Security
How to Remove System Security
by admin on Dec.10, 2011, under Security
System Security is a type of smitfraud (often referred to as “fake security software”). It is distributed via malicious websites, but also comes bundled with fake video codecs (e.g. those promising to show Shockwave and Flash clips). Unlike various other examples of rogue antispyware, system security virus is an extremely well-coded pest. It causes serious damage to an attacked computer and spoils user’s experience.
Here’s a list of symptoms.
1. Windows modules (Task Manager, Command Prompt, Registry Editor) are blocked from access.
2. Currently installed antivirus programs may fail to heal the infection, and are disabled by the virus. Antivirus applications become useless because they cannot be opened.
3. Desktop wallpaper is replaced by scary warnings.
4. Windows Security Center (or, rather, its imitation) displays scary tooltips urging the user to download the allegedly recommended software and remove detected infections.
5. System Security uses a fake scanner to display fake results of “system check”. It’s not intelligent enough since legitimate Windows files are listed as suspicious or highly dangerous (e.g. svchost.exe).
6. Almost none of installed applications can be opened while showing warnings “the file xyz is infected”. No installation of security programs is possible due to same very reason. Interestingly though, Internet Explorer usually functions normally (at least for some time).
Here’s a basic guide to remove System Security (in case you have no a tech person to ask for help). Warning: tested on Windows XP system only.
1. In My Computer, go to C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication Data and look for a folder with the numeric title. Inside it, there should be two files, one of them with the numeric filename same as the title of the folder. Delete the folder.
2. Reboot.
3. Click Start button, choose Run, type in MSCONFIG and click OK to launch Microsoft Windows Configuration Utility. Open Startup tab and look for the entry with the numeric name. Uncheck the box near it.
4. If there are entries pointing to Program Files folder with “System Security” in the path, remove the checkmarks from related boxes.
5. Right-click on My Computer. Choose Properties, go to System Restore. Put a checkmark in the box “Turn off System Restore”. Windows will warn you about restore points being deleted. Click OK and restart.
6. Now enable System Restore (by removing the checkmark you placed in step #5).
Finally, do a full system scan with your antivirus program (which should be capable of running by now) and remove the remaining entries of System Security virus.
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Boosting Data Security with a Secure USB Drive
by admin on Dec.04, 2011, under Security
It is becoming very clear that the best way to boost security of mobile data is through the use of a secure USB drive. As each week goes by more and more information becomes mobile and is available through many diverse mediums; internet, flash drives, etc. This naturally is going to put data at risk if the appropriate steps are not taken to boost security with a secure USB drive. There are many people that would attempt to gain access to data that otherwise they should never have access. All of this can be halted or prevented through the use of a secure USB drive like the ones produced by SanDisk Enterprise.
How a Secure USB Drive Locks Down Data
A secure USB drive like the units offered by SanDisk Enterprise contain some of the most sophisticated technology capable of protecting company data. The first line of defense against data corruption is password protection. A secure USB drive must be password protected in order to prevent unauthorized access. An 8 character password prevents unauthorized access and locks down the data after a few failed attempts. A secure USB drive with a strong password authentication program will lock down data if a thief attempts to gain access to information illegally.
Encryption technology is another strong feature of a secure USB drive. A drive with encryption technology prevent the reading of data should a password be compromised. Even if unauthorized access is gained to a secure USB drive the complex algorithm used by SanDisk Enterprise will prevent the reading of the data. The information will be a jumble of letters and symbols that the thief will not be able to decipher. The only way to decipher the data on a secure USB drive is to have the proper encryption code which will translate the data into readable information.
Protecting Information with a Secure USB Drive
Not so long ago many business executives didn’t see the need to protect their company data with a secure USB drive, but as data was stolen and exploited minds began to change. Even data or information a company may see to be worthless and of a low priority must be protected with a secure USB drive. Even though certain information may seem worthless to a company it may be valuable to a thief who has a market to exploit the data for a profit. A secure USB drive can protect company information and data and make it virtually inaccessible to unauthorized users.
