Avoid using Instagram on public Wi-Fi...

A configuration problem in Facebook's popular Instagram application for Apple devices could allow a hacker to hijack a person's account if they're both on the same public Wi-Fi network.

Stevie Graham, who describes himself as a "hacker at large" based in London, wrote on Twitter that Facebook won't pay him a reward for reporting the flaw, which he said he found years ago.

Graham wrote he hopes to draw more attention to the issue by writing a tool that could quickly compromise many Instagram accounts. He cheekily calls the tool "Instasheep," a play onFiresheep, a Firefox extension that can compromise online accounts in certain circumstances.

"I think this attack is extremely severe because it allows full session hijack and is easily automated," according to Graham's technical writeup. "I could go to the Apple Store tomorrow and reap thousands of accounts in one day, and then use them to post spam."

Graham's finding is a long-known configuration problem that has prompted many Web companies to fully encrypt all connections made with their servers. The transition to full encryption, signified by "https" in a browser URL bar and by the padlock symbol, can be technically challenging.

Instagram's API (application programming interface) makes unencrypted requests to some parts of its network, Graham wrote. That poses an opportunity for a hacker who is on the same Wi-Fi network that doesn't use encryption or uses the outdated WEP encryption, which can be easily cracked.

Some of those Instagram API calls transmit an unencrypted session cookie, or a data file that lets Instagram know a user is still logged in. By collecting the network traffic, known as a man-in-the-middle attack, the session cookie can be stolen and used by an attacker to gain control of the victim's account.

Facebook officials didn't have an immediate comment, but Instagram's co-founder, Mike Krieger, wrote on Ycombinator's Hacker News feed that Instagram has been "steadily increasing" use of full encryption.

Its "Instagram Direct" service, which allows photos to be shared with only small groups of people, is fully encrypted, he wrote. For more latency-sensitive endpoints, such as Instagram's main feed, the service is trying to make sure the transition to https doesn't affect performance, he wrote.

"This is a project we're hoping to complete soon, and we'll share our experiences in our [engineering] blog so other companies can learn from it as well," Krieger wrote.

Google offered full encryption as an option for Gmail in 2008, but two years later made it the default. Facebook switched it on by default in January 2011

Jeremy Kirk (IDG News Service) on 29 July, 2014 15:47

Source: http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/551120/using_instagram_public_wi-fi_poses_risk_an_account_hijack_researcher_says

Did you know that tagcloud.swf allows CrossSite Scripting?

I would like to warn you about security vulnerabilities in plugin WP-Cumulus for WordPress. These are Full path disclosure and Cross-Site Scripting vulnerabilities. Which is a web-application vulnerabilities which allow attackers to bypass client-side security mechanisms normally imposed on web content by modern web browsers. By finding ways of injecting malicious scripts into web pages, an attacker can gain elevated access-privileges to sensitive page content, session cookies, and a variety of other information maintained by the browser on behalf of the user.

Full path disclosure:

http://site/wp-content/plugins/wp-cumulus/wp-cumulus.php

XSS:

http://site/wp-content/plugins/wp-cumulus/tagcloud.
swf?mode=tags&tagcloud=%3Ctags%3E%3Ca+href='javascript:
alert(document.cookie)'+style='font-size:
+40pt'%3EClick%20me%3C/a%3E%3C/tags%3E

Code will execute after click. It's strictly social XSS. There are a lot of vulnerable tagcloud.swf file in Internet (according to Google): 

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=filetype:swf+inurl:tagcloud.swf

So to all flash developers, I recommend you to attend to security of their flash files. And for the owners of sites, with vulnerables flashes like tagcloud.swf, fix them  or turn over to your development team  to fix it. 

 

Kind Regards,

 

Alfredo Cedeno

IT Security Analyst & Advisor
http://ajcborges.blogspot.com 

I will NEVER ask for your password

by Dick Craddock

There are a lot of bad things on the Internet, and few are worse than phishing scams. But there is a certain class of phishing scam that has earned a special level of disdain and disgust, at least from me. I’m talking about the phishing scams that target Hotmail customers using my name, my picture, and even my signature. Grrrr.

Let me clear something up right off the bat: I will never ask for your password. No one from Hotmail or Microsoft will ever ask for your password. In fact, no legitimate service will ever ask for your password. If you ever get an email asking for any password to any service, you can be sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that the email is a phishing scam. Just junk it. (Or, in Hotmail, mark it as a phishing scam using the “Mark As” menu.)

