In this third and final part of our article series about risk factors, we will examine Human attack factors and Physical factors.
The previous article discussed different procedures and systems that could be invoked in order to mitigate risk. In subsequent parts we will examine areas at risk, starting with Electronic factors.
The aim of this type of initial risk analysis is to identify potentially vulnerable points that may be exploited if they are not sufficiently secured.
The ease involved in creating QR codes that links to web pages implies that this will be a popular way to facilitate the propagation of malware for mobile devices.
Computers do what they are told. This may result in consequences that are funny as well as dangerous.
It seems obvious that the current certificate security model needs to be replaced by something that is less vulnerable for attacks from dedicated persons, organizations or governments.
Malware authors continue to pursue delivery mechanisms that can confuse different malware detection systems.
Coordinated efforts between experts/authorities against cybercriminals seem like the most efficient method for combating cybercriminals. Different experts and authorities are then able to focus on the part of the criminal chain that corresponds to their ability and expertise.
Computer systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex with components that are individually computerized. This increases the attack surface for cybercriminals, and represents a challenge for users and the security industry.
The steps that private users and organizations can take to protect themselves, are quite similar in character to protection of traditional computers.
Since the cybercriminals seem to shift from randomly directed mass attacks to more focused attacks, the total volume of spam will decrease.
It is almost impossible to protect completely against a targeted cyberattack against an organization.
We shall in this article focus on the PPI ecosystem and how this is used for malware distribution.
Even organizations, which presumably are more security conscious than most, have vulnerabilities that may be exploited by an attacker who has sufficient resources and determination at her disposal.
The web site (usually an infected site) that displays the message checks the browser visiting the site, and displays a warning message similar to the browser's real warning.
Recent weeks have shown that images are used as a malware spreading technique; particularly images that appear after performing a Google image search.
Do not rely on any file attachment or file on any device to be safe based on its file name.
Users of the operating system Mac OS X have so far been quite safe from malware infections compared to those who have chosen Windows as the operating system platform.
Whenever malware authors find new vehicles to spread their malware, the probability for success increases immensely.
Bots and botnets comprise one of the biggest threats to the Internet and its users. However, recent news report of a success story: beheading the spam botnet Rustock.
In previous security articles, we discussed the fact that cybercriminals use big events to spread malware. Not surprisingly - nevertheless disgusting - the recent events in Japan have inspired shameless exploitations by cybercriminals.
Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) has been viewed as one of the most secure gaming devices. Applications and games from other sources than Sony could not be installed and run on PS3, and a firmware update early in 2010 disallowed using other operating systems than the one set up by Sony. All this is now changed.
Major events, happenings and in general all kind of things that create much notice, also leave in their wake a stream of malicious software.
Some years ago it was an established "fact" that a computer could not be infected by malicious software by visiting a web page. But technology evolves quickly and some facts may change when new technology emerges. These days web pages are perhaps the most used propagation vector for malware.
According to a posting 15 November on the blog belonging to the UK based organization Get Safe Online, one in four UK web users have been targeted by so-called cold calls.
In recent months there have been lots of rumors about the upcoming email system closely integrated with Facebook. More detaileds about this have recently been disclosed by Facebook, and we will examine some aspects of the new offerings.
We have previously advocated the view that endpoint security is just one of several tools needed to accomplish secure environments. This article will examine one particular threat against the Internet community and discuss how it may be overcome.
The term Man-in-the-middle in a security context refers to an attack where someone/-thing is inserted between two endpoints and intercepts the communication between those. The intent is usually to obtain information and use this for illegitimate purposes. Recently the term Man-in-the-mobile, abbreviated as Mitmo, emerged.
Computer software evolves, and popular interpretation is to introduce new generations whenever fundamental changes arrive. If one looks at malware in the same manner, one may also classify different types into various generations.
Fake antimalware software has become an increasing problem for end users and corporations. The creators of these rogue applications are able to earn easy money and are constantly searching for new ways to exploit their victims. A new technique has recently been seen. We shall look at this in more detail in this security article, and attempt to point to some general considerations regarding this type of software and malware in general.
In August IBM Security X-Force published its Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report. The X-Force reports are always interesting reading, and this latest addition maintains the high standards. Lots of topics are discussed in the report. In our security article, we shall however focus on one particular finding.
In the previous article in this series about self-protection, we discussed examples of attempts to trick you to expose yourself for malicious software. Infected web sites are currently the most used technique for propagation of malware. By increasing your own awareness of the techniques the cyber criminals use, you can avoid this exposure.
There are several levels where you can set up protection mechanisms in order to minimize the risk of falling victim to malware. Different protection mechanisms are needed depending on which danger situation we are discussing.
An interesting news item has appeared in several UK-based media lately. Several end users have received phone calls from someone who present themselves as security personnel. The caller informs that the computer is infected by malware and offers to help. Varying social engineering techniques are used to persuade the recipient to allow the use of remote access software in order to "fix the problem".
In this Norman report on security issues during the first half of 2010, we will go through some incidents and tendencies. We will focus on those that Norman perceives as most important in these past six months.
