Attempts at maintaining software internet security took a further blow when news of a Firefox 4 crack which spreads Trojans started doing the rounds.

Software internet security is precarious at the best of times, so news of ‘free’ versions of the Firefox 4 browser have been greeted with a groan all around. ‘Cracked’ versions of the software are in fact being used to spread malicious malware, and tricks unknowing users into downloading a free crack of Firefox 4 browser.

Upon download, users are suddenly infected with trojans and their computer often becomes riddled with these dangerous pieces of malware. Unfortunately, this is another case of the word ‘free’ being used to lure internet users into using websites and downloading things that should not be touched with a barge pole.

It is not unusual for cracked versions of well known software to contain malware such as trojans; this unpleasant discovery is often a side-effect to downloading such versions.

If the use of the word ‘free’ that may have intrigued you into visiting sites that offered this cracked version of Firefox 4 browser, then this is when the trap seems to get quite bizarre. Mozilla, on their main website, are already providing free downloads of the beta of Firefox 4. This new version of the browser is not only free of trojans that these cracked versions are often infested with, but it also free to download from a reputable website. This makes downloading the virus ridden version entirely pointless.

The exact danger of these versions have been highlighted by researchers at Sunbelt, who tested these dodgy Firefox 4 downloads and found that (at least) five different pieces of malware could be in the download. This is guaranteed to be unhealthy for a user’s computer, and all for a download that is freely available from its true creator’s source.
Maintaining software internet security starts with providing your computer with antivirus programs, but it also seems that not falling into traps of ‘free’ downloads of cracked versions of software is up there with some of the top ways to keep your computer clean and healthy.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

The phrase download internet security takes on a new meaning every month when Patch Tuesday comes around and people can see how alert Microsoft is when it comes to combating the latest virus threats.

And the latest Patch Tuesday, which allows computer users to download internet security patches in order to correct bugs, has proved a particularly big one. In this set, 14 alerts have been issued, with eight being rated ‘critical’ and the other six as ‘important’.

The most significant of these alerts that have been announced, affect Word, .NET, SMB Server, , MPEG Codecs and XML Core Services. As usual, the latest release also includes the most recent number of fixes that have been issued for Internet Explorer. Also included in this latest bulletin was a fix to solve the vulnerability with .lnk files, that has been causing a number of problems.

Coinciding with the release of the entry, Microsoft also wrote a blog entry describing and covering each of the most important fixes that were issued.

Adobe has also released some fixes; out of the three that were released, two were rated as ‘critical’ and one as ‘important’. This release – which had been timed to arrive at the same time as Patch Tuesday – was vital for fixing risky problems with Flash Player and Flash Media Server. As well as this, they release an important HotFix for ColdFusion.

Reader, a piece of software from Adobe, will have an emergency update released for it next week. Users will have to wait until this is issued before the vulnerabilities can be dealt with. In the mean time, any user who wishes to chose the alternative for viewing PDFs – Foxit Software – will have to update for a vulnerability that has affected a number of Apple iPhone users. The vulnerability is not, however, extended to Adobe users.

Users that download internet security patches are doing so to ensure that their computers remain safe from the host of vulnerabilities and dangers that are being created and released constantly.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

The team behind Panda Antivirus Software and PandaLabs, the anti-malware laboratory of Panda Security, has drawn attention to a number of scams which effectively ‘hijack’ the Facebook “Like” button.

And the trick that the scammers use, say Panda Antivirus Software, is to use eye-catching messages which relate to popular games, or just released movies. Popular topics on Facebook, including links relating to the famous Facebook game Farmeville, are being targeted to lure people into ‘liking’ particular things. This has been given the appropriate sounding name of ‘clickjacking’.

‘Clickjacking’ uses URLs that are malformed and hide a code designed to carry out an attack on a user’s computer. Once you have ‘liked’ the page, it is recommended to all of your Facebook friends without you even realising. Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, warns, “This distribution technique reminds us of computer worms, although this time there doesn’t seem to be any malware behind it (at least yet).”

He continues, “Cyber-criminals can make money just by tricking you into visiting a Web page with ads. Or worse still, they can spread malware and infect you. This possibility has not yet been exploited, but it would be relatively easy and effective to do it.”

PandaLabs advise that Facebook is potentially a minefield of such malicious attacks, and to be wary when ‘liking’ everything that pops onto your Facebook screen. Tests, a popular pastime of users on Facebook, are particularly dangerous to sign up for, especially if they need to be bought. PandaLabs strongly suggests that users do not enter their bank or credit card details onto these sorts of websites.

As these sorts of dangerous links can be found when searching for popular pages – such as movies, games or the keyword ‘sex’ – users of Facebook need to be extra vigilant against this kind of attack. PandaLabs, behind pieces of technology such as the Panda Antivirus Software, urge users not to be hooked by the bait of such popular pages and to be cautious when ‘liking’ the new Sex and the City 2 movie, for example.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

The hunt is on for internet security specialists and leading the charge are some of the country’s top universities and companies.

