Home / Security (Page 14)

• Alleged Youngster Botmaster is in Plenty of Trouble

  In Internet, Security

  

  21-year-old Gregory King is alleged to have been the botmaster behind DDOS attacks against CastleCops, McDonald’s, Best Buy and KillaNet Technology Ltd. When the FBI raided his house, he apparently fled out the backdoor carrying his laptop which he tossed into bushes. His alleged Botnet included over 7,000 machines, a pretty good effort for a 21-year-old who claimed to suck at VB.Net. He used the handles “Silenz,” “Sz” and “Gregk707.” He is 21-years-old and going [...]

   

• Spy Clock Would Rule In a Convenience Store

  In Design, Housewares, Security

  

  The Spy Clock by Peter Woudt is basically a convex glass mirror similar to those seen in the back corners of your neighborhood 7-Eleven. The only difference is that this particular mirror also features an embedded clock. With a clock like this, a clerk could keep a watchful eye on that suspicious looking teenager wearing a winter coat in July. It would also help him keep tabs on the hours left until quittin’ time – [...]

   

• Gmail Exploit is Very, Very Scary

  In Internet, Security

  

  Petko Petkov who is famous for discovering a number of vulnerabilities with Adobe and Microsoft products has revealed an extremely serious vulnerability in GMail.  Using a simple HTML command which Petkov calls a “multipart/form-date POST”, a hacker would be able to inject a filter into the users GMail account.  The vulnerability exists as long as a person has their GMail account open while they surf other sites.  The flaw will not give them access to [...]

   

• Harrods Security Goes Old School

  In Misc., Security

  

  When UK luxury retailer Harrods opened a luxury footwear exhibit, it featured a rather unusual security measure, named Cedric.  Cedric is a highly venomous and highly aggressive Egyptian cobra.  He was put in a case along with a pair of rather serpentine Rene Caovilla sandals that cost a staggering $125,872.  The sandals feature a serpent encrusted with jewels in the toe area.  While Cedric’s inclusion is an obvious marketing gimmick, it has to be said [...]

   

• Ramex.a Worm is Bad News for Skype Users

  In Internet, Security

  

  A worm that has been spreading through Skype has been identified as Ramex.a by Skype and Pyskpa.d by Symantec.  It spreads in a familiar way, by sending out messages to the contacts list of an infected system.  The messages contain a link, which appears to be to a .jpg but is actually to download a .scr file. Like a number of other malicious programs, Ramex corrupts the Explorer.exe process by injecting it with malicious code [...]

   

• Storm Worm Botnet, Growing Stonger every Day

  In Internet, Security

  

  According to New Zealand computer Scientist Peter Gutman, the Storm Worm Botnet can be classified as one of the world’s top 10 super computers.  There are between one and ten million computers infected with the Storm worm.  Peter Gutman made his calculations based on combining the number of CPUs and the amount of RAM in the infected PCs.  With approximately 1-10 million 2.8GHz P4s and 1-10 Petabytes of RAM the Storm Worm Botnet has access [...]

   

• Yoggie Pico Pro, a Cool USB Dongle Indeed

  In Gadgets, Security

  

  The Yoggie Pico Pro is a clever little security device for beefing up security around low powered systems. The Yoggie is, for want of a better explanation, a miniature computer. At its heart are a 520MhZ Intel processor, 128MB of SDRAM, 128MB of NAND Flash and 8 MB of NOR Flash. Keep in mind that those stats would have looked very good on a high-end desktop not all that many years ago. The specifications are [...]

   

• Not so Secret German Trojan Horse Proposal

  In Internet, Op-Ed, Security

  

  Perhaps Germany should have taken a leaf out of AT&T’s book and just gone ahead and done it.  By it, this author is of course referring to a government proposal to send out emails to terror suspects with Trojan horses.  Earlier this year a plan to perform “clandestine searches” of suspects’ computers was blocked by Federal Court.   The searches were blocked because it was deemed that the German law at the time did not cover [...]

   

• Windows Genuine Advantage Causes Chaos for the First Time

  In Computers, Op-Ed, Security

  

  I for one have never been a supporter of the Windows Genuine Advantage program. I have concerns about any background process that reports on my system, no matter where it comes from. I have greater concerns if that program has the ability to alter my system should it malfunction. It seems that those concerns were warranted, as a 19 hour “server-issue” wreaked havoc on legitimate users of Microsoft Windows XP and Vista. Their systems were [...]

   

• UK Man Charged With Broadband Theft

  In Computers, Internet, Security

  

  A 39-year-old man from Chiswick, west London, was arrested on Tuesday. Police stated that the reason for the arrest was suspicion that he was using someone else’s wireless Internet connection without permission, which contravenes the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act. It seems the unlucky fellow was sitting by a wall of someone’s house, using a laptop, browsing the Internet using an unsecured connection. Broadband is something that is taken very seriously in the [...]

   

• Nod 32 + Comodo Firewall and BOClean = A Great Security Suite

  In Op-Ed, Security

  

  You can never be too careful about security and it has been a long time since a simple anti-virus program was enough. These days, a firewall is absolutely essential. This writer has personally had experience with Black Ice, Tiny Personal Firewall, Norton Firewall, Zone Alarm and now Comodo. I used Zone Alarm both when it was free and when it became a premium product. As for anti-virus programs, I have used most of the free [...]

   

• Firefox 3, Coming Soon with Security Onboard

  In Announcements, Internet, Security

  

  Firefox has already proven itself as a powerful and adaptable browser. Initially, it was significantly more secure than Internet Explorer, but in recent times, some of the advantages it has over its competitor have disappeared. Malware programmers still spend a lot of time working at security holes in the IE program, but do not be lulled into a false sense of security; Firefox can be vulnerable too. Mozilla have responded to malware threats quite quickly [...]