Phishing scams

Spammers want to send spam. That’s what they do. As I said in my last post, we’ve made it hard for them to send spam with new accounts due to the effectiveness of our account reputation work. So, spammers have turned to hijacking customer accounts in order to send more spam.

Phishing scams are one of the simplest ways that spammers use to gain control of your account. The spammer sends an email that asks for your password, usually with a threat that your account is about to be closed. You reply, providing your password, and, Voila! Your account (and reputation) is hacked.

Spammers do this on all networks and all services – Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, Facebook, AOL – spammers do not discriminate, and no service is immune.

How my picture got out there

Hotmail sends email to our customers fairly regularly to update people on various things, such as the availability of new software or features, or even to remind people about security measures, like creating a strong password or adding your mobile phone number to your account.

About a year ago, we decided that we would make these messages more personal by including my name, my picture, and my signature.

That decision has really come back to haunt me.

A gift to spammers

Almost immediately, the spammers copied that email, including my picture, name and signature, and modified the content so that it said something like “Your account is about to be shut down unless you reply to this email with your account name and password.”

This is a classic example of a phishing scam, and one of the most common ways that accounts get compromised. Here’s an example:

The bottom of that same email looks like this:

Yep. That’s me, all right. But that email is definitely not from me.

Even smart people fall for it

Phishing messages can look very real and convincing, so even smart, tech-savvy people fall for them. I get asked about this quite a bit.

Here’s a conversation that took place on my public Facebook page. The first person asks, “I got this message, is it really you?” In response, our Development Manager, Eliot, displayed both his penchant for pithiness and his mastery of high school French:

Phishing scammers know that they’ll get better response rates by using my pictures and my signature to produce email messages that look legitimate. They even translate their scams into multiple languages to broaden their reach.

The telltale signs of a phishing message

As I’ve said, any email that asks for your password is a phishing scam and shouldn’t be trusted. You don’t need to look any further to know the message is a fake. Nonetheless, it’s interesting to see how “creative” the scammers can get. Here are some tactics scammers use to get people to provide their account info:

They copy Hotmail’s marketing images. These phishing messages usually contain the latest image from Hotmail’s own marketing campaigns, like this one:

They provide a bogus reason for needing your password. The messages usually contain an introduction that offers a false explanation about why they need your password. Some of my favorites include:

• “We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account center.”
• “We are deleting all unused accounts to create more space for new accounts.”
• “We encountered a problem with our database and a lot of records were lost, we are restoring our database to enable us serve you better.”
• “We are having too many congested email due to the anonymous registration of Hotmail Msn-Live Accounts in our database system.”

Rest assured: NONE of these will EVER be a legitimate reason to ask for your password.

They design a subject line to scare you. The subject lines call for your immediate attention and are often intended to be scary. Here are a few common examples:

• Some variation of “Account Alert!!!”, or “Account upgrade alert,” or “Email account alert.”
• Some variation of “Account renewal process,” or “Verify your account details.”
• Some variation of “Email Warning!!!”, or “Verify your email now to avoid being closed!!!!!”

(Scammers really like to use exclamation points!!!! A lot!!!)

They send the email from a bad “From” address. The “From” address in the email is often a dead giveaway. At a glance, it might look like you’ve gotten mail from the Hotmail Team. But if you look at the actual email address, it’s almost always something fishy (phishy?). Typically, scammers just use the name of a Hotmail customer account.

Get educated, educate others

In a perfect world, no one would ever give out their password, and the phishing scams would be ineffective, and would just stop. You’ve already taken a step to helping us get there by reading this post, and now you can help pay it forward by educating others.

Any email that asks for your password is a phishing scam. If anyone ever asks you, “Hey, is this email legit?” just say, “If it asks you for your password, then it is absolutely, definitely, without question a scam! Report it as junk!”

As a final note, some of you might be wondering, Why can’t Hotmail detect these scams? We can detect these scams and do detect many of them. But it’s just a numbers game, and spammers are capable of producing a huge volume of phishing scams, with enough variation in the text and images to fool our filters a small percentage of the time. In addition, it’s important for us to keep the false positives low – meaning that we don’t want to mistakenly identify a legitimate email sent from a good user as spam.

So, until we get to that perfect world without spammers, we’ll be here building better and better systems to battle the bad guys. Thanks for reading, and thanks for using Hotmail.

Sir Spamalot and Lady Phishing

By Jon-Louis Heimerl

I am a millionaire. Actually, I’m a multi-millionaire. Or rather I could be if I helped the honorable Mr. Nagumba get his money out of Nigeria, or helped Barbara get her money out of Brazil, or picked up my unclaimed lottery winnings, or helped another half dozen people in the last month. 

