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Categories
Category Archives: Security
War in Cyberspace Will Be A Real Mess
When hackers boast of their exploits, they often claim that they had only the good of the victim at heart – no matter what kind of mischief they’ve been up to. They usually innocently say that they are exposing how they accomplished whatever remarkable invasion or feat merely to help improve security of a site or system by exposing its flaws. The team that invented the Stuxnet virus has never publicly claimed that (or anything else for that matter), but they could if they so desired. Because that is apparently exactly what’s happened. And not only that, the clever people who deployed the virus to make the world safer may well have put all of us at greater risk than ever before. The story of the Stuxnet virus may be the perfect application of the Law of Unintended Consequences to cyberwar. Like Murphy’s Law, this axiomatic principle points out how human efforts often have unforeseen effects that are quite perversely the opposite of what was desired. Of course, since nobody associated with the creation of the virus has ever spoken out, no one knows who exactly is behind it or what their exact plans were. However, in the history computer viruses, Stuxnet holds a unique place – for it is the first virus that is a true weapon. Weaponized code Stuxnet was not designed to steal cash or information but to create real-world sabotage. It was malware specifically engineered to destroy … Continue reading
Is Cyberwar the New Normal?
The Internet these days is often compared to the Wild West. It, too, is a wide open frontier with endless possibilities, loose rules, limited government controls and not a few rustlers and bandits lurking along its trails. But unlike other frontiers, the Net seems to steadily becoming more dangerous, not less. And there are now armies on the move. Hackers aren’t just computer whiz kids, online scam artists, or even criminal networks any more. Hacking has become a weapon of war. Stunning accusations in a recent report by Mandiant, a US online security firm, provide insights of just how persistent threats from government hackers working for certain enemy states have grown. The company has been investigating security breaches at hundreds of organizations around the world since 2004. Their tracking of threats has allowed them to identify more than 20 hacking groups within China. The largest of these, which they called APT1, for “Advanced Persistent Threat” has conducted vast hauls of information from hundreds of organizations since 2006. Madiant’s detective work on over 150 corporate victims for over 7 years paid off. They were able to identify APT1 as a unit of the People’s Liberation Army of China with a code designation of Unit 61398, precisely located its facilities in the middle of Shanghai, and even named three key developers. They watched APT1 compromise 141 companies in 20 industries, and studied in detail APT1’s sophisticated methodology – in one case, as … Continue reading
Posted in How the Net Works, Interesting Items, News, Security
Tagged CISPA, cybercrime, cyberwar, malware, security
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The Hazards of Abandoning a Domain
It happens all the time: you click on a link and the website that comes up is not what you expected. If you’re lucky, the page is simply gone, but the site may look oddly similar and contain links for the subject you’re interested in, or it may be a trap bristling with malware and spam. In any case, you probably shrug and move on, pausing briefly to delete the bookmark if there is one, but you likely don’t spend much time wondering what happened. What happened is that the website owner quit. Maybe she or he died, or their lives and interests changed, or the company went broke. Possibly the owner just forgot to renew the domain registration. Whatever the cause, abandoned domains rarely just die quietly forgotten any more. Usually they are snapped up even if they are not high-traffic, popular sites, often by a domain registrar hoping to cash in on, but increasingly by people with worse intentions in mind. Not long ago, it was not uncommon for websites of churches, schools and government institutions that had lapsed to be grabbed up by Web porn purveyors. They may have done it more for the shock value rather than to make money, but in more recent times even more sinister characters have been doing much the same. Nowadays, an abandoned website may present an irresistible temptation to hackers and spammers to walk in and take over. However, unlike … Continue reading
Posted in News, Online Tools, Security, Warnings, Your Online Presence
Tagged cybercrime, domains, hackers, security, spam, web sites
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