly tailored to steal confidential information and possibly shut down “smart grids.” Therefore, while it is not a danger to consumers, any large corporation or plant must be very careful to avoid this infection.
Get Better Google Rankings and Increase Web Traffic With RSS Syndication (Page 1 of 2)
So maybe you have heard about Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and seen the RSS symbol on websites?
Perhaps you have even used it to catch up on your daily news from your favorite websites. Great free resources like the Google Reader makes it a breeze to keep up with the latest happenings on topics of interest to you.
But there is another side to RSS I would like to discuss with you today, and that’s RSS syndication also known as RSS submission which is the process of using this technology to get better page rankings in the search engines and increase web traffic to your website.
I am going to suggest to you that this is a vital process for you to understand and start using as the vast majority of your competition (other web sites) are not leveraging this technology. So using feed submission is a great way to assist you in leapfrogging your competition.
But lets take a step back and understand how the process works. Firstly in order to use RSS like this, you need an RSS feed.
Think of an RSS feed as just a description of one or more pages on a website. It’s a standard format that can be read by literally millions of programs on the internet.
You see computers being what they are, they cannot understand a particular piece of information unless they understand the structure. Because RSS is a documented format, it means all these programs that use RSS can then understand how to read an RSS feed, and how to process the contents in the file.
Many websites have this technology built in. If you are running a wordpress blog you automatically have this technology built in to every post you make on the website.
And even if your using a static website without RSS feeds, you can invest in an inexpensive RSS script to product RSS feeds for your website.
As I mentioned previously RSS technology has mainly been used to retrieve information for a group of websites (news, new content, etc). It has not really been used to assist you in getting visitors to your website or ranking better in google.
But new exciting software is coming out to leverage the power of RSS to get the word out about your website.
Entire websites are developed and being developed as RSS Aggregators, in other words sites dedicated to receiving information about the content that is on other websites. And guess what? They use RSS technology as well.
Google, the premier search engine itself invested million purchasing a major RSS website called feedburner. Further they then added to their AdSense program a module for RSS Feeds. AdSense is the most widely used technology to put advertisements on websites that we know of today.
I am hoping your starting to see where I am going with this, if entire sites are setting themselves up to use RSS exclusively and Google themselves are heavily investing in RSS technology, then this is something that internet marketers should be looking at.
Google realize that RSS is all about tracking content changes, because anytime a website adds content to their website (if they are using RSS technology) then their RSS feed is updated automatically.
Get Better Google Rankings and Increase Web Traffic With RSS Syndication (Page 1 of 2)
So maybe you have heard about Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and seen the RSS symbol on websites?
Perhaps you have even used it to catch up on your daily news from your favorite websites. Great free resources like the Google Reader makes it a breeze to keep up with the latest happenings on topics of interest to you.
But there is another side to RSS I would like to discuss with you today, and that’s RSS syndication also known as RSS submission which is the process of using this technology to get better page rankings in the search engines and increase web traffic to your website.
I am going to suggest to you that this is a vital process for you to understand and start using as the vast majority of your competition (other web sites) are not leveraging this technology. So using feed submission is a great way to assist you in leapfrogging your competition.
But lets take a step back and understand how the process works. Firstly in order to use RSS like this, you need an RSS feed.
Think of an RSS feed as just a description of one or more pages on a website. It’s a standard format that can be read by literally millions of programs on the internet.
You see computers being what they are, they cannot understand a particular piece of information unless they understand the structure. Because RSS is a documented format, it means all these programs that use RSS can then understand how to read an RSS feed, and how to process the contents in the file.
Many websites have this technology built in. If you are running a wordpress blog you automatically have this technology built in to every post you make on the website.
And even if your using a static website without RSS feeds, you can invest in an inexpensive RSS script to product RSS feeds for your website.
As I mentioned previously RSS technology has mainly been used to retrieve information for a group of websites (news, new content, etc). It has not really been used to assist you in getting visitors to your website or ranking better in google.
But new exciting software is coming out to leverage the power of RSS to get the word out about your website.
Entire websites are developed and being developed as RSS Aggregators, in other words sites dedicated to receiving information about the content that is on other websites. And guess what? They use RSS technology as well.
Google, the premier search engine itself invested million purchasing a major RSS website called feedburner. Further they then added to their AdSense program a module for RSS Feeds. AdSense is the most widely used technology to put advertisements on websites that we know of today.
I am hoping your starting to see where I am going with this, if entire sites are setting themselves up to use RSS exclusively and Google themselves are heavily investing in RSS technology, then this is something that internet marketers should be looking at.
Google realize that RSS is all about tracking content changes, because anytime a website adds content to their website (if they are using RSS technology) then their RSS feed is updated automatically.