Tag Archives: virus

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.

Antivirus Malware and Software (Page 1 of 2)

Warning: most antivirus programs will not protect you against all forms of malignant software (often called “malware”) on their own. Find out how to protect yourself.

Sure, your antivirus software will protect you against viruses. It will probably even do a good job against worms. But what Trojans, exploits, backdoors, spyware and the dozen other nasty software parasites?

Malware and Antivirus Software: a History

The war on computer viruses has led to an arms race between the designers of antivirus software and the designers of viruses (you didn’t think viruses just created themselves did you?). Some years ago, virus designers responded to ever more successful antivirus software by creating the descendents of viruses, worms, which did not infect files but rather installed themselves directly on the hard drive, making them harder to detect.

The arms race has since led to a total of at least eleven distinct types of what is now called malware, a neologism meaning bad (as in malignant rather than shoddy) software. According to Wikipedia, these eleven types of malware are:

1. Virus 2. Worm 3. Wabbit 4. Trojan 5. Backdoor 6. Spyware 7. Exploit 8. Rootkit 9. Key Logger 10. Dialer 11. URL injection

There’s a twelfth kind of malware: adware, which Wikipedia considers simply to be a subset of spyware.

Why Antivirus Software Isn’t Enough for Malware

As you can see, makers of antivirus software have their work cut out for them if they’re going to keep every instance of malware off your system. As a result, antivirus software makers have often had to pick their battles. Adware, whose makers often claim they are doing nothing illegal or even questionable, often gets treated more lightly.

Even when antivirus software makers do come out with a product that fights all twelve or so kinds of malware, responding to each new instance of malware to come on the market isn’t easy. First the malware has to be identified, which means someone’s computer, and probably tens of thousands of computers, will be infected first. Then, the malware has to be dissected. Then a removal program and a filter must both be written. Then the removal program and filter must be tested to make sure they work, and that they don’t interfere with any other functions of the antivirus software or the computer itself. When a fix for the virus is out, it then has to be loaded into an antivirus software update and transmitted to every single computer worldwide that has the antivirus software installed.

The speed with which antivirus software makers are able to deliver updates for newly discovered malware would impress even Santa Claus. Yet there’s still a crucial window of one to a few days between when the new malware has reached a critical mass of thousands of computers, and when the update is released. If your antivirus software is not set to check for updates automatically every hour or so, that window opens even wider.