Symantec says:,,Hackers sell Ids for $14,,
Malicious documents help for cracking servers and for stealing data,according to a security report reelased Monday.Identity thieves are offering a person’s credit-card number, date of birth and other sensitive information for as little as US$14 over the Internet.
The data is sold on so-called “underground economy servers,” used by criminal organizations to hawk information they’ve captured through hacking, Symantec Corp. said in its Internet Security Threat Report, which tracked online trends from June to December 2006. The information can then be used for identity scams such as opening a bank account in a false name.
“U.S.-based credit cards with a card verification number were available for between US$1 to $6, while an identity — including a U.S. bank account, credit card, date of birth and government-issued identification number — was available for between $14 to $18,” the report said.
Some 51 percent of the servers hosting the information were in the U.S.About 86 percent of the credit and debit card numbers available on those servers were issued by U.S. banks.
Symantec documented 12 zero-day vulnerabilities in the period from June to December 2006. Only one was found in its two prior six-month reporting periods, the company said.
Hackers have exploited some of those vulnerabilities by creating malicious documents in Microsoft Office and other software, said Ollie Whitehouse, a security architect at Symantec.
This a very new danger,because security programs ussually block the executables,not the Office applications,which usually appear legitimate.A bussinessman won,t refuse to receive on e-mail an office document or a jpg format file,because they usually are not seen as dangerous files.So the malicious documents sent as spam e-mail targeted to a specific employee have greater chance of being opened and this way the hackers ,,are in the house,,.The question is,where would anyone feel safe nowadays on the internet?If you have valuable data,you should be terrified by this fresh information,I personally certainly am.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article
Microsoft agrees…Windows OneCare performs poor
Microsoft Windows OneCare performed poor test results on Thursday, but the Microsoft officials promised it would do better by paying more attention to malware actually in the wild.
“The recent detection numbers were not stellar,” Jimmy Kuo, a member of the Microsoft security research and response team, said in a company blog “We missed capturing a VB100 [Virus Bulletin 100] in the last test because we missed one virus. As a result, we have adopted new methodologies to … look more closely at families of viruses that have been found to be ‘in the wild,’ [those] found actively spreading among users.”
Early last month, Virus Bulletin, a U.K.-based publication whose VB100 tests are considered one of the most accurate antivirus industry’s tests, put 15 Vista security programs up against January’s WildList, a top of the list of all viruses, worms, Trojans and other dangerous malware. Five titles failed the test, including Microsoft’s Windows Live OneCare 1.5.
“We will keep on working to acquire the VB100 Award each time we are tested by Virus Bulletin,” promised Kuo.
Kuo joined Microsoft security team on september,and before that he was member of the McAfee Avert team.He is the famous researcher who tracked down the hacker who created 1999,s Melissa virus.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/
What Antivirus software should I use?
Good question…this is a site about security software and so it should be an advice about good security software that every user should use.The most problematic piece of software is the antivirus,because of the two maine reasons:1)Viruses are the first and most important big problem of security for all kinds of users.With some spyware a normal user could live together without too much fuss,but viruses may produce a lot of damage.2)Against viruses you are allowed to use only one antivirus,not two or many.Why?Because two or many antivirus software will chase one each other,like in cat-mouse game,every one of them considering the other as being a virus.So,one is enough,because of the serious conflicts that can occur in the case you use more.
And the question is:which one is the best?Tough question,and the answer is very relative.Relative because of the hardware system-there are antiviruses that consume more or less of the system resources,because of other third parties software,s possible incompatibilities-eg. antivirus with firewall,antivirus with antispyware etc.
I have been searching for a long time for a proper review,but I,ve hardly found one to perform as my expectations were. I have also read user,s reviews and finally I have a few options. There are the two software market leaders,Symantec,s Norton and McAfee, which are the most popular,but that doesn,t mean that they are neccessarily the best. Other two popular free antispyware are avg and avast,two powerful tools produced in Czech Republic.We have other four paid antivirus software that cost money,these are Kaspersky,NOD32,Bitdefender,F-Secure.In fact,we saw a review on a very popular site that shows the best overall antivirus.CNET agrees that the most powerful antivirus,at least for the year 2006,is Kaspersky 6-th version.Let,s see a few arguments:
In CNET Labs’ performance tests and in results from independent antivirus testing organizations, the Russian antivirus vendor Kaspersky scores high marks against its well-known competition.
