Insider Attack and Cyber Security: Beyond the Hacker

Insider Attack and Cyber Security: Beyond the Hacker defines the nature and scope of insider problems as viewed by the financial industry. This edited volume is based on the first workshop on Insider Attack and Cyber Security, IACS 2007. The workshop was a joint effort from the Information Security Departments of Columbia University and Dartmouth College.

This book sets an agenda for an ongoing research initiative to solve one of the most vexing problems encountered in security, and includes the following topics: critical IT infrastructure, insider threats, awareness and dealing with nefarious human activities in a manner that respects individual liberties and privacy policies of organizations while providing the best protection of critical resources and services. In some sense, the insider problem is the ultimate security problem. This volume concludes with technical and legal challenges facing researchers who study and propose solutions to mitigate insider attacks.
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Archives aided by anti-spam tools

Obscured text systems are a widely used anti-spam tool.

Crumbling texts and books are being digitised thanks to anti-spam tools.

To thwart spammers many websites force visitors to transcribe obscured words or characters before they get access.

Now instead of random words many sites are taking text from old books and documents that have been scanned by character reading software.

The words supplied are those the software cannot read but humans can, helping to complete the conversion of old texts to digital form.

Archives aided by anti-spam tools

Police stalking cyber fraudsters

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DC Kevin Ives talks about a raid on a house in the hunt for a suspect

It was a dawn raid with a difference.

No flak jackets, no helmets and no-one was carrying a "key" - the metal pipe used by police to break down locked doors.

Instead, fraud officers from the City of London Police, accompanied by two computer experts from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, knocked on the innocuous front door of the home in north London and told the residents they were coming in.

They found their 19-year-old target immediately.

He was made to sit on a chair and be cautioned as his computers, laptops, mobile phones and PDAs were seized and his bewildered parents, brothers and sisters looked on.

The man under arrest is accused of being a member of Darkmarket - the secret internet forum for criminals where fake IDs, credit card details, PIN codes and personal data are traded and everything is available - for a price.

Electronic trail

The FBI infiltrated the site two years ago and has spent this long gathering evidence against the members.

How well do you know PC security?

Many people still fall victim to e-mailed viruses
Is your PC well protected or is it the plaything of malicious hackers the world over?

To find out if you are security savvy or simply a sucker, answer the questions in our quiz and find out how much you know about staying safe when using the web.

How well do you know PC security?

Anatomy of a spam e-mail

A daily chore of modern life for many is the morning trawl through a full inbox deleting spam email. But just where does it all come from and why do spammers use bizarre text, names and images in their emails?

To the expert eye a typical spam is laden with clues to its origin. Click on the links below to find out more.

Cybercrime wave sweeping Britain

Cybercriminals use sophisticated and professional techniques

Cybercrime in the UK rose by more than 9% in 2007, according to a new report.

Online identity firm Garlik's cybercrime report claims that more than 3.5 million online crimes were committed in the UK last year.

The majority of crimes related to fraud and abusive or threatening e-mails. There was an 8% drop in online identity theft and sexual offences fell 2%.

Tom Ilube, of Garlick, said he expected to see a growth in online financial fraud due to the credit crunch.

Cybercrime wave sweeping Britain

Trojan virus steals banking info

Sinowal infects victims' computers without leaving any trace

The details of about 500,000 online bank accounts and credit and debit cards have been stolen by a virus described as "one of the most advanced pieces of crimeware ever created".

The Sinowal trojan has been tracked by RSA, which helps to secure networks in Fortune 500 companies.

RSA said the trojan virus has infected computers all over the planet.

"The effect has been really global with over 2000 domains compromised," said Sean Brady of RSA's security division.

Trojan virus steals banking info

Next-Gen credit card to keep you safer?

You like to buy your gadgets and electronics using your credit card, right? It’s convenient and quick. You don’t even think about it. But it’s not always safe. The chip in cards and the PIN have been a security and safety problem for some time now. How do they intend to cure these problems and make you safer?

If Innovative Card Technologies and eMue Technologies have their way, you will be using their new card system, which will be shown at the Cartes & Identification in Paris this November.

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New NEC laptops issue you a Face Pass

Improved security for your computer is all the rage these days and NEC is out to impress you (and attain your patronage) by going the facial recognition route. The company has just announced plans to bring out two new laptop lines for the Japanese market that integrate NEC’s “Face Pass” technology to keep strangers out of your files.

The LaVie C and LaVie L series use the laptop’s 2.0 megapixel camera and its NeoFace software to recognize your mug when you try and log on to the machine. NeoFace can ascertain the physical differences between your face and someone else’s by measuring the distance from your eyes to specific features on your face.