Last week a researcher from Google, Tavis Ormandy, posted information about and exploit code for a new vulnerability in Microsoft's help and Support center.
We should have been expecting it - some did. Late May this year a researcher in the U.K. claims to be the first person in the world infected by a computer virus.
Earlier this month we wrote about a vulnerability in the PDF specification that could be utilized to run malicious programs embedded in a PDF file. Proof-of-concept code was published, and it was expected that real-life malware that used this technique might appear soon.
Most organizations have been experiencing an explosion in the number and types of devices that are in use in their networks. Gone are the days when traditional desktop computers, servers and printers, hard-wired together, were the available hardware in the network.
Exploitation of how applications handle files in the Portable Document Format (PDF) is one of the most used techniques to successfully create malicious software. Usually this is accomplished by utilizing vulnerabilities in the applications used to read PDF documents, like the very popular free program, Adobe Reader.
Domain names are a crucial part of the Internet's infrastructure. However, as we have shown in previous security articles, registration of special domain names may be used as an attack vector for spreading malware.
The RSA Conferences are among of the most important annual security conferences. This year's US conference was held in San Francisco 1 - 5 March. One of the speakers was Microsoft's Scott Charney, Corporate Vice President Trustworthy Computing. His speech covered several interesting topics, of which we will discuss one: the ability, usefulness and implications of treating infected computers in a similar manner as infected human beings.
December is the month to look back on the year that is coming to an end, and we will attempt to sum up the situation seen from a security company's point of view. The most significant observation to make from this year's malware activity, is that different social networks became a major target for authors of malicious programs.
Major events, happenings and in general all kind of things that create much notice, also leave in their wake a stream of malicious software.
In several security articles we have discussed the fact that new media and communication devices are successful vehicles for malware propagation. This time we will examine a type of application, which has not been focused upon - (presumably) neither by the malware authors yet, nor by commentators.
Identity theft is a term, which has become familiar during the latest years. More exotic - until recently - has been identity production with malicious intent. A new version of Koobface does exactly that - automatically.
Website advertising is an expanding industry. Several of the websites, which we visit each and every day - for leisure or as part of our work - have advertisements as a major part of their owner's income. Suffice to mention online newspapers and other magazines, search engines, information resources of other kinds and more. Unfortunately website advertising is also a substantial spreading vector for malicious software.
In the security article this week we will discuss using a particular type of computers - dedicated servers - as part of a botnet.
A new report about security risks was published this week. This report - "The Top Cyber Security Risks" - is a joint effort from the security organizations TippingPoint, Qualys, and SANS. In this week's security article we shall discuss one particular issue in the report - patching software.
Recently Norman's senior virus analyst Snorre Fagerland wrote about the malware W32/Induc.A in our security blog. This is a virus which infects the programming language Delphi. The result is that applications that are created with an infected Delphi environment are infected themselves. This has interesting implications as we shall see.
The time has arrived when it is useful to look back on the first half of this year, and attempt to sum up the situation seen from Norman as a security company's point of view.
The short URL functionality obviously has its merits. However, there are shortcomings and security issues that make the system in itself less secure than desired.
Software to set up any computer as an Internet resource has been freely available for a long time. However, the threshold to do so has been so high that not everyone has felt that this can be accomplished without some special skills. This situation may now change with a new initiative.
This security article's title may look like the intro to a fairytale told to by a criminal to her child. However, a family of malicious software (malware) that has appeared this year seems to make this fairytale come true for some…
The vendors of security software have the following simple task: Detect and remove as much malicious software as possible without erroneously defining benign software as malware. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as it seems.
Another use of web servers has been on the rise as malware spreaders. This approach exploits popular terms to trick users to visit web sites that are by intent malicious.
This week started with significant media attention about a report, which showed that several computers owned by governments and international organizations were compromized. This includes several embassies world-wide and a NATO computer.
A new type of malicious software has recently been getting some media attention. The most interesting part of this is the fact that the malware's targets are not traditional computers. Rather does this malware attack different types of devices, namely routers and modems.
Social engineering in several forms has been discussed in numerous of our security articles. This time, we shall discuss it from a different angle - the traditional one, with a quite clever new twist.
The need to apply security patches to operating systems and applications has been discussed several times in our security articles. Recent events show that this is a caution that cannot be repeated too often.
The Internet offers a cornucopia of applications, movies, pictures, text - everything digital that can be imagined (and some not!). Navigating this is difficult and can even be hazardous in several ways.
The use of money involved in online gaming has traditionally been only as an entrance fee to buy the game itself (if it is not free). This no longer holds true.
The increasing use of USB sticks and their storage capacity constitute major security issues. Problems that were dominant with floppy disks resurface.
There are some issues with security patches that in fact may render certain users more vulnerable. This apparent contradiction will be examined in this article.
Customized malware, which utilizes and targets the Facebook community, is emerging. Several reports about different types of malware are appearing, and more are certain to come.
A few weeks ago a new name started circulating in security writings - "clickjacking". Security organizations as well as web-based news agencies reported this as a major, new threat.
Slurping is not only a method for quenching your thrist. It is also used as a term for a particular kind of security issue, that is often overlooked.
