Web Security Review

The US government may be hardening it’s stance against the growing threat from cyber-attacks and guess what they did to make it known? They got a hacker to provide them with an insight to act as adviser to the government, a move that would surely get him on every cyber-hit man’s roster or possible targets. They say he’s only on as an adviser but for the world of Black Hats, this is seen a s treachery, a move that counters all beliefs on which they function, to deny his own people. “Dark Tangent” as he was known during his hacking days, was hired by the new and fortified Cyber-Security command which is to try and bolster the ability of the US government to fend of attacks hopefully armed with his insight on how they work. Continue Reading »

Scareware, or a form of malware that tricks customers with bogus messages that leads users to sites that install fake security software for a fee. These tactics have long been used by hackers to get hard earned cash from people’s pockets for nothing. The software you install in turn asks you to get more and more software till you finally get it that the whole thing was a sham, with your cash long gone and the errors they were reporting. Many of these sites have been targeted by law enforcement in the past few years but there are still some persistent ones that manage to survive the best efforts of law enforcement agents. Continue Reading »

Twitter has received blow after blow in terms of attacks to the micro-blogging site that has been rendered useless on several instances, finally a free plugin from FinJan that protects you from attack when using your favorite micro-blogging site. The free browser plug-in dubbed SecureTwitter allows users to get a message saying if the site they are about to enter contains a malicious URL. This systems works much like the way Google blocks suspected attack sites, displaying a message to state their reason for blocking the site through detailed analysis results. Continue Reading »

A long standing botnet was closed with it’s manager arrested and subsequently charged with cyber-crimes leaving him to deal with a 5 year sentence of which he is to serve 2 in jail and the rest on conditional release. He will be allowed out on the conditions he would have limited access to computers and the internet, seemingly to follow the movie “Hackers”. This victory comes after a hosting firm based in California was ordered shut by the FTC and FBI after it was proven to have hosted malware spreading sites and spamming botnets. He even when as far as selling the services of his botnet, using “bots4sale” as a catch phrase to people he knew were going to use it for spamming of close to half a million computers the world over. Continue Reading »

Before anything else, we need to set this straight: YOU NEED an anti-virus program. You cannot do without one, because sooner or later, you will get infected.

Now, that being said, you may be turned off by the thought of paying for anti-virus programs. There are several good anti-virus programs being sold on the internet like Kaspersky and BitDefender, but if you really are decided in not buying, then the next best thing is to go for free.

There are a number of free anti-virus programs like Avira AntiVir, AVG, and Panda, all of which provide adequate protection against common infections. There are also daily and / or regular updates (which are also free) so you always have the latest virus definitions.

The only downside is that paid anti-virus programs have more customization features and offer added protection for your system.

Data storage is a very costly business considering the fact that one of the biggest network of data centers is owned by Google who has managed to keep them out of the sight of well, everybody. The lack of information regarding the location of Google’s famed data center or data centers might be the thing that has spared it from the many attacks that have been done in the past years. Botnets, Viruses and other malware have been targeting not only the lowly desktop I’m using but the whole internet itself. Imagine managing to disable one of the major data links in and out of a major country Continue Reading »

Web security can only be as good as the ones who use it, as the report below will show:

The investigation, conducted by McAfee(R) SiteAdvisor(TM), studied the five major U.S. search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Ask) and found that the overall chance of clicking through to a risky site declined by 12.0%. Still, McAfee estimates that consumers click through to risky sites more than 268 million times each month.

“It’s good to see that clicking on search engine results has gotten modestly safer,” said Chris Dixon, director of strategy, McAfee SiteAdvisor. “But when almost one of 12 sponsored links still clicks through to a risky site, there remains significant room for continued improvement.”

Hopefully the number goes down even further next year due to additional internet knowledge and ensure that internet security goes higher.

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Image Source: farm4.static.flickr.com

Symantec has just recently released its newest products in security, adding up another reliable software to protect your pc form the latest security and vulnerability threats. Norton Internet Security 2009 provides protection on all online threats known today. It provides protection to your personal computer, your identity and your home network without taking much of your precious hard disk space. The latest product is re engineered to provide you with faster scans and updates. Now you can definitely, do your banking, shopping and browsing online without having to fear anything. It promises to stop the threats even before they install themselves in your precious machine. It now checks on the files which are the most targeted for exploitation so as to speed up scanning.

Image Source: pictures.directnews.co.uk

It is found in a research that English speaking countries are targeted more for identity thefts. It rates to twice the rate of many European countries. Reports of identity fraud victims are 10% in the US, Canda and the United Kingdom. These being English speaking countries. Germany, France and Spain only reported a 5% rate of identity fraud. The Germans enjoy the lowest ratio of identity fraud among the specified countries, reporting only 3% identity fraud cases. While the Germans may have helped themselves to be more less riskier of being identity theft victims du to the fact that they are more cautious in handling their passwords. Only one in four Germans, according to the survey ever revealed their password to anyone they know. Unlike in the US where 60% of the respondents reported to have shared their passwords with their loved ones and or family members. Next is the French which totaled 56% over all. AMericans tend to write down their passwords so they would know what it is when they forget. The Freanch and Spanish users are the most lax in handling their passwords.

Image Source: static.rbytes.net

Privacy Eraser- they are programs developed to clear private date saved in your browser. These softwares help keep your information concealed and secured. Anything we do in our computer is saved and mapped over the memory. Stored in the hard drive for future use. All these slowly eats up precious system?resources, leaving less space for other things you need to do in your pc. The computer grows slower everyday.This is where the the Internet/Privacy Eraser comes in. It literally erases the stored temporary files, permanently deleting it so as to free up you hard disk space. Some softwares have plug-ins that comply with Defense standards. The eraser software offers useful tools that cleans the cache, cookies, browser history etc.

So you might want to try them out now, and free up that space that you so ever need.

Tags: eraser, privacy, xp