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Sequiam Biometrics Biovault 2.0 safe

Here’s another device you can give the finger too. For security reasons of course. Much like the Master Lock smartTOUCH garage door opener we covered earlier. The Sequiam Biometrics BioVault 2.0 is a safe that needs your finger to open it and get to the valuables inside. It recognizes your fingerprint and opens at your command. You can program it to open for others too, if you grant them access. The safe can accommodate up to 50 users.

You can store your gold inside, jewelry, even your precious and expensive gadgets, but it’s really designed to store guns safely and is endorsed by the NRA. It makes sense to store guns in a safe like this as it would apparently open quickly, but keep them safely locked away from kids. The price is $399.95.

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Maxtor & Sentry Group create fire resistant drives

Information is a precious and delicate thing. Which is why we humans have a hard candy shell wrapped around our brain. If our gooey info-centers were just exposed on top of our heads, we would be in big trouble. And it’s not like you can back up grey matter.

Luckily hard drives can be backed up, though truthfully not very many people actually do it. Let’s say you back up all of that precious data onto an external hard drive. Good job! You are now on the road to information safety. But wait…What if your house burns down? Or you get flooded? Nothing you can do about those acts of God right? Wrong. Thanks to Maxtor teaming up with Sentry Group, you can now have a drive that is both fire resistant and waterproof. These drives can withstand 1550F degrees for about a half hour as well as spend up to a day submerged in water.

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Lazer Trip Wire

With these Lazer Trip Wires you can set up an invisible perimeter to alert your of any unwanted invasions of your “space”. The devices don’t actually use real laser beams (hence the spelling ‘lazer’), but use infrared beams to create an invisible trip wire that sets off an alarm when anyone crosses it.

The kit comes with three devices, one main and two secondary units that each send and detect a beam. You can set up two that point at each other or all three or more to create a perimeter. Each …

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3M Mobile ID Reader makes security checks quicker

This new 3M Mobile ID Reader could soon be used at events or in situations that require tight security. The idea is that it would scan your identification quickly to prove that you are who you say you are. Then you can be on your way in no time. It works like a credit card scanner and it would be used to scan things like your Visa card or passport, cross checking that info with watch lists of those who are threats.

It runs on Windows Mobile 6 and features WiFi, GSM/GPRS EDGE and a fingerprint sensor. It also has 8GB of storage for keeping track of those that have been scanned. That way they can leave all of that data sitting around somewhere and screw us all. Let’s hope not.

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OPHCrack LiveCD v2.0.1

OPHCrack LiveCD v2.0.1 | 548.23 Mb

Ophcrack is a free Windows password cracker based on rainbow tables. It is a very efficient implementation of rainbow tables done by the inventors of the method. It comes with a Graphical User Interface and runs on multiple platforms.

Features:
» Runs on Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS X, ...
» Cracks LM and NTLM hashes.
» Free tables available for Windows XP and Vista.
» Brute-force module for simple passwords.
» LiveCD available to simplify the cracking.
» Loads hashes from encrypted SAM recovered from a Windows partition, Vista included.

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Data Rescue II v1.2.1 Bootable DVD MAC OSX

Data Rescue II v1.2.1 Bootable DVD MAC OSX

Do you have a corrupt hard drive or one that no longer mounts? Are other tools failing to even recognize your bad drive? Do you need to recover files that have been deleted? Data Rescue II is the best digital data recovery software on the market for recovering files from a problem hard drive or that have been previously deleted. Data Rescue II works when other tools fail. Data Rescue II is also completely safe to use since it does not attempt any risky repairs to the drive it's scanning. This is the safest, most powerful software to recover your hard drive. Data Rescue II is the same software used by many data recovery services!

Total Size | 500 MB
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ZIP Recovery Toolbox v1.0.8.37

Repair damaged ZIP files. ZIP Recovery Toolbox is used to recover data from corrupted ZIP files. The program recovers files from ZIP archives and minimizes data loss during recovery.

Repair damaged ZIP files. ZIP Recovery Toolbox is used to recover data from corrupted ZIP files. The program recovers files from ZIP archives and minimizes data loss during recovery. The ZIP file recovery tool scans the entire corrupted archive and saves maximum information from the unreadable ZIP file. The program uses several algorithms and methods for recovering data from unreadable ZIP files. The full scan of a ZIP file and several recovery algorithms allow the program to minimize data loss while recovering data from bad ZIP files. Besides, the program checks the integrity of recovered data. The user sees maximum information about the data being recovered from corrupted ZIP archives.

Its convenient and clear interface makes the data recovery process comfortable and clear for users. The tool recovers password-protected files (it is necessary to enter the password to the ZIP file for correct data recovery).