Unlike McAfee and Symantec, Kaspersky will run under Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP on older PCs with as little as 64MB of RAM.
Kaspersky is the only major antivirus vendor to offer a free, lighter version of its antivirus product (McAfee and Norton still do not). The lighter version, known as AOL. Active Virus Shield, gives you a sense of what the paid Kaspersky product can do.
Like most antivirus products today, Kaspersky also protects your computer against spyware–scanning for both viruses and spyware, which is much more efficient than scanning for each separately.
Standing behind the Kaspersky Anti-Virus application is Kaspersky Labs, one of the best antivirus research labs in the world; often Kaspersky is the first to report new malware.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 scored well in CNET Labs’ performance tests and exceptionally well in third-party, independent antivirus testing using live viruses.
The conclusion is:
If you’re looking for an antivirus application that’s light and fast and consistently wins detection awards against the competition, Kaspersky’s the one. We found this antivirus application easy enough for beginners, with customization features that will please more advanced users, as well.
So,what more needs to be said?I don,t know if you,re convinced but I used to use Kaspersky and I was impressed by it,s performance.However,if you wanted a much more lighter antivirus,I would personally recommend NOD32,I generally had no big problems with it,and practically you don,t observe it acting. No matter what antivirus you got,use the Internet careful,don,t open dubious attachments and don,t enter too many….hehei porn sites,that was it.
Source: http://reviews.cnet.com
Troja Horses targeted by a new RSA Service
RSA FraudActionSM Anti-Trojan service is designed to secure companies to a multitude of threats like session hijacking Trojans,keyloggers and other malware which are used by online criminals to steal personal and comercial datas from consumers.
A survey conducted by RSA in December found that 82% of the 1,678 adults surveyed said they are less likely to respond to an e-mail from their banks because of phishing and other online scams that annoy and scare in the same time.
Forty-four percent of respondents said they are becoming more and more concerned about other types of attacks, such as Trojans and keyloggers.
Cyber-criminals are increasingly using Trojan horses to attack systems, and the situation requires a holistic approach by security vendors, said Louis Gasparini, co-CTO of RSA’s Consumer Business Unit.
How can we defend against trojan horses and keyloggers?The answer has to be one like this:to use powerful security programs or at least even those offered by software operating systems.And,a very important issue,let,s not be seduced too much by the beauty of Internet Universe,like in any other Universe there are good things and bad things.And no,don,t say that something bad cannot happen to you,believe me,if you possessed valuable data or information,it precisely would.
http://www.pcmag.com/
Hacker Vladuz strikes again
,,Watch CNN on 15-th March and you might have a surprise;anyway,I don,t promise a thing.,,
TThis new breach confirms the mistrusts regarding serious vulnerabilities that affect eBay systems.That despite the assurance given by oficials that no recording or other sensitive date was exposed.
In the last two months the number of posted and canceled auctions raised in an alarming way. The canceling was due to hardly tried eBay security specialists,that couldn,t complain that they had nothing to do.
The question remains this,where would the online thieves stop,if they ever had this on their mind.Online safety is gone,you can,t be safe-that,s the message,wherever you are.
http://www.9am.ro/stiri-revista-presei/IT&C
The Association of Neighbourhood Networks fights against piracy
The Association of Neighbourhood Networks from Bucharest,Romania, will sign an agreement with an organization who protects copywrits for movies - ,,Ro-act,,- Romanian Organization Against Copyright Theft.
This way there will be posted anti-piracy messages in the metropolitan network,said for NewsIn the director of marketing of Interlan.
Ro-act wil be protecting only copyrights of the american movies which are made by companies member of the Motion Pictures Association - MPA. MPA is the author of the movie that will be posted on the Interlan,s hubs and watched all over the world.
Maria Voican,law counselor at Ro-act,said for NewsIn that this project is a pilot program of public recognition,and its continuance will depend of the success diffused in the middle of the subscribers.
I am curious too about the echo of this action,echo disseminated among the romanian subscribers.In Romania the level of living is very low and the Internet is seen by many like a heavenly way to freely download music,movies and games.A PC hardware already costs a fortune for many romanians,so they can,t afford to spend so much money for software.And american movies are loved by romanians,so al we can do is wait and see…the results.
http://www.9am.ro/stiri-revista-presei/IT&C
