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Laatste artikelen - Privacy issues

An approach to an organization's risk factors (part 3)

In this third and final part of our article series about risk factors, we will examine Human attack factors and Physical factors.

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An approach to an organization's risk factors (part 2)

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.

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An approach to an organization's risk factors (part 1)

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.

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May we use your social network account, please

You should exercise extreme caution if you are allowing access to your social network account from any application.

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Secure browsing turns insecure (again)

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.

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Default privacy - what is the problem?

A default restrictive approach to public sharing of personal information will result in less information shared.

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Sony PlayStation Network severely compromised (UPDATED 2011-05-03)

This intrusion in PlayStation Network ranks among the biggest cyber security incidents of all time.

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No access to your data unless...

Blocked access to important information - particularly if adequate backup routines are not in place - may be disastrous for the person who becomes the victim of ransomware.

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Collective defense against Internet threats

The RSA Conferences are among the most important annual security conferences. This year's US conference was held in San Francisco 14 - 18 February.

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Digital Dumpster Diving

Dumpster diving is known as examining trash to find interesting items that have been discarded. This security article's title refers to examining digital trash, which for certain purposes may turn out to be useful.

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Malware targeting the finance sector's customers

In our security article last week, we discussed cybercriminals who targeted financial institutions in an indirect way. However, the major bulk of malware aimed at the finance sector puts the finance sector's customers at peril. One obvious reason is that the average end user's system presumably is less secure than the systems used by the financial sector.

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Personalized web advertisements - good or bad?

Advertisements (ads) on the web have become part of a multi-billion industry. These days it is almost impossible to read news on the web without being overwhelmed by a plethora of ads for everything from cars to diapers. However, it is presumably not optimal to display the car ads to children. Nor are most teenagers particularly interested in diapers. 

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Malicous cold calls with high success probability

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.

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Communication consolidation or security nightmare

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.

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Privacy and security in Social networks - part III

This is the third article in a series about privacy and security in social networks.

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Privacy and security in Social networks - part II

This is the second article in a series about privacy and security in social networks.

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Privacy and security in Social networks - part I

This is the first article in a series, which will focus on security and privacy issues involved in participating in social networks.

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Firesheep - an eye-opener or a tool for criminals

A little more than one week ago a new extension to the Firefox web browser was published. And it got attention for sure!
 

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Hey, your computer is infected!

In a press release 25 October the Dutch High Tech Crime Team (THTC) of the National Crime Squad announced a successful takedown of a major botnet. 143 malicious computer servers were taken down from the internet resulting from collaboration with a Dutch hosting provider, the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI), the internet security company Fox IT and GOVCERT.NL and the Dutch computer emergency response team.

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Your computer has been quarantined and cannot access the Internet

A message similar to the one in this article's title may seem like a nightmare for most of us, as we have become increasingly dependent - some even addicted - to using resources available on the Internet for necessary as well as trivial tasks.

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Complete access to all information

Most people would agree with both the following statements.

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Mandatory electronic identification card with RFID chip

Introduction Last week it was announced that the Dutch company NXP was selected to produce the new identification (ID) card for Germany. Starting from the beginning of ...

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Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime

A few days ago the Australian House of Representatives' Standing Committee on Communications published its report on cyber crime and security. This document has the ambitious title "Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime", and is an impressive, almost 300 pages reading with statistics, examples, and of course suggestions on how to solve the cyber crime problem.

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Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

Indeed, summer is associated with long, lazy, relaxing days in the sun. Nothing to worry about in the world. Unfortunately everyone does not take their vacation at the same time as you. Cyber crime does not stop during summer - in fact cyber criminals have their heyday during this season.

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A cunning new phishing technique - Tabnabbing

Over the years new ingenious words for security issues have come up. We have seen the neologisms pharming, vishing, clickjacking and slurping, just to mention some. This week a new one was born - tabnabbing. Which turns out to be more scary than most.

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Data harvesting by mistake

Using wireless networks for accessing the Internet has become increasingly popular. These days you can access the Internet from virtually anywhere by connecting to a wireless network.

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The pros and cons of using Facebook as THE device for communication and work

Lately some interesting news regarding Facebook and Facebook users have emerged on the Internet. We will use this as the basis for a general discussion about Facebook and some of the issues involved in using / depending on Facebook. 

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Effective social engineering scares

Malicious programs do increasingly rely on social engineering techniques to be able to propagate and successfully execute. Gone are the days when a tempting file name in an email sufficed. In this security article we shall examine variants of one of the more successful social engineering schemes.

