Cybersecurity Isn't a Border-Based Threat, it's a Viral Threat

Much like Moore's Law has provided a reliable pattern to chart the steady growth of computing capacity and decline in prices, the same precept could apply to the tools of weaponry in the digital age..........

In a presentation that touched on the evolving nature of cyber threats here at the Brookings Institution, Hammersley contended that the traditional notion of warfare among nation-states is rapidly becoming obsolete as acts of kinetic aggression are being replaced by online crimes and other disruptions that can be perpetrated by individuals or small groups.

Moreover, high-end technologies that originate in government labs or the military eventually become commodities, a process of democratization that figures to significantly broaden access to tools like drones or biological synthesis applications, just as the code to launch a denial of service attack can easily be downloaded online...........

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Virus attacks: Why energy grids are prime targets

The electrical power grid is the backbone on which everything else depends on. A cyber criminal could debilitate a major city by a single targeted attack on the energy grid and compromise anything from the lights and appliances in homes, to heart monitors in hospitals, to air defence systems.

The most prevalent cyber threat reported by the global energy sector is extortion. Criminals gain access to a utility's system, demonstrate that they are capable of doing damage, and demand a ransom. Additional threats include espionage and sabotage all with the goal of financial gain, data theft and shutting down facilities...........


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Cyber maneuver program to help Army protect networks

The Army has awarded a $3.1 million contract to Raytheon to develop technology that would allow cyber personnel to maintain networks and related assets in a way that would thwart potential attackers in high-threat environments.........

The company's program, known as Morphing Network Assets to Restrict Adversarial Reconnaissance, will enable cyber warriors to modify aspects and configurations of networks, hosts and applications in a way that is undetectable and unpredictable by an adversary but still manageable for network administrators, the news release...............

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Sajid Khan files complaint against hacker

Aspiring female actors have been allegedly receiving emails from Sajid Khan asking them to send him their nude pictures. 

A lewd joke played by an imposter who obviously hacked into the filmmaker's email account, has failed to impress Sajid.............


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Cyber-Criminals Craft Malware Kits to Zero in on Java Flaws

The Blackhole exploit kit, a framework that helps attackers infect victims' computers, adds another way to compromise systems through weaknesses in Java..........

Because most PC users and companies can take months to update third-party software, the exploit will like remain effective for some time to come..............

Several characteristics of the Java software platform have made it a favorite of attackers. Java is popular and runs on a large number of operating systems giving attackers a potentially large base of victims. Moreover, the software update mechanism is not automatic by default and frequently leaves older—and vulnerable—versions on many systems...........

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Cyber-Criminals Craft Malware Kits to Zero in on Java Flaws

The Blackhole exploit kit, a framework that helps attackers infect victims' computers, adds another way to compromise systems through weaknesses in Java..........

Because most PC users and companies can take months to update third-party software, the exploit will like remain effective for some time to come..............

Several characteristics of the Java software platform have made it a favorite of attackers. Java is popular and runs on a large number of operating systems giving attackers a potentially large base of victims. Moreover, the software update mechanism is not automatic by default and frequently leaves older—and vulnerable—versions on many systems...........

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Beware: Frauds take cyber path to crime in state

If you thought cyber crime is only about misuse of personal accounts in social networking sites or posting obscene materials on the virtual world, then think again. Out of the total number of cyber crimes registered in the state, most were found to be related to frauds and illegal gains. Other cases relates to revenge or of personal score settlement, or of pranks and greed too.

Cyber crime has now increased its reach — from mere posting of obscene material and hacking of email accounts it now involves illegal transfer of funds. A total of 67 cases of cyber crimes have been registered in the state in 2011 but only 36 people have been arrested for these crimes so far...........

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Militants want Pak, India war: MaliK

Advisor to the Prime Minister on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik has said that Pakistan and India are both victims of cyber crime, adding that extremists from India were involved in five terrorist attacks in India, adding that Pakistan and India should stop blame game against each other.

Terrorists kept using internet and social media for many days during the Mumbai attacks, he added.