I have won $1500 several times a day for the last few months. I have won a new car. I have important packages waiting to pick up from FedEx and UPS. I am being audited by the IRS and they sent me an attachment that included an executable notice with instructions. I won a 15 day cruise if I qualified – they only needed a credit card number to confirm my identity and that I am over 18. I can get my teeth whitened or Lasik eye surgery for 80% off. I have qualified for a special deal on a new BMW 335 with experimental pricing, and can get in a brand new one for under $15,000. Two of my credit cards have been compromised so I needed to log onto the included website to verify and change my account information. As a matter of fact, another credit card that I don’t even have was also compromised, and I needed to log on there too. One of my bank accounts appears to have some out-of-date information associated with it. I can get really cheap Viagra (sic) cheap online, Heather thinks I’m hot, and there seems to be way too many people interested in my manhood.

My personal spam folder is pretty thin. I try to trim spam aggressively. Just in the last 24 hours I have received 42 emails. Three from family, 21 advertisements from retailers (it’s beyond me why I need a daily reminder from a retailer telling me that they are still open and selling the same stuff they’ve been selling for the last five years), and 18 spam. Now, I have no idea how much spam my ISP trims before it even gets to me, but I assume it is a lot. A quick search shows unofficial estimates that spam is somewhere between 60 and 97% of all email sent. By the best accounts I can find, that means around 40 billion spam emails every day (give or take a few billion). The numbers are down slightly from 2010 partially because three botnets (Rustock, Lethic, and Xarvester) have been somewhat throttled. The closure of spam specialist Spamit helped as well. But, as we all know, spam has not gone away.

Unfortunately, spam means money. Spam brings with it a variety of issues, but it also delivers chunks of money and other opportunities to those who generate it. Pay-per-click sites still exist, and if you send 100 million spam messages and get 1% of recipients to click through – ka-ching! Say you send 50 million spam messages that contain a link for a free virus scan, and you can get .5% of those recipients to follow through with a fake purchase for ONLY $29.99 – that’s $7.5million – ka-ching! Credit card information is not worth what it used to be, but if you can send 100 million fake “change your password” notices to BigBlueBank customers, and 1% of them go through your fake link and update their password – ka-ching! And even if they can’t get something from you, maybe they can compromise some low percentage of recipients with a Trojan or sniffer. The numbers add up quickly because of volume.

But spam and phishing emails are not always obvious, are they? Well, some of them are. If the email subject line includes things like “Cialis” or “Replica Handbags” I think the chances it is spam is probably something around 100%. But do we always know? I included an example of a recent phishing email I received (names have been changed). It looks pretty good at a glance, but there is a lot wrong with it if you pay attention.

Let’s look through it in detail.

Let’s work on the premise that the logo and all the colors are correct, and that at a glance, this looks authentic – it appears to be an email from BigBlueBank, where you have an account registered with online access. What is wrong with the email?

1. BigBlueBank Online may be the correct name, but the chances that return email address is correct is low (read “low”, think “nonexistent”). Notice that it is @onlinesvc.com. If this was really from BigBlueBank chances are pretty good that it would be @BigBlueBank.com. If the return address just shows as BigBlueBank Online, hold your cursor over the name. The actual associated email address should show in a mouse-over or in the lower left corner of your browser.

2. “To: undisclosed-recipients” - If this was genuine, it would actually be to your specific email address, and NOT show as a bulk email with hidden addressees. Check what you bank emails you now – they are all to your real email address.

3. “UPDATE YOUR INFORMATION!” – This pushes an immediate sense of urgency. Not necessarily a blazing orange flag, but it should raise your skepticism when you get an email so obviously trying to raise your personal sense of alarm.

4. “This message is a critical one…” This is obviously a person to whom English is not their primary language. Normal English phrasing would be “This is a critical message…”. If BigBlueBank is based in South Carolina this should get your attention. If they are based in Germany, it probably still should, but not quite as much.

5. “It has come to our attentions,” “This require” - The extra “s” on attention and the missing “s” are perfect examples of disagreement in tense, and errors. These are strong indicators that the writer is not a natural English speaker, and that whoever sent the email did not spend enough time proof reading and editing the content. If BigBlueBank is a top 10 bank in the Americas, what are the chances that they would not have a proof reader check everything that went out (Hint: the answer is 0%).

6. “Your Account information” and “The Account update…” – What is with the random capitalization of “Account”? Errors like this should be blazing a hole in your brain by now.