Program features:
* Repair encrypted data from ZIP archives.
* Repair self-extracting (SFX) files.
* Repair ZIP files larger than 2 GB.
* Restore ZIP files from damaged media (floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, Zip drives, etc.).
* Check file integrity.
* Repair corrupted ZIP archives on the local area network.
* Fix the error Cannot open file: it does not appear to be a valid archive in ZIP archives

Size | 1.2 MB
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Computer viruses make it to orbit

The virus travelled on a laptop issued to an astronaut

A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS).

Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG.

The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games.

Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected.

Orbital outbreak

Space news website SpaceRef broke the story about the virus on the laptops that astronauts took to the ISS.

Nasa told SpaceRef that no command or control systems of the ISS were at risk from the malicious program.

The laptops infected with the virus were used to run nutritional programs and let the astronauts periodically send e-mail back to Earth.

The laptops carried by astronauts reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection.

Once it has scooped up passwords and login names the Gammima.AG worm virus tries to send them back to a central server. It targets a total of 10 games most of which are popular in the Far East such as Maple Story, HuangYi Online and Talesweaver.

Nasa is working with partners on the ISS to find out how the virus got on to the laptop in the first place.

The ISS has no direct net connection and all data traffic travelling from the ground to the spacecraft is scanned before being transmitted.

It is thought that the virus might have travelled via a flash or USB drive owned by an astronaut and taken into space.

The space agency also plans to put in place security systems to stop such incidents happening in the future.

Nasa told Wired News that viruses had infected laptops taken to the ISS on several occasions but the outbreaks had always only been a "nuisance".



View All http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology

Mac users 'still lax on security'

Apple Mac users are still too lax when it comes to security matters, an independent researcher has said.

Kevin Finisterre caused ripples in the Mac community when he started a website in January revealing a different bug in Apple systems each day of the month.

While some observers dismissed the survey, Apple recently issued a patch to plug holes outlined by Finisterre.

Apple owners' attitude to security was "one of the main reasons we started the campaign," he said.


Apple makes great play of the fact that its OSX operating has yet to be attacked by a virus while Windows XP machines are plagued with problems.

Its recent global campaign of adverts pitching Macs versus PCs has focused on security issues.

XP machines are represented by a flu-ridden, sneezing individual while the Mac remains untouched by illness.

Security holes

Many of the problems highlighted by Finisterre are security holes in applications, which are not related to viruses.

Apple recently plugged holes in Mac software such as iChat and Finder and a flaw in the user notification process that could potentially grant system privileges to malicious users.

All three problems were highlighted by Finisterre, and a fellow researcher known only as LMH.

Finisterre said: "Try calling any Apple store and ask any sales rep what you would do with regard to security, ask if there is anything you should have to worry about?

"They will happily reinforce the feeling of 'Security on a Mac? What? Me worry?'."

He said the Month of Apple Bugs (MOAB) project had succeeded in its original aim of raising the level of awareness around Mac security.

"I would really hope that people got the point that there are most definitely some things under the OSX hood that need a closer look," he said.

But Mac experts have pointed out that none of the exploits have ever successfully been used to hijack an Apple computer.

By contrast hundreds of thousands of Windows machines have been taken over as part of so-called bot nets, which use the hijacked machines to deliver millions of spam e-mails around the world.
'Extra efforts'

He said Apple had opened up dialogue about security issues.
"They have certainly given some extra efforts on the backend to open up lines of communication, at least with me.

"That sort of progress is what I am after rather than a particular set of bugs."

He said that Apple had in the past not been open to dialogue about security matters, but things were changing for the better.


"I chat quite regularly with some of the security engineers," he said.

At the moment there are no plans for the MOAB website to continue.

Real life comes in to play; the cost of living, the fact that we did it all for free.
If someone wanted to invest some of their own resources I would be more than willing to continue."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology

NVR-102 network surveillance kit lets you chat with captives, err, visitors

QNAP Systems has unveiled a new network-based instant surveillance system which combines a video recorder and two IP cameras for home or office security. It is known as the NVR-102.

The QNAP NVR-102 provides what is described as “professional grade live video recording and real-time remote monitoring/playback.” It is run off of Linux and can reportedly be setup quickly. All functions can be configured through a Web browser such as Internet Explorer and no additional software is required.

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Maxtor & Sentry Group create fire resistant drives

Information is a precious and delicate thing. Which is why we humans have a hard candy shell wrapped around our brain. If our gooey info-centers were just exposed on top of our heads, we would be in big trouble. And it’s not like you can back up grey matter.

Luckily hard drives can be backed up, though truthfully not very many people actually do it. Let’s say you back up all of that precious data onto an external hard drive. Good job! You are now on the road to information safety. But wait…What if your house burns down? Or you get flooded? Nothing you can do about those acts of God right? Wrong. Thanks to Maxtor teaming up with Sentry Group, you can now have a drive that is both fire resistant and waterproof. These drives can withstand 1550F degrees for about a half hour as well as spend up to a day submerged in water.

(more...)