Talking to representatives of Pak-India social media Malik said that if the IT specialists of the two countries had carried out their obligations rightly incident like Mumbai attack could had been averted...............

Militants on both sides of the border want to fuel a war between Pakistan and India, he said. However, social media could play its role to help eradicate the atmosphere of hatred and bias between Pakistan and India...........

Malik said that terrorists were using the internet for communication claiming that if Internet Service Providers (ISP) were wiser and had certain tools, the Mumbai attacks would not have taken place.............

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More than third of cyber attacks are directed towards SMBs: Symantec

The most targeted sector is Defense industry with an average of 7.3 attacks per day.

Small and Medium Businesses are increasingly becoming vulnerable to cyber attacks as 36% of the total targeted attacks are targeted towards organisations with less than 250 employees during the last six months, according to a new report by Symantec..........

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450,000 passwords compromised as Yahoo Voices hacked

A previously unknown hacker group has posted online the details of 450,000 user accounts and passwords it claims to have taken from a Yahoo server.

The Ars Technica technology news website reported that the group, which calls itself D33DS Company, hacked into an unidentified subdomain of Yahoo's website where they retrieved unencrypted account details.

The affected accounts appeared to belong to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service called Yahoo Voices, which runs on Yahoo's instant messenger.............

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Navy plans dedicated cadre of cyber sea warriors

After robust sea, air and underwater combat arms, the Navy now wants a dedicated force for the virtual front as well. The force has begun the process to recruit information technology (IT) engineers and graduates as short-service commissioned officers. 

The Navy's drive to induct IT officers, as part of its main executive branch, comes in the backdrop of cyber warfare emerging as a potentially crippling form of waging covert wars as well as Chinese and Pakistani online espionage agents continuing with their incessant attempts to hack into Indian computer networks............ 

The Navy has  been facing mounting cyber-attacks in recent years.............


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Cyber cops busy like never before

The number of cyber crime complaints received by Crime Investigation Department (CID) has been annually registering a sharp rise over the last five years. So far in 2012, 43 cases have already been filed as against the 76 complaints it took up in 2011.

The number of online harassment cases, especially those against the fairer sex, had already surpassed what was recorded in 2011. In 2012, up to June, 19 cases have been registered against 17 in the previous year. Last Saturday, a Delhi IIT student was arrested by CID officials for allegedly harassing a girl by posting objectionable content online............

Of the 43 cases this year, 19 pertain to online harassment, eight to fraud originating out of Nigeria wlong with five cases each of phishing, credit card fraud and obscene content.........

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Did Anonymous hack TN police databases?

First it was a high-profile hack attack last Christmas against Stratfor, a Texas-based security firm; next they brought down the website of a much larger prey — the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

While these sophisticated cyber intrusions carried out by Anonymous, the angry rebel “hacktivist” group speaking for the disenchanted American left, may have seemed faraway, they have apparently now struck much closer to home — the confidential databases of the Tamil Nadu police...........

If the database exposed is in fact confirmed to belong to the Tamil Nadu police, the incident may well be an embarrassment of epic proportions for the State government in terms of lax cyber security standards....

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Hackers who cracked CERN's computer system train Indian officials

Two cyber security experts, who claimed to have cracked the security code of IT systems involved in the discovery of 'God Particle', today conducted training sessions for Indian government officials.

"The projections show there is going to be lot of manufacturing in the India. Lot of software will be involved in it. We are here to create awareness among people on probable vulnerabilities in the cyber system," ethical hacker Chris Russo told PTI..............

Next era of wars is not going to be of bomb, gun and shells. It will be led by cyber warfare where most attack will be on nation's secret data. The idea to conduct such program evolved after seeing increase in cyberattack on India...............


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Malicious software shuts down computers worldwide

Malware is the cause for many people’s frustration Monday as they found they were without the Internet. The malware affected computer users worldwide. This is a hassle for those who depend on the technology for so much. The Charlotte FBI estimated those without internet access was about 85,000...........


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Delhi registered 1850% rise in cyber crime cases

Statistics prove that the Capital is on the receiving end of a bitter onslaught in cyber space as the Delhi Police, in particular, and the security establishment, in general, struggle to confront the challenge. While the police face a debilitating manpower crunch in its cyber cells, other security agencies still prefer to view cyber attacks from an obsolete perspective.

