It could happen to any one of us. Wake up one morning to discover that the Indian Mujahideen [Images] has hacked into our Internet account and sent out a chilling mail claiming responsibility for a terror attack on the nation.
The e-mails sent out in the aftermath of the Delhi and Ahmedabad blasts reveal that the Indian Mujhahideen hacked into unsecure WiFi networks to send out the terror e-mail.
While this trend may continue thanks to the number of IT professionals on the Students Islamic Movement of India/Indian Mujahideen rolls, it is up to us to ensure that we take utmost care while using the Internet.
Sameer Shekle, co-founder and COO, Aujas Networks, a digital security services provider, says Internet users could adopt the following methods to ensure that s/he is safe.
Disabling the SSID broadcast. To some extent this makes it difficult for the hacker to detect the presence of a WiFi access point.
Enable MAC address filter. Each network interface has a unique MAC address, by filtering it, one can to an extent control which machines can use the access point.
Turn on WPA/WEP encryption. This ensures that traffic between a legitimate machine and an access point is not readable.
Change default admin passwords for access points.
Ensure access points are placed securely. In the centre of a room/office etc to minimise its signal strength outside the office.
Even after following the above precautions, your WiFI account could be compromised and hence, the things to look at are:
Monitor usage of the access point. Have a clear inventory and knowledge about the position of each access point.
Monitor the usage of the Internet link, to know what traffic is going out. For example, some corporate block e-mail providers like yahoo or hotmail. Hence, even if the access point is compromised, the hacker may not be able to use public e-mail systems.
Consider a specific security policy for wireless networks. For example, most companies primarily use wired networks in the office as the primary media. Access points are used in common areas like conferences rooms etc. Hence, strict policies can be deployed on wireless networks as compared to wired networks.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Hackers infiltrate Large Hadron Collider systems and mock IT security
Calling themselves the Greek Security Team, the interlopers mocked the IT used on the project, describing the technicians responsible for security as "a bunch of schoolkids."However, despite an ominous warning "don't mess with us," the hackers said they had no intention of disrupting the work of the atom smasher.
"We're pulling your pants down because we don't want to see you running around naked looking to hide yourselves when the panic comes," they wrote in Greek in a rambling note posted on the LHC's network.
The scientists behind the £4.4 billion "Big Bang" machine had already received threatening emails and been besieged by telephone calls from worried members of the public concerned by speculation that the machine could trigger a black hole to swallow the earth, or earthquakes and tsunamis, despite endless reassurances to the contrary from the likes of Prof Stephen Hawking.
The website - www.cmsmon.cern.ch - can no longer be accessed by the public as a result of the attack.
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Scientists working at Cern, the organisation that runs the vast smasher, were worried about what the hackers could do because they were "one step away" from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs 12500 tons, measuring around 21 metres in length and 15 metres wide/high.
If they had hacked into a second computer network, they could have turned off parts of the vast detector and, said the insider, "it is hard enough to make these things work if no one is messing with it."
Fortunately, only one file was damaged but one of the scientists firing off emails as the CMS team fought off the hackers said it was a "scary experience".
The hackers targeted the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, or CMS, one of the four "eyes" of the facility that will be analysing the fallout of the Big Bang.
The CMS team of around 2000 scientists is racing with another team that runs the Atlas detector, also at Cern, to find the Higgs particle, one that is responsible for mass.
"There seems to be no harm done. From what they can tell, it was someone making the point that CMS was hackable," said James Gillies, spokesman for Cern. "It was quickly detected."
"We have several levels of network, a general access network and a much tighter network for sensitive things that operate the LHC," said Gillies.
"We are a very visible site," he said, adding that of the 1.4 million emails sent to Cern yesterday, 98 per cent was spam.
The hacking attempt started around the time that the giant machine was about to circulate its first particles, under the spotlight of the world's media.
"We're pulling your pants down because we don't want to see you running around naked looking to hide yourselves when the panic comes," they wrote in Greek in a rambling note posted on the LHC's network.
The scientists behind the £4.4 billion "Big Bang" machine had already received threatening emails and been besieged by telephone calls from worried members of the public concerned by speculation that the machine could trigger a black hole to swallow the earth, or earthquakes and tsunamis, despite endless reassurances to the contrary from the likes of Prof Stephen Hawking.
