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The Most Common Motive for Cyber Attack

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Everyone is at risk of a Cyber attack because data is profitable and everyone has data. According to the Financial Times, the most common motive for cyber attack is theft, so we are all at risk. Read the article here. The answer is to decrease your vulnerability to the attack itself. With zero day flaws being found almost daily it is difficult, especially considering the recently discovered flaw that's been around for 17 years. It's due to be patched next week, but how many more like it do the bad guys know about that we don't?

Fake Outlook alert screen spreading banking trojans

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Fake Outlook updates have emerged in recent weeks to install banking Trojans which bad guys use to access your online account to make fraudulent transfers. Email filtering company Red Condor has been intercepting an email phishing campaign spreading faked Microsoft Outlook alerts at a phenomenal rate.

They work because the intended victim receives a personalized email message that appears to come from a techie using a return email address from the same domain as the target. Read More...

It's Rational to Reject [Good] Security Advice?

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In a recent article from Microsoft Research, users are behaving rationally when they reject security advice. According to the paper, the cost of many security policies outweighs their benefits. So, rational or not... Is it really the right thing to do?

Well, my opinion is still that the advice of experts that is based on proven best practices is worth following.

Read the article here. (pdf)

Malware is up to new Christmas tricks

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Koobface is up to new tricks and infecting a lot of people this Christmas. Using new methods involving YouTube and also Facebook. Bottom line as always... make sure you look at the URL of the site you're visiting (i.e. www.facebook.com www.youtube.com) and be very careful if sites ask you to download any updates like video codecs or Adobe Flash updates. The full stories are below:pcmag.com zdnet.com

Cable provider to scan it's Internet users for malicious traffic

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I think this is a step in the right direction although some may say it's overreaching and other will probably think it's not enough. Pn thursday October 8th Comcast announced Comcast Constant Guard, a web-based Service Notice to provide information to customers that have been infected with malware.  What they are attempting to do is help customers.  First by advising them that they may be infected with a bot, and second by helping them through the removal process. Now if all the ISPs could take the information they already have & provide it to their customers to help them in this same manner I could focus my attention on more fruitful IT endeavors!