In a day and age where American government-sponsored hackers are targeting Iran's nuclear programme and terror outfits such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM) are conducting recruitment drives over the internet, our security agencies still take weeks to trace creators of fake profiles on Facebook...........

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Hyderabad: IIT-Delhi student posts obscene pictures of IIT-Kanpur girl

A 22-year-old B Tech student, Surender from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi was arrested in Hyderabad by the cyber crime wing of the CID for allegedly posting obscene photographs of a girl from IIT-Kanpur on a public blog............

Surender came into contact with the girl when she approached him for guidance for IIT Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE). According to police, Surender got attracted towards the girl and tried to take undue advantage of their closeness. When she resisted his advances, he started harassing her through phone calls, SMSs and emails............

In order to harass her and her family members, he created a fake profile in the name the girl's sister on a public blog and chatted with people asking them to call her by giving the number of the girl's mother.......

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Virus could black out nearly 2.5 lakh computers

About a quarter-million computer users around the world are at risk of losing Internet access on Monday because of malicious software at the heart of a hacking scam that US authorities shut down last November.
Some blogs and news reports hyped the risk of an outage, warning of a potential "blackout" and describing the Alureon malware as the "Internet Doomsday" virus...........

As of this week, about 245,000 computers worldwide were still infected by Alureon and its brethren, according to security firm Deteque. That included 45,355 computers in the United States.

The viruses were designed to redirect Internet traffic through rogue DNS servers controlled by criminals.........


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Cheats cash in on e-trade boom

A 39-year-old businessman regularly buys and sells shares online. But on returning from his brief visit to Thailand, Sunil Agarwal was horrified to find he came back and to his horror found that his demat account hacked and all his shares sold............

Of late, an t a time when an increasing number of net savvy shopaholics of the city are choosing to buy goods at the click of a mouse than off the shelves, making the game all the more easier for the fraudsters. The cyber frauds have left city police on tenterhooks and they have fallen back on a team of internet to decode the intricate cases..............

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If Hackers Didn't Exist, Governments Would Have to Invent Them

The hackers who dominate news coverage and popular culture -- malicious, adolescent techno-wizards, willing and able to do great harm to innocent civilians and society at large -- don't exist........

The perceived threat landscape is a warped one, which directs attention and resources to battling phantoms, rather than toward preventing much more common data-security problems. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the loss or improper disposal of paper records, portable devices like laptops or memory sticks, and desktop computers have accounted for more than 1,400 data-breach incidents since 2005 -- almost half of all the incidents reported............

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on a survey which showed that 71 percent of IT managers and executives believe insider threats present the greatest risk to their companies. And the recent high-profile security breach at LinkedIn shows that one of the greatest risks to our personal security is ourselves...

But these more serious threats don't seem to loom as large as hackers in the minds of those who make the laws and regulations that shape the Internet. It is the hacker -- a sort of modern folk devil who personifies our anxieties about technology -- who gets all the attention. The result is a set of increasingly paranoid and restrictive laws and regulations affecting our abilities to communicate freely and privately online, to use and control our own technology, and which puts users at risk for overzealous prosecutions and invasive electronic search and seizure practices...........

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Cybercrime hits 1 in 3

Cyber crime affected one-in-three companies in the financial services, the public sector, manufacturing and IT in the past year.

The latest Irish Information Security and Cybercrime survey has found that the cost of each major incident was €41,875 on average and that 42pc of respondents suffered a loss of productivity as a result of cybercrime attacks.

Hacking was the most common method used to break through security for the majority of the companies surveyed.

But just 45pc of respondents indicated that cybercrime was a priority in terms of risk to the organisation........

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Cyber criminals may use Olympics for phishing

Kaspersky Lab, a developer of content management solutions, has warned end users to be on their guard against cyber criminals using the Olympics to launch phishing scams andDDoS attacks......

