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Archive for February, 2010
Spies and hackers exploit world cyber rule void
Feb 25th
William Maclean, Security Correspondent
Reuters
Feb 22, 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE61L37B20100222
LONDON (Reuters) – The best weapon against the online thieves, spies and vandals who threaten global business and security would be international regulation of cyberspace.
Luckily for them, such cooperation does not yet exist.
Better still, from a hacker’s perspective, such a goal is not a top priority for the international community, despite an outcry over hacking and censorship and disputes over cyberspace pitting China and Iran against U.S. firm Google.
Nations are thinking too parochially about their online security to collaborate on crafting global cyber regulation, an EastWest Institute security conference heard last week.
Policy statements from governments around the world are dominated by the need to heighten national cyber defenses. As a result, too many cyber criminals are getting a free ride.
“Nations are in denial,” a cyber law expert told Reuters, saying national legislation was of limited use in protecting users of a borderless communications tool.
“It may take a big shock of an event to wake people out of their complacency, something equal to a 9/11 in cyberspace,” he said referring to the 2001 coordinated attacks on U.S. cities.
With a quarter of humanity connected to the Internet, cyber crime poses a growing danger to the global economy.
More >Apple iPad vs Notion Adam
Feb 23rd
Are Tablets really the next big thing in computing? May be, may be not (need to wait for sales figures to answer this)! However, Apple’s iPad has surely created a buzz around Tablets. You have HP, Dell and all other PC vendors of every size and shape readying a Tablet PC.
In the content is a Desi Tablet too, Adam. Designed by an alumunus of National Institute of Design, Makarand Kulkarni, Nokion Ink’s Adam is being billed as an iPad killer. Here’s looking into what Apple’s iPad has that our Adam lacks and vice versa. And how the two compare on various specs like memory, display, connectivity, pricing and more.
Dimensions
While Apple’s iPad measures 9.56 inches in height, 7.47 in width and 0.5 inch in depth. iPad weighs 1.5 lbs (0.68 kg), the 3G version is 0.1 pounds heavier.
Display
iPad has a 9.7-inch LCD colour screen. The device uses iPhone’s multi-touch technology, Apple’s Magic Mouse, and the company’s trackpad technology found in some of the company’s laptops.
Twitter users hit by phishing attack
Feb 23rd
BANGALORE: An IT security firm, Sophos, is warning that a major attack against Twitter users last weekend that was designed to steal passwords and use hijacked accounts to spread moneymaking spam campaigns.
The attack, which is ongoing, began on Saturday, as Twitter users found members of the micro-blogging network had posted messages disguised as humorous inks, but actually aimed to phish passwords credentials from unsuspecting users.
Messages, which began with phrases such as “Lol. this is me??”, “lol, this is funny.”, “Lol. this you?? ” and “ha ha, u look funny on here”, were accompanied with clickable links which redirected users to a fake Twitter login page hosted on a Web site based in China.
Researchers discovered that although the main wave of poisoned messages has been via private direct messages between individual users on Twitter, dangerous links are also being posted in public feeds. This means that innocent users can stumble across the links even if they are not sent it directly, or even if they are not a signed-up user of Twitter.
“Thousands of users being put at risk of having their account broken into,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.
“The cybercriminals behind the attack are creating a zombie network, or botnet, of hacked accounts that they can then abuse to spread spam, distribute malware and steal identities. There’s nothing funny about the LOL attack — you have to be on your guard against clicking on the dangerous messages. If you’ve fallen for it you must change your Twitter password immediately.”
The phishing campaign appears to be already bearing fruit for the hackers as they are now distributing spam selling herbal Viagra from the compromised accounts.