The website - www.cmsmon.cern.ch - can no longer be accessed by the public as a result of the attack.
advertisement
.prWrap,.prWrap DIV,.prWrap IMG{margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;padding:0px 0px 0px 0px;border:0px 0px 0px 0px;overflow:visible;direction:ltr;background:none;background-color:transparent;}
Scientists working at Cern, the organisation that runs the vast smasher, were worried about what the hackers could do because they were "one step away" from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs 12500 tons, measuring around 21 metres in length and 15 metres wide/high.
If they had hacked into a second computer network, they could have turned off parts of the vast detector and, said the insider, "it is hard enough to make these things work if no one is messing with it."
Fortunately, only one file was damaged but one of the scientists firing off emails as the CMS team fought off the hackers said it was a "scary experience".
The hackers targeted the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, or CMS, one of the four "eyes" of the facility that will be analysing the fallout of the Big Bang.
The CMS team of around 2000 scientists is racing with another team that runs the Atlas detector, also at Cern, to find the Higgs particle, one that is responsible for mass.
"There seems to be no harm done. From what they can tell, it was someone making the point that CMS was hackable," said James Gillies, spokesman for Cern. "It was quickly detected."
"We have several levels of network, a general access network and a much tighter network for sensitive things that operate the LHC," said Gillies.
"We are a very visible site," he said, adding that of the 1.4 million emails sent to Cern yesterday, 98 per cent was spam.
The hacking attempt started around the time that the giant machine was about to circulate its first particles, under the spotlight of the world's media.
The Top 5 Internal Security Threats
What are the top internal security threats – and how can you avoid them? Read on to find out.
1. Your Employees Are Selling You Out, Part 1
Spear phishing is an e-mail spoofing fraud attempt that targets a specific organization in an effort to gain unauthorized access to confidential data. While not exactly a new phenomenon, attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, according to Paul Stamp, a Forrester Research senior analyst.
“A phishing attack used to be a request from the deposed governor of Nigeria,” says Stamp. “These days, a phishing attack is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.”
The result: unwitting employees disclosing confidential information, from passwords to financial data, to ill-intentioned intruders. Unable to identify fraudulent websites and counterfeit email messages, these internal workers are essentially opening a company’s closed doors to criminals.
No wonder spear phishing attempts are exploding in number. The Symantec Probe Network detected a total of 166,248 unique phishing messages, a six percent increase over the first six months of 2006. And Symantec blocked over 1.5 billion phishing messages, an increase of 19 percent over the first half of 2006.
The remedy: Phishing-fighting strategies include implementing anti-phishing toolbars that display a Web site’s real domain name, as well as maintaining a roster of well-known phishing sites for employee reference. But companies should forget about training IT personnel and staging corporate awareness campaigns, says Alan Paller, director of research at The SANS Institute. Rather, he suggests running “benign spear phishing exercises against your own employees ...There’s no other way to solve it.”
2. Laptops on the Loose
Accidentally bequeathing your forgotten laptop to a hotel’s cleaning staff is more than an inconvenience. According to software security firm Symantec, the theft or loss of a computer or other data-storage medium made up 54 percent of all identity theft-related data breaches in the second half of 2006.
But that’s not all. The theft or loss of a laptop can cost a company big bucks. The 2006 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security survey reveals that laptops and the theft of proprietary information are the third and fourth-greatest sources of respondents’ financial losses. Nevertheless, a startling 47 percent of respondents detected laptop/mobile theft last year.
Laptops aren’t the only security risk. Boasting unprecedented disk storage capabilities, portable devices such as iPods, the BlackBerry and flash memory sticks also present dangers. Not only do these pocket-sized tools allow users to bypass perimeter defenses such as firewalls, but they also allow workers to remove proprietary information from a company’s premises. What’s worse, Gartner estimates that only about 10 percent of enterprises have any policies dealing with removable storage devices.
The remedy: Companies should require employees to protect their laptops with a startup password so that if they are stolen, at least the data is unusable. Make a practice of deleting old e-mails, text messages, call logs and unwanted files from all portable devices. And it’s always a good idea for employees to take advantage of a device’s built-in encryption capabilities and password protection features. Kingston’s Data Traveler Elite Privacy Edition, for example, is a USB Flash drive that secures 100 percent of data on-the-fly via 128-bit hardware-based AES encryption, and locks out potential users after 25 consecutive failed password attempts.
3. Unintentional Access and Disgruntled Ex-Employees
One of the many perks of working for a company is the access one gains to multiple computer systems, from e-mail messaging to HR payroll. Yet it’s precisely this access that can endanger the security of mission-critical applications. Despite today’s sophisticated user provisioning systems, many IT administrators are simply too time-strapped to actively update users’ access and privileges.