End users might find themselves under siege from cyber criminals attempting to cash-in on the event. One of the dangers is people being lured by mistake to an illegitimate site set up by someone who wants to profit from the event by pretending to sell items, like merchandise or tickets, that they are not authorised to............

This could result in people giving up their personal information or surrendering a sum of money and being defrauded by scammers...........


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Tamil Nadu bucks cyber crime trend

The next time you upload any sensitive information in your computer or smart phone, be extra careful. Cyber spooks are on the prowl to outsmart your smart phone and steal your data. And, going by statistics, the number of such crimes have nearly doubled in the country every passing year. Quite on the contrary, the incidence of such online crimes in Tamil Nadu seem to be throwing up a downhill trend............


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पॉर्न वेबसाइट पर बनाया खौफनाक प्लान, हिल गया था पूरा देश!

मुंबई हमले की साजिश में शामिल जबीउद्दीन अंसारी उर्फ अबू जुंदाल अपने साथियों को पोर्न वेबसाइट्स के जरिए संदेश भेजा करता था। 

 

उनसे बातचीत को सुरक्षा एजेंसियों की पकड़ से दूर रखने के लिए वह ऐसी एहतियात बरतता था। एक पुलिस अधिकारी ने बताया कि जुंदाल औरंगाबाद के एक साइबर कैफे से अपने साथियों से इस तरह की वेबसाइट्स से चैट करता था............ 

अधिकारी के मुताबिक आमतौर पर पुलिस और खुफिया एजेंसियां सोशल साइट्स और जानी मानी चैटिंग साइट्स पर नजर रखती हैं। लेकिन पोर्न वेबसाइट्स निगरानी में कभी-कभार ही आती हैं। ये वेबसाइट्स दावा करती हैं कि उनकी प्रीमियम सर्विस लेकर कोई व्यक्ति लड़कियों से वीडियो, वॉयस कॉलिंग कर चैट कर सकता है............

 

कोई अपना ग्रुप बना सकता है जिसमें अपने दोस्तों को चैट के लिए न्यौता दे सकता है। इसमें ग्राहकों को पूरी गोपनीयता का भी भरोसा दिलाया जाता है। जुंदाल का संदेश, ‘धंधे का उद्घाटन हो गया है, 25 को दावत कर दी है।’ कोड भाषा में यह ईमेल जुंदाल ने 19 फरवरी 2006 को पाकिस्तान में अपने आकाओं को भेजा था। इस दिन अहमदाबाद रेलवे स्टेशन पर कर्नावती एक्सप्रेस में ब्लास्ट हुआ था।............

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International cyber crime agreement a long way off

An international agreement on cyber security is a long way off, according to John Lyons, chief executive of the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance…………...

Speaking at the National Security 2012 Conference held in London, Lyons said there are simply too many barriers in the way, such as nations prioritising their own cyber security and the issue of some nations being more advanced than others…………..

If we accept for a moment that the vast majority of attacks on our government, businesses and citizens are orchestrated and carried out by groups outside our jurisdiction, then presumably you will also accept that working together internationally on the identification, investigation and disruption of cyber attacks must be a key part of defending our national security interests…………..

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New Malware Strain Poses Serious Threat to Facebook and Gmail Users

ThreatMetrix™, the fastest-growing provider of integrated cybercrime prevention solutions, announced a new strain of Zeus malware that puts Facebook and Gmail users at high risk for cybercrime. This new variant steals credit card information by posing as the typical login pages for Facebook and Gmail and then asking users to enter credit card credentials.

ThreatMetrix identified this strain as a new variant of the peer-to-peer (P2P) version of the notoriousZeus Trojan. It poses intensified risk for Facebook and Gmail users due to its unusually cunning behavior, catching victims off-guard by waiting to attack until after a website's login page appears to be functioning normally................

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God’s own country tops list on obscene postings on Internet, cyber crimes

Besides being the most literate state in the country, Kerala now also tops the list when it comes to posting obscene articles or photos on the Internet, according to government data. 

 

27 per cent (136) of 496 cases of obscene publication registered in the country last year were from God’s own country. 