7. “Is also a new BigBlueBank” – This is just an awkward sentence. Read the whole sentence from the email. Perhaps “the account update also includes” or something similar, but again, it is an error in grammatical construction that should tell you this is not a professional email.

8. “Services security statement…” – Again with the random capitalization of “Services”? Brain. Hole. Burning.

9. “Goes according” – Perhaps if it read “is in accordance” this would not raise alarms, but the misuse of the “ing” is a common error for a non-natural English speaker.

10. “On our terms of service” – “in” our terms of service would be appropriate for an English speaker, and even more appropriate in a professionally prepared communication.

11. 5:55 AM 20/01/2012 – This is actually the first thing I saw in the email that made me say “fake”. The date is shown as day/month/year, which is predominantly European or other international convention. Standard in the United States would be 01/20/2012. I know the other way sorts better, but it is aberrant construction in the U.S. If you are not from the U.S., this probably does not bother you as much as it did me.

12. “May result on a suspension of your account” – “on” is again wrong. A natural English speaker would say “in”. This also implies a threat designed to increase your sense of urgency and decrease your vigilance.

13. BigBlueBank Upgrade Home – Look at that. How convenient it was of them to include a link back to Bigbluebank for you. Just hold your mouse over the hyperlink (don’t bother; it won’t work on the example, since the hyperlink has been removed). By now you realize the chances that the link actually has anything to do with bigbluebank is exactly 0%. In the example of this email, it actually linked to something like the following – the fact that bigbluebank is not the domain should be an obvious clue: http//generalupdates.gh.ost.de/bigbluebank/account_update/index.php.

14. 1-888-XXX-XXXX – Very nice to have an included phone number. It really does help make the whole thing look better. Especially if you dial the number and someone in a call center answers it “Big Blue Bank – Customer Service, how can I help you?” First of all, check the provided number against the customer service number on your bank statements or against the number provided on Bigbluebank’s real website. It may be close but it will not match. Your second clue is that someone actually answered the phone and you did not have to go through a Voice Response system – when was the last time that happened?

15. “Will be helping” – there is that “ing” again. “This will help us” would not raise alarm, but the improper English should have your spinal column on fire by now. You should almost expect it say to “will to be helping us” like some alien speaking through an electronic translator.

If in doubt, bring up the genuine bigbluebank.com website by typing it into your browser yourself (completely ignoring their link, if you please), and check for information there. Locate their contact information to email, or call them to ask if they sent the information. Chances are that bigbluebank has its own security group that is interested in abuse and phishing emails. They may want you to forward a copy of the email to them for their own review if you feel like going that far.

Perhaps this was not the best example because this email was chock full o’ clues. But these are exactly the types of indicators you will see in many phishing emails. The fact that you even got this email should immediately raise your level of awareness, so everything else should follow.

Social Engineering Yourself A BotNet

Not too long ago the announcement about an Internet Sponsorship Law, SOPA, basically caused the Internet to blow up with people voting, supporting, and showing how much they disliked this proposed bill. The way the “Internet Community” came together is a lesson in mass influence itself, but we are going to focus on a different aspect of this drama.

The hacktivist group Anonymous reared its head in this debate to show it’s disdain for any law that would censor or prohibit the use of the Internet, and they do so using a form of social engineering.

One of the less influence based forms of social engineering involves drawing people to a website that is either loaded with malicious software/code or has downloads that are dangerous or infected. Apparently, Anonymous used this form of social engineering to create, in essence, one of the world’s largest botnets full of unsuspecting participants.

How?
Anonymous used its legions of faithful supporters to spread shortened links that drew interested parties to certain links. Since a user can’t possibly know what to expect when they load a URL, Anonymous capitalized on this to create it’s botnet.

As users went to the list of URL’s, their browsers were hijacked and then some code was executed. Once executed it causes the users browser to make a massive amount of requests to the targets websites (in this case DOJ and FBI). When you get hundreds or thousands or even more people hitting these malicious URL’s so much traffic is sent that it DDoS’ the sites in question.

What are the implications of this type of attack? This form of social engineering is pretty malicious. Even simple curiosity can make the site visitor an unwilling participant in an act that could be considered terrorism. This, of course, is a very serious matter as traffic from home or work users becomes inundated with this malicious traffic.

In the age of shortened URL’s, this kind of a story just makes it ever more clear that the user needs to take responsibility before clicking a link. These types of attacks are how people’s computers get hacked and how accounts are compromised. Now, it’s how massive botnets are created.