The Open University is founding sponsor of the Cyber Security Challenge UK which has just been launched in London.

It is a Challenge put together to help the most talented individuals in the UK education system that might be attracted to a career in the internet security profession.

Behind the Cyber Security Challenge are universities (including Queen’s University Belfast and Royal Holloway), government departments, trade bodies and industry companies.

The idea is to attract and harvest as many budding internet security professionals as possible.

The Challenge is in the form of a number of competitions designed by the initiative’s backers. The competitions are online and face-to-face.

All this comes at a time of increased cyber crime and a recognition of the fact that the country lacks home grown talent to cope with the threats now and those likely in the future.

Over 30 prizes are available and include advancements in cyber security careers, or education. One of the top prizes on offer is a bursary worth £3,300 from Queen’s University Belfast to study a MSc course in Electronics and Security. Other prizes include placements on private sector training courses – including a two week stint at Detica Cyber Security Academy and time at the Sans Institute.

Further prizes include access to industry resources and expertise, and memberships of trade bodies, including the Institute of Information Security Professionals, the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA).

Kevin Streater, Executive Director of IT&Telecoms, said:
“The Cyber Security Challenge UK deals with issues spanning both education and technology. We see it as an excellent opportunity to continue our long-standing partnerships with industry to address the national challenges facing our workforce. Education institutions can only offer cutting edge skills to their students when they understand what the current challenges are, and the skills required by industry to address them. The Open University is committed to helping organisations to find innovative ways to deal with these skills gaps.”

The government Minister for Security, The Rt Hon Baroness Neville-Jones, who officially launched the Challenge said:
“Cyberspace is woven into the fabric of our society; it is integral to our economy, our communities and our security. Defending all of our interests in cyberspace is a relatively small cadre of talented and highly skilled public sector and private sector cyber security professionals. This pool of professionals must grow and the Cyber Security Challenge UK offers an innovative and exciting way of attracting talented individuals to take up rewarding careers in this field.”

Guest Article by Neil Camp

The internet security industry applauded the recent capture of a Botnet hacker in Slovenia.

Known as Iserdo, he is believed to have written the programme on which the mariposa virus is based. Such was the importance of his arrest, that the FBI described it as a major breakthrough.

The mariposa virus created one of the globe’s most virulent botnets which eventually infected over 12 million computers.

Also known as butterfly, the mariposa virus was created as a tool to steal personal financial details from bank customers. Many of the infected companies were in the computers owned by banks, financial institutions and major companies.

The 23-year-old Iserdo was one of the internet security industry’s most wanted men and he, and around a team of three which ran the botnet, have been hunted by officials from around the world. Last December the team of three were arrested in Spain, which led to the closure of the infamous botnet.

The FBI was delighted with the arrests and botnet’s demise, with the deputy assistant director of the unit’s cyber division telling Associated Press:
“To use an analogy here, as opposed to arresting the guy who broke into your home, we’ve arrested the guy that gave him the crowbar, the map and the best houses in the neighbourhood.”

A botnet is a network of compromised computers which are controlled by malicious programmes without the owners of the computers realising their machines are infected. They are designed to sit on the compromised computer and send back key information on the hard drive, including personal information, including usernames and passwords.

Commenting on developments, the BBC was told by Rik Ferguson, an expert in internet security at company Trend Macro, said:
“The guys behind it said it was more successful than they had intended to be. As is the case with most botnets, the more widespread they are the more likely they are to be discovered. They were a victim of their own success.

“The thing with the underground economy is that it’s full of niche vendors and players, it mirrors legitimate business. There’s a lot of competition – it’s not unusual to see malware designed to remove other
malware, just so that it can take over.”

Guest Article by Neil Camp

A recent report from computer security giant Symantec, developer of the Norton range of anti-virus products, confirms that World Cup hackers see the world’s premier footballing event as a great opportunity to launch malware and spam attacks.

The antics of the World Cup hackers appears in the companies June 2010 MessageLabs Intelligence report.

The report noted that way before the tournament kicked off, the World Cup hackers had kicked off themselves. Its reckoned that the percentage of spam related to soccer and football keywords approached 25% of all global spam traffic in the run-up to the event.

Paul Wood, Senior Analyst at MessageLabs Intelligence, said about the World Cup hackers:
“Right now, spammers are reliant on the massive wave of excitement and expectation that typically surrounds an event like the FIFA World Cup. Riding this wave, spammers get the attention of their victims by offering products for sale or enticing them to click on a link. It is not uncommon for the event to appear in the subject line of an email but for the body of the same email to be completely unrelated.”