 

The data also revealed that people from the state used the internet to indulge in eve- teasing or harassing women with a motive in 85 cases registered, second to Andhra Pradesh, which registered 98 cases. While 13 cases in Kerala related to settling scores, in 32 it was for money................... 

 

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Govt plans cyber offensive to tackle Chinese hackers

THE NAVY is examining the findings of a board of inquiry that probed lapses in cyber security measures in the eastern command headquarters at Visakhapatnam, leading to possible loss of data to Chinese hackers.

This incident has led to clamour for changing the countrys cyber security policy from passive to active. As of now, only defensive measures have been put in place, but security experts now want to launch an offensive through its own hacking units, a move that is being seriously pursued by the government.

The government is considering counter cyber offensive and the issue came up in the past weeks meeting of the national security council on cyber threats, headed by PM Manmohan Singh.................

Sources said the cause of threat was lapses on part of an unspecified number of officers who did not follow the procedures and used external devices in which bugs were planted by the hackers to extract information...............

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Beware of missed call to check SIM cloning

Next time if you get a missed call starting with +92; #90 or #09, don't show the courtesy of calling back because chances are it would lead to your SIM card being cloned. The telecom service providers are now issuing alerts to subscribers —particularly about the series mentioned above as the moment one press the call button after dialing the above number, someone at the other end will get your phone and SIM card cloned............


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Texas students ‘hijack’ drone for $1,000 bet

On a dare, Texas college researchers hacked into and hijacked a drone of the US Homeland Security before the eyes of the officials operating it. Using a technique called 'spoofing' where a signal from hackers imitates the one sent to the drone's on-board GPS, the researchers managed to take control of a small but powerful drone in mid-air . 

And the hijacking was just for a $1,000 wager. But the incident has unnerved Homeland security officials, as the spoofing has made it possible for anyone with a $1,000 and a plan to turn a harmless UAV into a missile and crash it into a building............. 


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Cybercrime moves to the cloud

Researchers say that criminals are moving their malware heavy lifting from end-user PCs to servers in the cloud.

The same flexibility and freedom that companies get from having their software and services hosted in the cloud is enabling cybercriminals to conduct highly automated online banking theft — without doing much of the necessary information processing on their victims' own computers............

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Indian-origin student charged with hacking in UK

An Indian-origin student of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK has been charged with hacking into the varsity's computer system, police sources on Wednesday. Charantoor Kultar Singh - 22, was arrested by police from the North West Hub of the Police Central e-Crime Unit on April 30 over the suspected hacking. 

He has now been charged with unauthorised access to a computer system and unauthorised impairment of a computer programme...............


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More than 5 in every 10 Indian children bullied online: Survey

Over half of the Indian children who surf Internet face cyber bullying -- getting threatened or being harassed online -- a Microsoft study has found. 

According to Microsoft's 'Global Youth Online Behavior Survey' of 25 countries, India ranked third with 53 per cent of respondents (children aged between 8-17) saying they have been bullied online, behind China (70 per cent) and Singapore (58 per cent). 

Cyber bullying can be defined as use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass or target another person..............


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State-led Hacking Cost Company 1 Billion Euros

A British company suffered lost revenues of €1.0 billion ($1.25 billion) because of a state-sponsored cyber attack against its computer systems, according to the head of the United Kingdom’s inland security agency. The hit was said to be suffered through intellectual-property loss and from “commercial disadvantage in contractual negotiations.”........................


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Mantralaya fire: Data from burnt computers can be retrieved: Expert

The Mantralaya inferno last week devoured over 3.5 crore pages in government files. While 2 lakh of these pages were digitized, what is worrying the government is that fire also damaged 2000 computers in which the matter was stored. But there is some hope.............

In Maharashtra alone, daily 40-50 cyber crimes are reported but seldom converted into FIR because of the lack of investigation techniques. It is not just the metros where cyber crimes are reported. There has been staggering growth of cyber crimes in rural parts too...............

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Cyber criminals may have siphoned off 2 bn euros from 60 banks

Cyber criminals may have attempted to siphon off anywhere between 60 million euros and 2 billion euros in fraudulent transfers from at least 60 banks globally, a McAfee and Guardian Analytics study said.