In fact, research has revealed that it can take upwards of 4 months to remove the user rights of a former employee. Within that time-span, there’s no telling what havoc a disgruntled employee can wreak on a company’s critical business systems.
The remedy: There’s no shortage of vendors promising to simplify the user provisioning process. Entrust, for example, offers solutions that automate policy enforcement and delegate administration for user provisioning which helps maintain security levels while managing large numbers of users. Another example is Courion. Courion’s AccountCourier is an automated user provisioning solution that instantly grants, revokes or modifies access to any operating system, application, Web portal or other IT assets without manual intervention.
4. Missing Security Patches
It’s an unfortunate reality. Vendors aren’t always quick to produce the necessary protection in the face of a newfound security hole. In fact, Symantec reports that in the second half of 2006, all the operating system vendors that were studied had longer average patch development times than in the first half of the year.
Further complicating matters, however, is the fact that many IT administrators are simply too overburdened to ensure that they have the latest updates and most recent patches in place. The result: well-known viruses succeeding at penetrating some of today’s largest enterprises.
Says Oliver Friedrichs, a Symantec Security Response director: “If you’re not up-to-date with the latest security updates and the latest anti-virus detections, you’re clearly at risk for some of the latest threats.”
The remedy: Patch management software and services can greatly ease the burden on today’s administrators. Ecora’s Patch Manager automates system discovery, patch assessment and patch installation on workstations and servers. Ideal for heterogeneous IT environments, Novell ZENworks Patch Management notifies administrators of exactly what patches and security holes reside on each server, desktop and laptop. And then there’s SecureCentral PatchQuest, automated patch management software for distributing and managing security patches, hotfixes and updates across networks comprising Windows, Red Hat and Debian Linux systems.
5. Your Employees are Selling You Out, Part 2
That joke email message that just landed in your inbox may not be so funny after all. “A lot of the security threats that we’re seeing involve email somewhere along the line,” warns Stamp. Data leakage stemming from outbound e-mail is among the primary concerns. According to the Ponemon Institute, 69 percent of organizations reported serious data leaks caused by either malicious employee activities or nonmalicious employee error. But even the most innocent of correspondences can result in trouble. For example, an email message that causes one employee to chuckle may greatly offend another, leading to legal liabilities. Not to mention email’s ability to serve as incriminating evidence. For example, internal emails contributed to pharmaceutical giant American Home Products Corporation being fined $3.5 billion as a result of a class-action lawsuit concerning its manufacturing of the diet drugs Fen-Phen and Redux.
The remedy: Strict usage policies can prohibit employees from sedning sensitive information via insecure e-mail. E-mail content scanning technology can also help. IBM Expresses Managed Security Services for example, scans and monitors e-mail before it ever reaches a network, ensuring that it's free from harmful or damaging content. And MessageLabs' Boundary Encryption service lets businesses set up a secure private email network between themselves and their partners to ensure the end-to-end delivery of encrypted communications.
1. Your Employees Are Selling You Out, Part 1
Spear phishing is an e-mail spoofing fraud attempt that targets a specific organization in an effort to gain unauthorized access to confidential data. While not exactly a new phenomenon, attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, according to Paul Stamp, a Forrester Research senior analyst.
“A phishing attack used to be a request from the deposed governor of Nigeria,” says Stamp. “These days, a phishing attack is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.”
The result: unwitting employees disclosing confidential information, from passwords to financial data, to ill-intentioned intruders. Unable to identify fraudulent websites and counterfeit email messages, these internal workers are essentially opening a company’s closed doors to criminals.
No wonder spear phishing attempts are exploding in number. The Symantec Probe Network detected a total of 166,248 unique phishing messages, a six percent increase over the first six months of 2006. And Symantec blocked over 1.5 billion phishing messages, an increase of 19 percent over the first half of 2006.
The remedy: Phishing-fighting strategies include implementing anti-phishing toolbars that display a Web site’s real domain name, as well as maintaining a roster of well-known phishing sites for employee reference. But companies should forget about training IT personnel and staging corporate awareness campaigns, says Alan Paller, director of research at The SANS Institute. Rather, he suggests running “benign spear phishing exercises against your own employees ...There’s no other way to solve it.”
2. Laptops on the Loose
Accidentally bequeathing your forgotten laptop to a hotel’s cleaning staff is more than an inconvenience. According to software security firm Symantec, the theft or loss of a computer or other data-storage medium made up 54 percent of all identity theft-related data breaches in the second half of 2006.