Christmas is a time many persons use for giving and receiving gifts. However, you do not want all "gifts" that someone wants to give you!
A new spreading vector is becoming increasingly popular among the bad girls: Malicious web sites.
Imagine a person with malicious intent sitting in a cafe drinking her cappuccino, pretending to surf the Internet; while what she actually does is harvesting user names and passwords from her fellow guests. A no-sense scenario, or an easy-to-set-up scheme? Unfortunately the latter.
Most of those working with security, and probably greater parts of the general public are aware of the term phishing at what it means. You ...
The email worm Stration is causing delayed delivery of emails for many email users. The worm is spreading through attachments being spammed out and several hundred versions of the worm were spammed out to users during October.
During the latest couple of years we have seen a significant shift in malicious software. This enforces new requirements to software that is supposed to protect against malware.
It is that time of year again when people take to skies, roads and sea in an attempt to find rest and relaxation and enjoy their holidays. At this time IT security is the last thing on their mind.
One of the most prevalent and fastest increasing threats against IT security is the rise of zombie computers and botnets. Not only do they spread extremely fast, they are also able to do immense damage that can easily lead to large costs.
ContextPlus has stopped their activities. This company most known programs are PeopleOnPage and Apropos. Once installed, they will monitor the browsing behavior and send the obtained information to the ContextPlus servers.
Where in the past malware file names would have ‘interesting’ names such as “Anna Kournikova" or “Britney Spears Naked", many things happened but seeing a picture of the two aforementioned idols was not one of them.
Phishing is one of the fastest growing threats against IT security. Even though security vendors are constantly developing tools to protect the users from being tricked, this form of fraud activity is raising. The reason: people are easily fooled.
Researchers of the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands have succeeded to successfully infect a RFID-chip (Radio Frequency Identification Device) with a computer virus.
A new proof of concept virus has been discovered infecting yet another application of the Microsoft Office Suite.
The worm W32/Small.KI@mm has been spreading rapidly since the beginning of this week. This malware is infecting computers through emails and through open network shares.
Threats against the IT community are no longer dominated by viruses, worms and trojans. While phishing attacks have received the largest amount of attention lately, one should not forget the highly prevalent threat of zombies.
During the latest years the tendency for malware to exploit flaws in computer programs seems to have increased.
Hacker controlled computers- so called zombies - are on the rise and the number of new zombies is increasing rapidly.
In April 2005 we saw a rapid change in the malware situation. There was an explosion of different kinds of malware.
Here are some general information about the Sasser worm - Frequently Asked Questions, and their answers.
It is hardly controversial to claim that the end of February and beginning of March 2004 was the worst period ever regarding the sheer number of new mailicious programs threatening the Internet community. New variants of Bagle, MyDoom and Netsky were spread daily - sometimes even more than once per day.
In September 2003 Internet users and organizations experienced the most severe attack on the Internet infrastructure since the "Morris worm" in November 1988. The outbreak of W32/Sobig.F caused major problems because of the huge amount of emails flooding the infrastructure.
Security Information Week 45, 1999 The Security Information for week 43 discussed several vulnerabilities which were possible to exploit due to problems with the functionality in ...
Security Information Week 40, 1999 There have been several reports about the PrettyPark.Worm program recently. This worm was first reported to be in the wild early ...
Security Information Week 7, 1999Since January this year several users have received an e-mail apparently from Microsoft. The mail informs the receipient that the attachment ...
Security Information Week 50, 1999IntroductionDuring the latest months viruses have been using e-mail clients to spread themselves. The most famous one is of course W97M/Melissa.A ...
Security Information Week 43, 1999During the last weeks different security issues which involves Internet Explorer version 5 has been discovered. These have to do with ...
Security Information Week 23, 1999 A new, malicious worm is reported in the wild. So far reports has come from France, Germany, Israel, Czechia and the ...
Security Information Week 32, 2003
Security Information Week 21, 1999 Documents saved as RTF files are not dangerous with respect to macro virus infections. This fact has been stressed from the ...
Security Information Week 40, 2002IntroductionOne of the ongoing discussions regarding security is about informing the public about new security risks. The two extremes are on ...
Security Information Week 26, 2002 Introduction Several previous Security Informations have discussed topics related to PCs at home. E.g. one issue in 1999 examined Attacks from the ...
Security Information Week 25, 2002 Introduction The Security Information for week 20 discussed in general terms why some malicious programs succeed in becoming widespread while other do ...
Security Information Week 20, 2002 Introduction During the latest 10 months the "top three" malicious programs ("malware") with respect to spreadig have made havoc on networks and ...
Security Information Week 1, 1999 The computer magazines as well as other papers have recently published articles about a "new" kind of viruses - the so-called ...
Security Information Week 9, 2000 In our Security Information for week 45 last year, we discussed a security problem with Internet Explorer which had as a ...
Security Information Week 8, 2000Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is Microsoft's programming language used to enhance the functionality of some of its programs, particularly the ...
In April 1999 a lot of people and organizations were paid a visit by the computer virus Melissa. This virus propagated so quickly and extensively that many compared it to the legendary "Morris worm."