The study highlighted a highly sophisticated, multi-tiered, global financial fraud ring that is comprised of at least a dozen groups use active and passive automated transfer systems to steal high value amounts from high balance accounts...........

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Hacker should pay Johansson, other celebrities $150,000, feds urge

Federal prosecutors want a man who hacked the email accounts of celebrities and their associates and obtained naked images of Christina Aguilera, Renee Olstead and Scarlett Johansson to serve 71 months in prison and pay the celebrities about $150,000 in compensation.

Christopher Chaney, 35, of Jacksonville, Fla., whose pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to nine counts of computer hacking, hacked almost daily for two years into email accounts of 50 people in the entertainment industry.

Prosecutors in a sentencing memorandum say Chaney took naked images of Aguilera from her stylist's email account, Olstead's from her email stream and Johansson's from emails she sent to her then husband Ryan Reynolds. He forwarded them to another hacker and two celebrity websites, who made them public. They remain in wide ciriculation...........

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US charges 24 people in massive hacking sting

US law enforcement officials on Tuesday said 24 suspected hackers had been arrested in a sting operation spanning four continents that targeted online financial fraud of stolen credit card and bank information. 

In a two-year investigation, FBI agents posed as hackers on Internet forums, watching as other hackers swapped methods for breaching data security walls and creating fake credit cards that would work for Internet and in-person purchases............
 
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MI-5 chief warns of "astonishing," industrial-scale state-sponsored cybercrime

Anyone paying any attention to digital security at all knows the whole universe of cybercrime outgrew its hacker roots years ago, when it was largely taken over by organized crime gangs, primarily in the former Soviet Union, China and the United States.

Now it's outgrown organized crime as well, according to Jonathan Evans, head of MI-5, the British internal counter-intelligence and security unit that functions like a combination of the FBI and CIA in the United States.

Despite the resources and experience of a world-class intelligence operation such as MI-5, Britain is all but overwhelmed by complex, persistent, attacks that are anything but trivial early experiments into the potential for cyberespionage and warfare...............

Vulnerabilities in the internet are being exploited aggressively not just by criminals but also by states. The extent of what is going on is astonishing.

State-sponsored cybercrime isn't conducted by small teams assembled for a specific attack, as many organized criminal gangs operate........................

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Trojan Milicenso malware affects printers worldwide

Security researchers from antivirus company Symantec have pointed out a malware programme called Trojan.Milicenso that has infected printers connected to Windows PCs worldwide and is causing the automatic printing of pages full of garbled data................


If figures provided by Symantec are to believed, India and the U.S. are the worst hit regions followed by Europe and South America...........


Symantec says the Trojan.Milicenso can hit an infected computer via various ways, such as malicious e-mail attachments or visiting sites with malicious scripts...................



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Hackers targeting Indian banks with advanced SpyEye, Zeus malaware variants

After targeting financial institutions in Europe, hackers are now increasingly targeting Indian financial institutions with the latest variants of malaware like SpyEye and Zeus to siphon larger amounts of money from bank accounts, Japanese security company Trend Micro has cautioned.....

The new software allows the criminal to siphon money out while he sleeps. It could significantly increase the number of hacked accounts and the speed with which they are drained..........

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Government must fight off 100 cyber attacks a month

The government’s IT agency deals with about 100 cyber-attacks a month, attempts to retrieve information from the government’s online infrastructure.

Cedric Mallia, who heads Mita’s agency’s computer emergency response team (Cert) that monitors government servers, said most of the attacks originated from foreign sources................

The main theme that featured in several discussions held during this weeklong event was the adoption of cross-boundary cooperation to achieve the universal goal of cyber-security......

We’re living in a hypo-connective world, where we’re connected to online systems all the time, everywhere. The main challenge remains to continue providing security and protect internet users without removing these connectivity benefits...............

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.IN domain most sought after for Indian phishing attacks

Symantec’s latest analysis of the cyber threat landscape has revealed the rise of .in URLs in spam.

Last year, the India domain (.in) ranked 10th in the distribution list, while it has now jumped to the 5th position. Furthermore, 25 per cent of phishing attacks on Indian brands used the .in domain.