And some of the World Cup hackers are a sophisticated bunch. Shortly before the tournament kick-off, the team at MessageLabs picked up a run of nearly 50 targeted malware emails. These were being sent to managers in Brazilian companies and were designed to get the recipients to intentionally compromise their corporate computer systems. It was a clever, dual-pronged attack. The delivery vehicle (the email) had a spiked PDF attachment and an embedded malicious link. It was figured that many of the anti-virus systems would pick-up the PDF, but then clear the email with the malicious link.

Said Wood again:
“Skilled and calculating spammers have gone to great lengths to disguise what the JavaScript actually does. Deceiving recipients into opening a message that contains unrelated content is an approach commonly used with malware. We expect to see more of these attacks as the football tournament continues.”

The report highlights not only the activity of World Cup hackers of course, but also a raft of other malicious activities.

The report stated that in June 2010, the global ratio of spam in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was down slightly – a decrease of just under 1% since May – but still equated to one in 1.12 emails (a touch under 90%).

As to viruses delivered by email from new and previously unknown bad sources, this had also slightly decreased since May, coming in at one in 276 emails (or 0.4%).

Endpoint threats continue to be tricky, as much malware is now delivered via popularly used removable drives, in the form of Trojans and worms. One of the nastiest of this bunch continues to be the Sality.AE virus.

Phishing also took a slight holiday in June, compared with May, dipping by 0.26% and accounting for one in 634 emails ((0.16%).

As for web security, the report stated that just over 30% of the malicious domains blocked were new in May, a decrease of 1.5%. What’s more, 12.4% of all web-based malware blocked was new in June; an increase of 0.1% since last month.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

An alarming report from computer security house McAfee has revealed that despite all the warnings about shared personal information, nearly half of teenagers online have swapped personal details with strangers.

The McAfee report, which focusses on the worries of shared personal information, is called “The Secret Life of Teens.”

The survey, which was conducted by research company Harris Interactive, questioned nearly 1,000 US teenagers between the ages of 13 to 17, to discover trends about shared personal information.

Here are some of the worrying statistics when it comes to shared personal information:

• 69% of 13-17 year olds have updated their status on social networking sites to include their physical location;
• 28% of teens chat with people they don’t know in the offline world;
• 43% shared their first name;
• 24% shared their email address;
• 18% shared a personal photo of themselves;
• 12% shared their mobile phone number.

Tracy Mooney, mother of three and McAfee Chief Cyber Security Mom, said on the subject of shared personal information:
“Keeping kids safe no longer only means teaching them about the dangers of alcohol or how to deal with a school bully. This report is a wake-up call to the real dangers our teens face when they make themselves vulnerable online. As a mom, it worries me that kids aren’t practicing safe ‘street smarts’ when they’re online.”

What’s more, the report discovered that it’s girls, rather then boys, that are more likely to chat with strangers online.

Mooney again:
“Kids know not to talk to strangers – it’s one of the first lessons you teach them. But online, there’s a sense of trust and anonymity, so kids let their guard down. Kids would never hand out their name and address to a stranger in the real world, so it’s alarming to see how many kids do that very thing online.”

And despite the campaigns and publicity, cyberbullying remains a major problem, as the statistics show:

• 14% of 13-17 year olds admit to having engaged in some form of cyberbullying behaviour in 2010;
• 22% say they wouldn’t know what to do if they were cyberbullied.

A further worrying trend is that teenagers now access the internet away from home more than ever before.

Mooney again:
“It’s almost impossible to keep up with how my kids get online. It’s not like keeping the home computer in the living room is the answer anymore – you have to educate your kids to be safe while they’re accessing the Web from their friends’ houses, or on their phone – away from my supervision.”

And the statistics bear this out:

• 87% of teens go online somewhere other than at home;
• 54% access from their friends’, or relatives’ houses;
• 30% of teens access the internet through a phone;
• 21% of teens access the internet through a video game system;
• 23% of kids go online anywhere with an open Wi-Fi signal.

And teenagers are not making it easy for anyone to see what they are doing on the internet, with two-thirds admitting they don’t tell their parents what they do while they are online (42%). Also, that they would change their online behaviour if they knew their parents were watching (36%).

The tactics to hide their activity on the internet are widespread:

• 38% of teens close or minimize the browser when their parents enter the room;
• 32% of teens clear the browser history when they are done using the computer;
• 55% of 13-17 year olds hide what they do online from parents.

Also kids are getting the blame for infecting the home computer. They may use the computer for homework research, but 62% also use it to download media; a common way for viruses to impregnate a computer.

The figures speak for themselves:

• 27% of teens accidentally allowed a virus, spyware, or other software to infect the family computer;
• 46 percent of teens admit to downloading music or videos from a free service, which is much more likely to infect the family PC with everything from worms, viruses, ad-ware, spyware, or backdoors that allow people on the Internet to access the computer;
• 16% of 16-17 year old boys have downloaded x-rated content.

