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"Distrust and caution are the parents of security" - Benjamin Franklin
Threatpost editor Paul Roberts discusses issues that matter to small businesses including the impact of the recent Wikileaks debacle and the need for improved endpoint security, patch management and data protection on Pulse Network’s ITEC This Week with hosts Tyler Pyburn and Bill Sell.
The words “cyber war” were in the headlines this week, as controversy and debate about the leak of confidential diplomatic cables by Wikileaks reached a fever pitch. As speculation turned to the fallout from the ongoing publication of documents, the U.S. government laid the groundwork to prevent similar breaches while two browsers announced changes for upcoming builds. Read on for the full week in review.
How do you know when your alt.hacking conference has arrived? Maybe when scalpers are offering tickets for the event on eBay for almost three times the face value. That’s the situation the organizers of hacking conference Shmoocon have found themselves in, as illicit auctions for tickets to next year’s conference, to be held January 28-30, threatening to overshadow the event.
A new scam has been circulating the internet lately that aims to swindle Amazon sellers by generating fake receipts. Amazon Receipt Generator, an executable file, has been making the rounds on hacking forums for the last few months.
It was difficult to go anywhere this week without hearing about the flurry of activity surrounding the Wikileaks data dump. A slew of denial-of-service attacks followed soon after, while new ransomware and attacks on open-source software filled out the rest of the week’s news. Read on for the week in review.
The Federal Trade Commission introduced a framework today that aims to address privacy issues raised by consumers that directly affects how our activity is tracked online. The agency went on to advocate the creation of a “Do Not Track” mechanism that could help shape the future of browser security.
Not to sound like a luddite but – to
paraphrase “Joshua,” the supercomputer from War Games –
the only way you can be sure you’ll win in the war against hackers and
cyber criminals is not to play. Which is our way of
saying that if you can’t make peace with the security implications that
go along with the convenience of online shopping, there’s always cash. Its
fast, simple and – provided you don’t get mugged – alleviates any concern about
security, let alone identity theft.
As in
life in general, if something works, you stick with it. How else to explain the
continued popularity and prevelance of e-mail based spam and phishing attacks,
even though everyone knows that e-mail is so “1998”? Alas, the truth
is that attacks embedded as links or malicious attachments in e-mail messages
are a big threat this year, as they have been every holiday season since the
turn of the Millenium. Likewise, so-called phishing Web sites dressed up to
impersonate legitimate sites continue to be a problem for those
shopping online.
Mobile payments have been going strong in countries like Japan and
Finland for years now. In the U.S., however, its taken longer for mobile
payments to get a hold on consumers. That’s all about to change. Late model mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone and Google Android-based
phones now offer consumers a host of applications for sending electronic payments
to friends and merchants.
When you walk into a doctor’s
office, you like to see those frames hanging, right? The degrees from the
prestigious medical school and certificates of completion from a reputable
hospital residency program? The license from your state’s Board of Registration
in Medicine, maybe? They don’t mean your doctor’s a good clinician, mind you.
They just mean that she or he has attained a level of competency and been
evaluated by professionals who know. And that, at the very least, gives you a
measure of comfort in the quality of care you get.
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