In May 2012, Symantec Intelligence also observed a whopping 187 per cent rise over the previous month in phishing attacks on Indian brands, all of which were in the banking sector. While these originated around the world, Hyderabad hosted the second highest number of phishing attacks on Indian brands. Hyderabad also tops the list of cities for this month that hosted phishing sites in India of non-Indian brands followed by Nashik, New Delhi and Bangalore on the 3rd and 4th place respectively................

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Cyber bullying on rise among teens

He's big, he's bad, and he's unnerving to face. We all have that terrifying bully at school and the characteristic brow-beater in the playground. But today, harassment doesn't stop there. With the hoard of teens and tweens moving into cyber space, the world has another breed of bully- the cyber bully! 

Cyber bullying is essentially the persistent harassment of an individual via technology like the internet, cellphone, etc……….

The internet provides not only a vivid interface for communication, but also the much needed anonymity essential for such a form of harassment. People, inept at social interactions, use the net to vent their aggression as they don’t feel an immediate sense of threat………….. 

The IT Act, 2000 states punishment to all those publishing information which is obscene as also to any form of breach in privacy and confidentiality. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) also covers this issue……………. 

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India unblocks access to video, file-sharing sites

India has now allowed access to video and file-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay, which were blocked earlier over the issue of Internet piracy. The Madras High Court's earlier ruling made Internet service providers (ISPs) block access to entire sites to prevent a single film from being shared online......

The order stated that only specific web addresses, URLs, carrying the pirated content should be blocked, but not the entire website................


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Your online identity matters at work

In an era where online profiles are often seen and judged before the real person, it is important to ensure that your online identity presents a good image to your prospective employers.........

Social networking sites, which were earlier considered to be a domain only for teenagers, are increasingly being used as an important tool for building professional relationships and businesses. According to a survey conducted by reppler.com (a social media monitoring website), 91% of recruiters visited a potential employee's online profile as part of the recruitment procedure and 69% rejected the applicants on the basis of the content found on their online profile. However, 68% of them also hired prospective candidates on the basis of their presence on social networking sites..........


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Social media 'could cut suicide'

Social media sites should be harnessed to help prevent suicide among young people, according to researchers................

In the past, internet sites have been criticised for encouraging self-harm. But the report says new media could instead be used to direct young people to seek help....

Now the researchers say the possible dangers posed by new media could be counteracted if the sites provided support for vulnerable young people.

They say because it is still a relatively new phenomenon, it is important to understand why internet postings can influence some young people to self-harm or take their own life.........

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Does the government need new internet surveillance powers?

Surveillance of citizens by governments is generally a bad thing. All things being equal, the more of it the worse. So regardless of the specific details of the legislation the government is going to propose in relation to the real time monitoring of Internet and mobile phone traffic data, it is something we should have a negative presumption about.....................

Whenever a new piece of cyber-surveillance is proposed, the same three issues are always brought up: terrorism, child pornography and cyber-crime. And sure enough, it is these three issues that supposedly justify the renewed intrusion this time around.

The argument that the government needs real time, rather than retrospective access to traffic data for investigating ‘ordinary decent’ cyber-crime, or even quintessentially evil child pornography is surely disingenuous. The conventional approach to crime is that one waits for a crime to take place before one tries to investigate it.................

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Is Monitoring Software an Invasion of Privacy… or is It the Smart Thing to do to Protect Your Children?

In recent years, cyber crime − a crime committed through the use of technology such as a computer or cell phone − has led to a disturbing number of tragedies, including an alarmingly high amount of teen suicides, sexual assaults and kidnappings. The Cyber Bullying Research Center reports that over 80% of teenagers use their cell phone every single day and nearly 25% of them have been the victims of bullying or sexual solicitations via this same technology.......................

Many recent news, alleged child molesting, has served cautionary tale for parents of the very real possibility that crimes against their children can occur right under their noses.

Many of these types of crimes could be intercepted and possibly prevented if the parents were able to track cell-phone activity and further monitor their child's surroundings.....................


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