Mooney finishes up:
“Like me, most parents think they have a handle on what kind of online content their children are exploring. This report makes it clear that we need to be much more involved with helping our kids make the right decisions online. Education is key.”

You can say that again.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Internet protection for kids is a vital part of being a modern day parent. Keeping your children safe on the internet can be hard work and constant monitoring of what your child is doing is not always possible. So what do you do if your child is obsessed with the internet but you don’t have enough time to watch what they are doing all of the time? The answer is simple; let someone else lookout for the safety of your child for you with internet security.

What is OnlineFamily.Norton?

Being supportive of your child’s online activities is important but there is a way of allowing them more freedom without putting them at risk with enhanced internet security. The OnlineFamily.Norton program is designed to help parents to ensure their children come to no harm online while at the same time allowing them a certain level of freedom.The OnlineFamily.Norton service is free allowing yout to protect your kids online at no cost.

OnlineFamily.Norton can be set up very easily. You register, then add each of your children to the service. None of their personal information is provided you only need to enter their age and gender. The internet protection rules are automatically set up based on the year your child was born. You can further customise security rules for each child on their profile page. The OnlineFamily.Norton website makes the set up of the service very simple with easy to follow instructions.

Here are some of the most important features provided by the OnlineFamily.Norton service that provides great internet protection for kids:

• Personal Profiles – Every child is different and you have the ability to manage your child’s profile information based around their individual interests, age and tastes
• Web Monitoring – This service allows you to see exactly which web pages your child has visited to enable you to check if they have been exposed to any harmful material or inappropriate content
• Block websites – Being able to block certain websites is vital if your child enjoys surfing online
• Chat Monitoring – The option to monitor who your child is friends with online is important as this allows you to see who is talking to your child
• Time Settings – You can use the OnlineFamily.Norton service to set times your children can be online. This is great if your children have a computer in their bedroom.

Other vital offerings from the internet security service include social network monitoring and a time limit for how long your child is allowed to spend online per day. Ensure your child is safe with the OnlineFamily.Norton service it offers internet protection for kids. For more information please visit www.onlinefamilyinfo.norton.com.

You can find furhter information on how to protect your kids online from these articles. Keep Kids Safe Online

Guest Article by Louise Goldstein

Many of us know the importance of protecting our home PCs and laptops with antivirus software to stop criminal elements from hacking personal information but what about mobile phone antivirus?

The emergence in the past few years of smart mobile phones has lead us to a place where we can do just about anything on them. Checking emails, updating social networking sites, making bookings for hotels or hire cars can all be done with mobile phones and you can also order products from retailers using your credit or debit card information. 

With this in mind we should already protect our mobile phones with something similar to computer protection software. GetSafeOnline.org is a new government website designed to highlight to smartphone users about the possibility of criminals using data retrieved from mobile phones. In a survey they found more than 67% of users accessing the Internet via their mobile had no kind of mobile phone antivirus. 

Phones are traded in everyday and fraudsters can access former shopping accounts with ease should they fall into their hands. Because at the time it’s your own phone; passwords are often saved which means anyone can then shop with your money online. 

You can find a host of antivirus reviews online to help advise you on the best software for protection from fraudsters. By searching online you can find genuine remarks about the software from customers who have already used the products.  

A simple way to start protecting you mobile is to use the PIN function so only you can access the Internet from your phone. This along with being more careful about storing passwords will help prevent you becoming a victim of fraud.

Guest Article by Louise Goldstein

From computers and laptops to a notebook or an iPhone; all of these and many more gadgets are around today to help us to access the internet wherever we may be. Antivirus protection is becoming a necessity.

We can be sitting at home, on the train to work or out on a Saturday night, but with the latest gizmos we can always access the net but this begs the important question: do you have the best antivirus to stop you from being phished?  

Antivirus PC software sometimes come installed on new computers and internet related equipment purchased but the phishers are changing their style everyday so you have to as well.

Phishing is the latest word for a type of computer hack where the hacker attempts to gain sensitive information like log-in details and passwords. It is totally illegal but finding the guys, girls or groups that carry out these types of scams is tricky so you need to make sure you are fully secure with up-to-date antivirus PC software.

How do I protect myself online?

If you are looking online for some of the top security PC software you will come across many companies that offer various protection packages.  

As well as using security PC software you may want to level some commonsense that will be invaluable when surfing the net. Many of us use social networking sites and phishers have been targeting the likes of Facebook and Twitter as a new way of gaining information.  

You can do a lot to protect yourself online and here a few ideas: 

• Limit your personal information you post on social networking sites.
• Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know.
• Never give personal information via these types of sites, even to friends.

 If you are concerned about internet security and are looking for antivirus PC software check out these special offers on antivirus software

Guest Article by Louise Goldstein