But that’s not all. The theft or loss of a laptop can cost a company big bucks. The 2006 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security survey reveals that laptops and the theft of proprietary information are the third and fourth-greatest sources of respondents’ financial losses. Nevertheless, a startling 47 percent of respondents detected laptop/mobile theft last year.
Laptops aren’t the only security risk. Boasting unprecedented disk storage capabilities, portable devices such as iPods, the BlackBerry and flash memory sticks also present dangers. Not only do these pocket-sized tools allow users to bypass perimeter defenses such as firewalls, but they also allow workers to remove proprietary information from a company’s premises. What’s worse, Gartner estimates that only about 10 percent of enterprises have any policies dealing with removable storage devices.
The remedy: Companies should require employees to protect their laptops with a startup password so that if they are stolen, at least the data is unusable. Make a practice of deleting old e-mails, text messages, call logs and unwanted files from all portable devices. And it’s always a good idea for employees to take advantage of a device’s built-in encryption capabilities and password protection features. Kingston’s Data Traveler Elite Privacy Edition, for example, is a USB Flash drive that secures 100 percent of data on-the-fly via 128-bit hardware-based AES encryption, and locks out potential users after 25 consecutive failed password attempts.
3. Unintentional Access and Disgruntled Ex-Employees
One of the many perks of working for a company is the access one gains to multiple computer systems, from e-mail messaging to HR payroll. Yet it’s precisely this access that can endanger the security of mission-critical applications. Despite today’s sophisticated user provisioning systems, many IT administrators are simply too time-strapped to actively update users’ access and privileges.
In fact, research has revealed that it can take upwards of 4 months to remove the user rights of a former employee. Within that time-span, there’s no telling what havoc a disgruntled employee can wreak on a company’s critical business systems.
The remedy: There’s no shortage of vendors promising to simplify the user provisioning process. Entrust, for example, offers solutions that automate policy enforcement and delegate administration for user provisioning which helps maintain security levels while managing large numbers of users. Another example is Courion. Courion’s AccountCourier is an automated user provisioning solution that instantly grants, revokes or modifies access to any operating system, application, Web portal or other IT assets without manual intervention.
4. Missing Security Patches
It’s an unfortunate reality. Vendors aren’t always quick to produce the necessary protection in the face of a newfound security hole. In fact, Symantec reports that in the second half of 2006, all the operating system vendors that were studied had longer average patch development times than in the first half of the year.
Further complicating matters, however, is the fact that many IT administrators are simply too overburdened to ensure that they have the latest updates and most recent patches in place. The result: well-known viruses succeeding at penetrating some of today’s largest enterprises.
Says Oliver Friedrichs, a Symantec Security Response director: “If you’re not up-to-date with the latest security updates and the latest anti-virus detections, you’re clearly at risk for some of the latest threats.”
The remedy: Patch management software and services can greatly ease the burden on today’s administrators. Ecora’s Patch Manager automates system discovery, patch assessment and patch installation on workstations and servers. Ideal for heterogeneous IT environments, Novell ZENworks Patch Management notifies administrators of exactly what patches and security holes reside on each server, desktop and laptop. And then there’s SecureCentral PatchQuest, automated patch management software for distributing and managing security patches, hotfixes and updates across networks comprising Windows, Red Hat and Debian Linux systems.
5. Your Employees are Selling You Out, Part 2
That joke email message that just landed in your inbox may not be so funny after all. “A lot of the security threats that we’re seeing involve email somewhere along the line,” warns Stamp. Data leakage stemming from outbound e-mail is among the primary concerns. According to the Ponemon Institute, 69 percent of organizations reported serious data leaks caused by either malicious employee activities or nonmalicious employee error. But even the most innocent of correspondences can result in trouble. For example, an email message that causes one employee to chuckle may greatly offend another, leading to legal liabilities. Not to mention email’s ability to serve as incriminating evidence. For example, internal emails contributed to pharmaceutical giant American Home Products Corporation being fined $3.5 billion as a result of a class-action lawsuit concerning its manufacturing of the diet drugs Fen-Phen and Redux.
The remedy: Strict usage policies can prohibit employees from sedning sensitive information via insecure e-mail. E-mail content scanning technology can also help. IBM Expresses Managed Security Services for example, scans and monitors e-mail before it ever reaches a network, ensuring that it's free from harmful or damaging content. And MessageLabs' Boundary Encryption service lets businesses set up a secure private email network between themselves and their partners to ensure the end-to-end delivery of encrypted communications.
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