Articles about Security

A Distributed Denial of Service attack is no different from someone repeatedly tapping F5 in their web browser, at least accordingly to loose hacktivist collective Anonymous. The group (or someone claiming to be affiliated with it at least) has added a petition to the White House's We the People website, asking the US government to recognize DDoS as a legal form of protesting, and comparing it to the international "occupy" movement.

The petition also calls for the immediate release of those who have been jailed for DDoS attacks, and for their records to be cleared.

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What do you really want from a security suite? Most companies appear to believe the answer is "as many features as possible", and so they’ll cram their products with as many vaguely security-related tools as possible, in the hope that the sheer weight of functionality might win you over.

Comodo Internet Security Pro 2013, however, takes a very different route. There’s no spam filter here. No parental controls, or backup tool. And it won’t add warning icons to your web page search results. Instead, the program concentrates very much on the core security basics: detecting and removing known malware immediately, while preventing even brand new threats from causing any damage.

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Yesterday I reported on a jailbreak method that allows Windows RT users to run unsigned apps on their tablets. And usually, after hacks are made public, large software companies promptly respond by issuing updates to reign in the rebels or release vague, almost standardized, PR statements to reassure customers. But that's not Microsoft's response. The Redmond, Wash.-based corporation actually commends "the folks" that uncovered the hack.

The developer that goes by the name "clrokr" says that the hack is only possible because Microsoft did not patch a vulnerability in the NT kernel, which was later carried over to Windows RT. The software giant, however, begs to differ and says that the documented jailbreak method does not represent a security vulnerability.

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The popularity of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model has raised a lot of questions about security and the cloud, and firms embracing the trend also have to worry about what might happen to important data if a laptop, tablet, or smartphone gets stolen, lost, or broken while an employee is away from work.

It doesn’t matter how careful people are, accidents will always happen. According to a recent study by SquareTrade, over 30 percent of iPhones have been damaged in some way. Deaths by misadventure include being dropped in the toilet (9 percent), put in the washing machine (5 percent), and being left on the roof of a car prior to the driver making a quick getaway (6 percent). In the case of BYOD hardware, the loss of data is usually more worrying that the loss or destruction of the device itself.

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Welcome to the second Tuesday of the month, the day that has become universally known in tech circles as Patch Tuesday. It is that one day when Microsoft chooses to reach out and touch our computers in an effort to fix whatever has gone wrong or been exploited over the past month. Even during the Consumer Electronics Show we cannot escape Microsoft -- Steve Ballmer made a surprise appearance on stage last night, and now there is this.

For January 2013 there are several fixes in store for customers. There is of course the obligatory Malicious Software Removal Tool update, which appears almost every month. The tool works in the background in an effort to keep PC's safe. Most customers never know it is there because it does not appear in any app list, but if needed, you can launch it from "Run" by typing "MRT".

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Over the long weekend I saw McAfee had predicted that the threat from Anonymous would decline in the new year. The group apparently disagrees and has posted a video boasting of its accomplishments in 2012 and stating emphatically: "We are still here".

The two minute and twenty second video, posted to YouTube, lays out a rather lengthy list of past endeavors including attacks on government websites in the United States, Syria and Israel, as well as on groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America and the infamous Westboro Baptist Church.

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Yesterday my colleague Wayne Williams posted hist list of must-have iPad apps. Of course I did not want Android fans to be left out, so I sat down and thought about the apps I use most on my Galaxy Nexus. This was a tough decision because there are many. Of course, it is also purely driven by personal opinion and tastes, but many of these types of lists are.

So, if you found a new phone or tablet under your tree on December 25th and you are wondering what you should install then here is a top-10 list of my personal recommendations.

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Malwarebytes Corporation has released Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.70. And while (as usual with this particular program) the upgrade isn’t particularly revolutionary, it does contain some important tweaks and additions.

The new build sees Anti-Malware finally get up-to-date with Windows 8, for instance. Not only does the program now properly identify Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10 in scan logs, but it can also use the Windows 8 Start Screen to show notifications.

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There is a lot of recent chatter about malware on Android devices, but much of it is overblown. Microsoft recently learned a lesson when its #DroidRage campaign when down in flames. Honestly, while there is malware out there, it is not as prevalent as you are being led to believe. Still, being careful is always the best advice.

To that end, there are a number of steps you can take to make sure that brand new tablet or phone is as safe as possible. The mobile operating system is not the minefield that was past versions of Internet Explorer and Windows, but does have its share of flaws that can lead to compromise.

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It’s taken a little longer than we were expecting, but Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition is now available in an English language version. And if what you most want for Christmas is a lightweight and very simple antivirus tool, then this could be very good news indeed.

The program offers a reasonable core feature set, with basic real-time protection, simple on-demand scanning (right-click any file or folder in Explorer for a “Scan with Bitdefender” option), and system scans that will run automatically when your system is idle.

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A report surfaced today that Verizon Wireless, a premier mobile carrier in the United States has been breached, with a result of three million customers being compromised. The good news is that the compromise does not seem to be malicious. The bad news is that, as proof of this, 300,000 users' data was released.

While the number may seem large, it represents a small fraction of the company's user base. Still, any customer information released into the wild is bad. So how did this happen and how bad is it?

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UK software developer Comodo Group has launched the 2013 range -- version 6.0 -- of its free internet security products. COMODO Internet Security Premium 2013, COMODO AntiVirus 2013 and COMODO Firewall 2013 all debut a brand new, radically revamped and simplified user interface, plus come with the promise of being the lightest, fastest version of COMODO’s security tool yet.

The latest build also improves virtualization technology for running applications in their own sandbox, while COMODO Internet Security also ships with a number of new integrated products, including Autorun Analyzer and COMODO Cleaning Essentials.

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While the cloud generally provides for better reliability than on-premise systems, having a solid backup plan is still a universal necessity. Cloud solutions like Google Apps and Office 365 have nearly eliminated the notion of data loss due to technological failure. The systems and processes in place that govern the storage of your important data with players like Google and Microsoft are rock solid. We can fault providers for service downtime any day of the week; but you'll be hard pressed to read about cases where they actually lost your data.

The biggest issue with data loss on cloud platforms lies within the acute problem of human error. We aren't perfect and will likely always be dealing with data loss stemming from incorrect clicks, mistaken deletion, and other similar circumstances. For this very reason, even with its inherent safety nets, the cloud needs a fallback of its own.

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Samsung is yet again in the spotlight with a new, potentially dangerous, security flaw. A developer revealed an exploit at kernel level that allows access to the entire physical memory on a number of popular Exynos-based devices, including the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II.

Thankfully, a developer behind the SuperSU rooting tool, came promptly to the rescue and released an app which can be used by affected users to temporarily plug the security hole.

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According to Total Defense, a provider of internet security services and a former division of CA Technologies, the web is the primary vector for malware, with 85 percent of all threats originating there. More than 6,000 websites are infected every day, the company says, and the statistics don’t end there. It’s said that at least 75 percent of the world’s email is spam, and Total Defense estimates over 50 percent of malicious messages take the form of blended  attacks designed to lure recipients into visiting infected web pages.

To prevent firms falling foul of these kind of threats the company has announced what it’s calling the "industry’s first true cloud security platform", offering enterprises and small-to-medium businesses multi-layered cloud-based protection.

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