I don’t know how many of you noticed, but Romney and Gingrich were the ONLY candidates last night to mention the Chinese cyber-invasion against the U.S. While all the other issues, the economy, jobs, energy, and so forth are of vital importance, it is very foolish to ignore what could potentially be the most devastating issue of all. That’s not the only news in the world of Safenetting this week …
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Cyber threats likely to increase this year; phones at risk
* Better Business Bureau warns consumers about popular scams
* Google Chrome Finally Gets Malware Download Protection
* Microsoft refunds victim of Xbox Live phishing scam
* Mumbai is number one for banking fraud in country
* Sites knocked offline by OpenDNS freeze on Google
* Lecture: George Akerlof on “Phishing for Phools”
* Facebook Malware Blitz: 45000 passwords stolen
* Microsoft says phishing scams not due to hacker
* Strategic Security Primer for the C-Level
* Cyber Warfare and the Privacy Revolution
. . . and more!
Cyber Warfare and the Privacy Revolution
Historically the Agricultural Revolution and Industrial Revolution had enormous effect on society, as did the ongoing Computer Revolution. Roger Thompson ICSA Labs Chief Emerging Threat Researcher says :
the World Wide Web as revolution number four, followed by the Privacy Revolution as “the fifth, and the most dangerous.
Full story : Security Watch — PC Magazine
Cyber threats likely to increase this year; phones at risk
Any organization that believes it has shuttered all of the back door channels that hackers used to breach millions of systems last year should double check the locks in 2012, according to security experts.
A cyber threat forecast by Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow Internet security firm, warns there is little doubt the cloud-based storage hack that took down Sony’s PlayStation Network for more than a month will spread beyond gaming companies. Full story : ScrippsNews
Facebook Malware Blitz: 45000 passwords stolen
The latest malware to attack social networking site Facebook has achieved near blitzkrieg proportions, snatching up a reported 45,000 passwords.
The computer worm or malicious software or malware has apparently gone viral, according to internet security experts, and its main target seems to be users’ Facebook login details, affecting users around the world. Full story : allvoices
Microsoft refunds victim of Xbox Live phishing scam
Microsoft has refunded an Xbox Live user who hit headlines this week for discovering she was the victim of an overseas phishing scam.
The user in question explained that her account was compromised on multiple occasions and used to purchase 1,000s of Microsoft Points, despite Microsoft having insisted the account had been locked. Full story : Computerandvideogames.com
Mumbai is number one for banking fraud in country
Mumbai tops the list of cities with the highest number of frauds reported by banks, with the money involved totalling Rs400 per year for the past five years.
Interestingly, the total number of banking frauds reported in Mumbai every year is more than those of Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore taken together. While a five year average figure for Mumbai is about 800 cases, the number for other cities is approximately 200. Full story : Daily News & Analysis
Google Chrome Finally Gets Malware Download Protection
Nine months after first being put into testing, the new version of Chrome will at last included filtering against inadvertently downloading malware executables, Google has announced.
Reported as being on the browser’s long list as long ago as April 2011, the version 17 beta includes the ability to relate known malicious websites detected using the software’s Safe Browsing API, blocking downloads hosted on such domains. Full story : John E Dunn, Techworld.com
Better Business Bureau warns consumers about popular scams
The Better Business Bureau is hoping consumers will learn a lesson from past mistakes The organization is publicizing a list of scams to watch for in 2012 showing how scammers use misrepresentation to gain trust.
Good, basic, easy-to-understand primer on protecting yourself . . . you should pass this link along to everyone in your address book — whether you think they already know it or not! Full story : Martin Millerchip – North Shore News
Sites knocked offline by OpenDNS freeze on Google
Innocent websites were blocked and labelled phishers on Wednesday following an apparent conflict between OpenDNS and Google’s Content Delivery Network (CDN). OpenDNS – a popular domain name lookup service* – sparked the outage by blocking access to googleapis.com, Google’s treasure trove of useful scripts and apps for web developers. According to reports, a flood of errors hit pages that used Google-hosted jQuery and hundreds of thousands of sites fell over.
Visitors to websites were confronted with a message saying: “Phishing site blocked. Phishing is a fraudulent attempt to get you to provide personal information under false pretenses.” Full story : Gavin Clarke — The Register
Strategic Security Primer for the C-Level
Computer and network security is a scary mix of strange terms and acronyms that can make it seem like some mystic art. It really isn’t that complicated, though. Here are the basics of business security that every executive should know.
Information security is like a foreign language to most people. Larger organizations have IT and security administrators fluent in security-speak to sort it all out and make sure everything is properly protected, but managers in smaller organizations are left to translate this lingo on their own. Full story : PCWorld (blog)
Microsoft says phishing scams not due to hacker
Microsoft has come out responding to the recent string of phishing scams against Xbox Live members that it is not the result of their service being hacked.
Tumblr user Susan Taylor has shared details of one such scam on the blog. Her Xbox Live account was illegally accessed by someone who then purchased a Family Gold Pack under her name and gifted points to other accounts that are later sold through online auctions. Full story : Myona News
Lecture: George Akerlof on “Phishing for Phools”
Jan. 10 5:00 PM Free and open to the public
Why DID you buy all that stuff at those after-Christmas sales? SCAD’s “The Art of the Mind” lecture series presents this 2011 Nobel Prize-winning economist and author, discussing examines why we buy things and how they are marketed. with two January 2012 speakers. Both talks are free and open to the public. Full story : Connect Savannah.com
What did you miss in the last Safenetting post Send in your items for Safenetting readers
Facebook Safe Netting Join / Like / contribute : UGNN FaceBook Group, (ug.netnews)
If you think you’re a victim, file a complaint with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center : IC3.
You can also keep up with the efforts to curb spam and cybercrime by reading the news at Knujon and HostExploit.com. And, you should switch to SpamCop and take a stand against spam.