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Social networks - a criminal's best friend or her enemy?

Introduction Various aspects, which have to do with social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace, have been discussed in different security articles this year. This time we ...

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Lots of free email accounts compromised

Earlier this month multiple tens of thousand passwords to free email accounts from Microsoft (Hotmail), Google (GMail) and Yahoo were compromised.

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Compromised telephone conversations

Listening in to telephone conversations is traditionally associated with initiatives from national security agencies / police organizations with vast resources, or shady private detectives. This may not be the case any more if the person or persons under surveillance use a particular system for telephone calls.

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Your PC as an Internet server with a few clicks

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.

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HELLO! My house is ready for burglars

"My house is ready for burglars", is not what you would typically shout in public or write as an advertisement in the local newspaper. Nevertheless this is exactly what lots and lots of computer users do on a regular basis, without reflecting upon what they really do.

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GhostNet - a real espionage network

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.

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Pros and cons of using "the cloud" as a partner

"The cloud" is one of the new magic words used to describe new and fancy technology. Briefly the idea is that resources outside the organization's (or person's) own premises are used for computing. The use of resources outside the organization itself has some obvious advantages. However, it also has disadvantages - some of which are less obvious.

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Internet gaming - new opportunities for the (shady) visionary

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.

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Big Brother is FINDING you!

The Norman article from last year Big Brother is HEARING you ends with: "For now, happy VoIP, but... Be careful, you never know who will be listening in!"

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Doelwit van phishers is veranderd

Phishers (personen die u proberen op te lichten op het internet) richten traditioneel hun aanvallen op financiële organisaties; dat blijkt echter onlangs te zijn gewijzigd. De laatste tijd bestoken de phishers alle soorten organisaties, zelfs bedrijven in de gezondheidszorg.

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Corporate and private worries by using the Internet

There are several securities issues involved in using the Internet for conducting corporate business, as well as issues involved in protecting individuals for misuse of their personal information. This article will discuss some of those

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Big Brother is HEARING you

The internet connections are becoming faster and faster. As a result of that, more and more bandwidth is not used all the time. This bandwidth can then be used for different applications, e.g. Internet Telephony, or better: Voice over IP (VoIP). So should we all switch to VoIP and leave the old fashioned telephone companies?

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Another back door in Microsoft's operating systems?

Security Information  Week 35, 1999In week 35 a report of a new backdoor in Microsoft's operating systems Windows 95, 98, NT and the beta version ...

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Back Orifice 2000 - the new Windows backdoor program released 10 July

Security Information  Week 28, 1999 The underground organization Cult of the Dead Cow has released a new version of its Windows backdoor program. Back Orifice 2000 ...

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Windows backdoor programs

Security Information  Week 11, 1999During the last half year one has seen an explosion in so-called Windows backdoor programs. These are programs which utilize the ...

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Norman's acquittal in Norway's Supreme Court

In April 1999 Norman was acquitted in the Supreme Court of Norway. This ruling has been noticed and commented upon by news agencies and magazines all over the world.

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The major security risk: Users

Security Information  Week 9, 1999The IT department in an organization often uses vast resources to be updated on security risks associated with hardware and software ...

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Using encryption as a tool to secure information

Security Information  Week 22, 1999 The need to secure information is for many organizations and persons extremely important. This includes of course business secrets, which could ...

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Security implications from the use of Internet Explorer version 5.0

Security Information  Week 16, 1999Not unexpectedly, soon after Internet Explorer (IE) version 5.0 was released, security holes in this browser were discovered. Microsoft has already ...

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What a hacker may know about your systems

Security Information  Week 10, 1999A person who is interested in breaking in to an organization's computers wants to know as much about these computers as ...

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Privacy after 11 September 2001?

Has a person's ability to protect his private life from intrusion of any kind been diminished during the years that has passed since 11 September 2001?

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Latest blog entries

The insecurity paradox

2011-08-29
The formula here attempts to explain a paradox in security analysis: If it is true that security is only as strong as its weakest link, why are not those who use insecur...
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The 10 most insecure passcodes

2011-06-16
Earlier this week I read an extremely interesting and impressing blog item by Daniel Amitay: Most Common iPhone Passcodes. Amitay has analyzed more than 200 000 passcodes used in an app with a similar...
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Purchasing and downloading outdated software

2011-05-23
Last week in the "JoshMeister On Security" blog, the topic was about Apple's Mac App Store, and the fact that software available from this store may not be the latest version. The blog's aut...
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