Posted in Social Engineering

Be on the Lookout for Phishing Emails

Posted on: February 2, 2012 in Industry Issues by Chris Williams

If you keep up with tech news, you might have seen the story recently about a new technology standard developed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook to cut down on spam emails and phishing attempts. It’s an exciting new technology that will help protect users by increasing checks and reporting on sent emails.

However, even with stricter standards for spam filtering, the occasional phishing email might still find its way to your inbox. Phishing emails are standard emails from people trying to convince you to give them information like passwords, usernames, credit card numbers, social security numbers, or other secure data. Every email user needs to know how to spot phishing emails so they can be deleted.

Here are five easy things to look for that you can use to spot phishing emails before you respond with sensitive information.

Emails from companies or people asking for information they should already have, such as accounts and passwords – a company will never ask you for your password.

Emails asking for personal identity information –  your date of birth, bank account information, social security number, or other personal information. There’s no reason to ever give personal information via email.

Emails with weird formatting, spelling mistakes, or bad grammar – most phishing attempts come from overseas, so they often contain mistakes a native English speaker wouldn’t make. Others are hurriedly prepared, so they may contain mistakes as well.

Links or attachments you didn’t request – never click on a link in an email, or open an attachment, if you didn’t request for a link or attachment to be sent to you.

Unknown senders or strange domain names – if the domain name of the sender looks strange, or the sender is unknown to you, learn more about the sender or company before you take action. If it looks strange, delete or report the email.

Here’s an example of a phishing email:

For more information on spotting a phishing email, check Microsoft’s support page. If you’re a Google user and receive phishing emails, you can learn how to report them to Google here.

Remember the first step is staying vigilant. Don’t provide personal or sensitive information through email if you can avoid it, especially to people you don’t know.

...don't forget to leave a comment... thanks.

9 Reasons to Enforce Web Security within the Organization

Considering the wide range of malicious content threatening your users, implementing strong web security within the organization is a crucial part of any defense-in-depth strategy. Web security doesn’t have to mean blocking your users’ access to the Internet, but it does mean protecting them from the types of threats they will encounter every day. Here’s a rundown of the top nine threats that are there to help you understand the importance of strong web security. Some of these are threats to your users; others are threats to their productivity. All are things web security can help you protect against.

1.Compromised sites hosting malware
Every day you can read about sites that have been compromised by attackers. Hacked sites hosting malware are a common way to spread the damage to hundreds or thousands of others very quickly. Strong web security can protect your users by blocking access to compromised sites, and by scanning any downloads for malware.

2.Cross-site scripting attacks
Cross-site scripting can steal credentials, direct users to sites specifically hosting malware, and worse. Web security can detect when an XSS is attempted and protect users from the effects.

3.Typo-squatters
It’s common for people to register domains that are either misspelled, or simple one-offs from other sites to try to get traffic from users’ typos. Sometimes these sites simply have aggressive sales content; other times they are set up to look like the real site to fool users. Either way, web security can prevent this all too common mistake from doing damage.

4.Phishing sites
Phishing emails almost always include links to sites, where the real damage can be done. Web security can block access to these phishing sites.

5.Adult content
The last thing you need is an HR issue to deal with because someone clicked the wrong link in some search results. Web security can enforce the acceptable use policy, preventing both the intentional and accidental violations from occurring.

6.Controversial content
Adult content is not the only risk; political and religious sites may not be appropriate for users to access while at work and web security can ensure that Internet access is business appropriate.

7.Time sinks
If you have ever surfed the web, you have probably experienced the time loss that comes from a planned 30 second check-in that becomes a 30 minute catch up with what else is going on. “Just one more click…” can cost your company hours of lost productivity. Web security doesn’t have to block all personal Internet access; it can permit that within reasonable time limits.

8.Bandwidth hogs
One Internet audio stream may seem like it uses an insignificant amount of bandwidth, but with everyone streaming music, your pipe can quickly become clogged. Web security can monitor and identify the major bandwidth users, or block access to streaming media completely to save that bandwidth for important things, like customer orders.

9.Copyright violations
If a user downloads a pirated movie from your network, you could face liability. Web security can block access to these download sites, and block torrents and peer-to-peer sharing so you don’t worry about C&D letters or lawsuits.

With strong web security protection technology in place, you protect your users, your infrastructure, your data and, ultimately, your company. Look at web security as a critical component of your information security strategy.

This post was provided by Casper Manes on behalf of GFI Software Ltd.

