How social networks foster persistent intrusions of corporate networks
March 30, 2011
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY 31Mar2011, p1B
Not long after airstrikes began in Libya earlier this month, certain attorneys at four U.S. law firms, known for having high-profile clients in the oil industry, each received a personally addressed e-mail message.
Each message carried an Adobe PDF attachment, purportedly an analyst report describing the impact of Libya’s uprising on oil futures. Each lawyer clicked on the attachment.
But the PDF was …More
Video shows how data scrapers feast on your freely-divulged info
March 28, 2011
Freely divulging information about yourself on Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and other websites causes your personal data to feed directly into the lucrative business models of information brokers and data scrapers, as a newly-released video  from identity management firm Reputation.com vividly depicts.
Information brokers and data scrapers voraciously harvest your data, correlate it and then sell profiles to people finder firms, insurance companies, employers and others.
Here is the video:…More
Scanning tools offer antidote to poisoned links
March 25, 2011
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY 25Mar2011 P2B
There is something you can do to protect yourself from the rising tide of poisoned Web links.
Several security companies offer website scanning tools that can detect poisoned links seeping into social-network postings, search engine results and Web-based e-mails.
Network security company M86 Security earlier this month released Secure Browsing, a tool that checks Web links to see if they carry known viruses or exhibit behaviors that indicate a …More
Facebook, Twitter stymied by rising tide of poisoned links
March 23, 2011
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY, p1B, 23 Mar. 2011.
Facebook and Twitter appear stymied about how to slow a rising tide of poisoned web links seeping into all popular social networks.
A survey last December found 40% of social network users encountered malicious attacks, a 90% increase from April 2009, according to antivirus firm Sophos.
Video depicts poisoned link scams. Click here.
Meanwhile, a recent experiment by network security …More
Video depicts how cybercrooks spread poisoned links on Facebook
March 23, 2011
Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley has produced this illuminating video (see below) depicting how intensively cybercriminals are spreading poisoned links on Facebook.
Malicious attacks circulating within popular social networks are following a trajectory, much as e-mail phishing attacks did in the early- to mid- 2000s. Cluley is among those security experts who contend that Facebook should be doing a more thorough job of filtering poisoned links.…More
Information protection in the age of WikiLeaks
March 21, 2011
One big revelation that came out of the 2011 RSA cybersecurity conference last February was that 65% of IT and security professionals do not have a complete grasp of the security implications of using USBs, smartphones and tablet devices to access confidential files.
A survey of 200 Â pros attending RSA at San Francisco’s Moscone Center revealed widespread risky practices by folks you’d expect to know better. For instance, …More
Microsoft sleuths were the good guys who took down Rustock
March 18, 2011
Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has stepped forward to take primary credit for the takedown of the Rustock spamming botnet.
This was Microsoft’s second such takedown of a major botnet. Just over a year, ago a similar operation knocked out the Waledac botnet.
“I’m happy to announce that based on the knowledge gained in that effort, we have successfully taken down a larger, more notorious and complex botnet known as …More
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