How to Boost Your Phishing Scam Detection Skills

Phishing scams—the ones that try to get you to provide private information by masquerading as a legitimate company—can be easy to uncover with a skeptical eye, but some can easily get you when you let your guard down for just a second. Here's how you can boost your phishing detection skills and protect yourself during those times when you're not at full attention.


Want to test your phishing IQ and find out what kind of scams you're most likely to miss? Take this test.

What You Can Do

The way most phishing scams find victims is through email, but sometimes you'll come across a phishing site in the wild as well. Either way, here are the basic principles you want to follow to keep a cautious eye out for these malicious traps.

Check the URL

Phishing scams are designed to look like official emails and web sites from actual companies, but they aren't actually those things—they're just imitations. Because the emails and web sites are imitations they'll probably look a little different from what you'd expect in general, but more importantly those sites can't have the same URL as the web site they're pretending to because they are different sites. To check the URL, just hover of the link you're thinking of clicking. At the bottom of your window you should see the URL displayed. Once you do that, you have to figure out if it is a good URL or a bad URL.

Using PayPal as an example, you'll generally see http://www.paypal.com as part of the URL.

Sometimes you'll see something like http://subdomain.paypal.com as well. Both of these URLs are okay, because they end in paypal.com. A phishing URL, however, might look something like this: http://paypal.someotherdomain.com. In this case, "paypal" is attached to another domain name (someotherdomain.com). URLs like this are the ones you want to avoid.

Always Go Direct

The best thing you can do to avoid phishing scams is always go directly to the web site you want to visit rather than clicking a link. This way you don't have to figure out if the URL is safe or not because you'll be using a URL in your bookmarks (or your brain) that you already know is safe. Doing this can also help protect you from phishing scams when you let your guard down because you'll be in the habit of visiting sites directly rather than clicking links.
I fell for a phishing scam once when I read the email right after I woke up in the morning. It was from my bank and they'd sent me a lot of verification notices lately since I'd been traveling and using my debit card all over the place. When I got another one, I didn't even think about it because I'd just woken up. I went to the site, filled in my info, and then immediately realized I'd just provided that information to a phishing scam site. I called the bank to let them know right away and got a new card, but had I changed my default behavior to calling the bank of visiting the bank's web site this probably wouldn't have happened. Of course, that's what I do now and it hasn't been a problem since.

What Your Browser Can Do For You

Detecting phishing scams on your own mainly require the mild paranoia and the behavioral adjustment described above, but there are a few other things you can do to make your everyday browsing safer.

Turn Off Form Autofill

One great feature of many web browsers is the autofill feature. It makes it really easy to fill out forms using information already stored in the browser. It also makes it easy for you to ignore the form you're filling out and just submit it, causing you to potentially miss a phishing scam when you're rushing through the process. While this precaution isn't necessary, and you might prefer the convenience of autofill to the safety benefits that deactivating it can provide, turning it off will provide a little added protection.

Utilize Your Browser's Built-In Tools

Most browsers come with some phishing protection built-in to help protect you, but it isn't always enable by default. Google Chrome keeps track of common phishing sites and can alert you when you visit one, but you may need to go through the short setup process to make it work. Firefox also offers phishing and malware protection in a similar way, and you can enable it in the Security section of Firefox's preferences.

Bump Up Your Phishing Protection with Web of Trust

Web of Trust is one of our favorite browser extensions because it automatically lets you know if a web site is trustworthy or not. While it can't possible verify every single site on the internet, it can make you aware of potentially harmful sites and phishing scams. All you have to do is install the extension for your browser and it will display a trust rating in your browser's toolbar. (You can read more about this here.) Web of Trust is available to download for Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, and as a bookmarklet for other browsers.

Source Article:  http://goo.gl/nhzSY

Beware of fake Megaupload “comeback” phishing scams

By: Will Shanklin



Megaupload is supposedly back, albeit without any functionality. An IP address which is dressed to look like Megaupload is being promoted, but evidence points to this as being 100% bogus. If this is legitimate, then Megaupload is one resilient company. The only problem is that this is almost certainly a phishing scam, which you’ll want to avoid like the plague.
Yesterday Megaupload’s domain and assets were seized by the Feds, with the company’s executives being placed under arrest.
As of now, nothing on this site claiming to be the “new Megaupload” works. Every link greets you with the same message, telling you that “this is the new Megaupload site.” The message (probably from a phisher) promises that the company is working to get back up again.
The site’s appearance looks legitimate enough. The familiar Megaupload logo, customary orange and white colors, fonts, and tabs are all there. These could all be easily faked, though — phishers do this with other sites every day. There is also a glaring typo (“beware to the pishing sites”).
Perhaps the biggest evidence against this site is that its IP address was recently directing to another company — which was already flagged as a phishing scammer. We’ll update if we get more information, but we’d advise you to stay far away from this. As long as Megaupload’s employees are in prison with their equipment under Federal control, we don’t expect to see any comebacks.
Source Article: http://goo.gl/2cQTz

Consejos para Navegar Seguro

Me encontré con una lista de consejos del nic para navegar seguro en Internet donde varios de ellos lejos de ayudarme me hicieron quedar con cara de “what?”. Analicemos algunos de ellos con la intención de criticarlos constructivamente.

Respecto a las contraseñas nos dicen: “Se recomienda hacer uso de contraseñas largas, con diferentes letras, números y símbolos que al mismo tiempo sean fáciles de recordar”. Por “largas” creo que podemos decir que 8 caracteres puede ser suficiente (el nic no lo especifica). Sin mencionar que cuando tenemos 10, 15 ó 20 sitios a los que entramos seguido, acordarnos de “n” contraseñas complejas, diferentes pero fáciles de recordar es algo que pocos hacemos y que el nic no toma en cuenta. Lo que yo hago es usar LastPass que me ayuda a “recordar” estos passwords; así podemos cumplir con eso de que sean diferentes para cada sitio y complejas (y sin necesidad de tenerlas en la mente).

De los sitios nos dicen: “Evitar sitios de origen dudoso. Es importante pensar dos veces antes de hacer click en uno de estos anuncios, pues pueden ser causa de virus o spam”. En su consejo no nos dicen qué es un “sitio de origen dudoso” y nos recomiendan que pensemos dos veces antes de hacer click en “uno de estos anuncios”. Es ambiguo y no del todo cierto: hoy en día hasta sitios legítimos pueden contener contenido malicioso en frames, por ejemplo. No sé cómo definir un “sitio de origen dudoso”, ya que hay unos que ciertamente intuimos que lo pueden ser (por ejemplo pornográficos) pero otros ni idea (como el malware que apareció en el sitio del New York Times). Yo uso NoScript en los sitios que visito para dejar de pensar en si es dudoso o no; puede ser una verdadera lata pero hace su trabajo…pruébenlo y me dicen qué les pareció.

Pongamos el extracto completo que nos ofrece el nic para que vean que no ando intencionalmente seleccionando extractos incompletos: “Cuidar datos personales: El mal uso de los datos personales no sólo se remite a lo que el usuario comparte en sus redes sociales, pues también es importante considerar que nunca hay que escribir nombres, apellidos, direcciones, teléfonos o cuentas bancarias en sitios que no sean seguros. Para saber si un sitio es seguro, basta con revisar que el inicio de su dirección incluya una letra s (https://)”.

Me llama la atención la última parte en donde dicen que para saber si un sitio es seguro debemos de revisar que tenga “https” porque me es difícil ligar el tema de “datos personales” con el de TLS (https). Cuando un sitio cambia a https, lo que nos dice es que tiene un certificado válido; pero NO nos dice nada de qué harán con nuestros datos ni del cuidado de los mismos. El “https” crea un canal cifrado entre tú y el sitio, quien quiera que el sitio sea o pretenda ser. Nada más. Pueden intentar https://www.RoboTarjetasDeCredito.com y estarán tranquilos de saber que usa “https” y que aparece un candadito en su navegador, cierto?

Nos dicen: “No ejecutar archivos sospechosos” comentando que al navegar algunos sitios mal-intencionados nos pedirán descargar algún archivo aparentemente necesario. De nueva cuenta, eso de “archivos sospechosos” es ambiguo y poco claro, y por lo tanto poco útil. Sitios legítimos me piden también que descargue algún software (quítenle flash a su navegador y se sorprenderán) y me piden que habilite ActiveX o JavaScript (con NoScript se darán cuenta de esto último). ¿Entonces qué hacemos? Podemos usar un Sandbox, un firewall personal u otros controles (de preferencia preventivos como los ofrecidos) que le permitan al usuario común dejar de decidir si un archivo es “sospechoso”.

En fin, estos fueron algunos de los consejos que llamaron mi atención. La lección –creo- es que no debemos de aventar consejos ambiguos a los usuarios y sí usar nuestro sentido común para revisar bien lo que estamos diciendo; yo mismo he caído en esta trampa al asumir que el usuario a quien me dirijo es un CISSP.

Por otro lado, a algunos no les late poner “marcas” en su blog o artículo, pero las “marcas” pueden apoyar nuestras ideas o consejos. Tal vez se valga decir que no navegues en sitios inseguros y que puedes usar NoScript, por ejemplo. Así si no queda claro lo de “sitios inseguros”, al menos le estás dando un consejo claro y preciso de usar una herramienta. En fin, aquí siempre está el tema de “me pagan para poner marcas” que yo simplemente ignoro.

Si te das un tiempo de leer los consejos del nic, creo que coincidirás conmigo en que su concepto o lo que quisieron transmitir es valioso. Pero la ambigüedad y no ponerse en el lugar del usuario promedio a quien supuestamente van dirigidos los consejos, no fue muy atinado. ¿Tú qué opinas?

Fuente |  Hacking-MX

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

¿Su cuenta de #Blogger esta por ser suspendida?

Cuando recibimos en nuestro correo un mensaje cuyo título es Su cuenta de Blogger esta por ser suspendida, aún cuando sepamos que ese no el modo en que Blogger nos comunica algo por muy dramático que sea, uno no puede dejar de sentirse ... bueno,preocupado

si siempre tenemos la precaución de leer el enlace de los mensajes antes de hacer click, cosa que se puede hacer poniendo el puntero del ratón encima y mirando lo que dice el navegador en la barra de estado. En este caso, algo así:

Parece que viene de blogspot pero no; el dominio no es eso que aparece inmediatamente después de http:// o www. sino eso que aparece justo antes del llamado Top Level Domain (org, edu, gov, com, info, net) y en este caso, la extensión es tc pero puede ser cualquier otra porque al parece, lo que sobran son letras y ladrones.

http://blogspot-id3849402.sv.tc/?upgrade=true&id=439288

Bueno, tampoco es necesario ser un genio para ver en el detalle del mail que este fue enviado por algo o alguien llamado pompeya.dattaweb.com que obviamente, no es Blogger ni Google ni nada semejante pero ¿cuántas veces hacemos eso?

Sea como sea, al recibir el mensaje, lo que se debe hacer es denunciarlo, insultar un poco y luego, borrarlo de un plumazo.

Si prosiguieramos con el mail recibido, iríamos a parar a la pagina de captura de datos:

con una copia exacta de la página de inicio de Blogger que en realidad, es un IFRAME de este dominio:

http://conexionesvhs.com/

que es el objetivo del autor del phishing... Mucho cuidado con entrar datos en ninguna parte !!!

Fuente:  http://vagabundia.blogspot.com/2010/04/su-cuenta-de-blogger-esta-por-ser.html

ALERTA!!! Troyano para Facebook

By agunsche on Marzo 23, 2010

Según BitDefender, el troyano está alcanzando una gran distribución, aprovechando la gran base de usuarios de esta red social.

Diario Ti: Un falso email enviado en nombre de Facebook está siendo utilizado para engañar a los usuarios e infectar sus ordenadores con un troyano. El correo anuncia a los usuarios que su contraseña de Facebook había sido cambiada por motivos de seguridad. El mensaje incluye un archivo .Zip adjunto que, supuestamente, contiene la nueva clave.
Sin embargo, en lugar de una nueva contraseña, el archivo contiene el troyano Trojan.Dropper.Oficla.G. Este troyano instala un backdoor en el equipo el cual permite al ciberdelincuente controlar remotamente el ordenador y acceder al sistema infectado. Igualmente, los ciberdelincuentes pueden infectar el equipo con nuevos ejemplares de malware.  Según los datos del sistema de monitorización de BitDefender la distribución de este correo malicioso comenzó en la tarde del día 17. Desde entonces, ha habido oleadas muy intensas, llegándose a recibir más de 200 mensajes de este spam en media hora en los sistemas de BitDefender.


Igualmente, los ratios de infección de los sistemas de reporte en tiempo real de BitDefender indican que el troyano Trojan.Dropper.Oficla.G se está distribuyendo masivamente y que los ciberdelincuentes no tardarán mucho en tomar el control de un gran número de ordenadores.


“La ventaja de este tipo de ataques radica en que Facebook es una red con un gran número de usuarios, la mayoría de ellos muy activo. Por eso, es más probable que el receptor del spam sea usuario de esta red que de cualquier otra, o que de un banco, por ejemplo. Además, como se trata de usuarios muy activos, enseguida intentarán reactivar su cuenta, lo que les hace más susceptibles de caer en la trampa”, explica Raúl García, Responsable de Marketing de BitDefender en España.

FUENTE: bitdefender