It makes very little sense to have company data at risk when a secure USB drive can protect data and information very easily. If fact most of the risk to data can be eliminated by making a small investment in the right kind of tools for your protecting your company data. The best policy for a company is to protect all information at their disposal by incorporating a secure USB drive policy for all personnel. Once such a policy is but in place the risk to company data is dramatically reduced. The cost of protecting company data and information is low when opting to incorporate a secure USB drive.
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Malware Resists Eradication
by admin on Nov.05, 2011, under Security
Infected PCs are being linked to networks by Criminals–using different pieces of destructive malware that thwart security applications
Millions of PCs strong That’s A Botnetweb
Find more evidence of botnetwebs that came from Finjan,
, a network security equipment company in California. Finjan reported finding a C&C server capable of sending spam, malware, or remote-control commands to a whopping 1.9 million bots.
The C&C server had six administrator accounts, plus a cache of dirty programs. Ophir Shalitin, Finjan marketing director, says Finjan doesn’t know which of the programs might have infected which of the PCs–or more important, which malware made the initial infection. The firm traced the (now defunct) C&C server’s IP address to Ukraine, and found evidence that the botnet resources were rented out for $100 per 1000 bots per day.
According to Alex Lanstein, a FireEye senior security researcher, a distributed collection of botnets gives bad guys many advantages. If law enforcement or a security firm were to shut down the C&C server for any single botnet, the crook could still make a profit from the surviving botnets.
Creating such botnets typically starts with “dropper” malware, Lanstein says, that uses “plain-Jane, vanilla techniques” and no strange coding or actions that may raise a red flag for antivirus apps. Once a dropper enters a PC (often via a drive-by download or an e-mail attachment), it may pull in a Trojan horse, such as the Hexzone malware being sent by the server Finjan found. That Hexzone variant was initially detected by only 4 out of 39 antivirus engines at Virus total.
How do you make a terrible thing even worse? If you’re a crook who operates a botnet–an often-expansive network of malware-infected PCs–you link botnets together to form a gargantuan “botnetweb.” And you do it in a way that’s hard for an antivirus suite to fight.
Botnetwebs don’t just enable crooks to send spam or malware to millions of PCs at once. They also represent a highly resilient infection that uses multiple files. An attempt at disinfection might eliminate some files, but those left behind will often redownload the scrubbed ones.
The culprits “are not a bunch of nerds sitting in some dark room developing these botnets for fun,” writes Atif Mushtaq of FireEye, the Milpitas, California, security company that coined the term botnetweb. “These are organized people running this in the form of a sophisticated business.”
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Protecting Your Privacy: Handing Internet Cookies
by admin on Oct.08, 2011, under Security
Internet cookies are often misunderstood as wretched little monsters that attach themselves to your computer so Internet hackers can spy on you! Thankfully this is not the case. A cookie is just a text file sent to your computer that saves basic information about you so the next time you visit the same website, it can retrieve the cookie from the website and recognize you as a returning visitor.
The idea of a website placing something on your hard drive to get information from you can sound a little scary. Some very private people have no interest in being recognized upon returning to a website and see this as an invasion to their privacy, regardless of the benefit that it could be to them. Usually, a cookie is only an identification method meant to benefit you, much like a person who runs a general store in a small town can be more helpful because he or she knows many of the customers and their preferences.
Sometimes, cookies also save information about the pages you visited, the searches you performed, and the items you bought while on a website. For example, an online store like Amazon noted that you often buy or search for books from the romance genre and would use this information to recommend other romance books when you visit the site again. This is a marketing tactic, but is still helpful to the customers.
The information that a website can gather from tracking the habits of its customers could become invasive. They could (and some do) sell their information (like shopping or surfing habits) and their email addresses to third parties, so they can send soliciting emails, or spam to your inbox based on searches or purchases you have made.
The following are a few ways to control cookies if you are highly concerned about the risk of becoming spammed with advertising from other parties. Keep in mind that none of these options are recommended or necessary for your safety. Most anti-virus programs and Internet browser filters are already designed to protect you from harmful websites and spyware. Also, these options will limit your use of the Internet and some may cause certain websites not to function correctly or at all.
* Check the privacy policy in the terms of service on websites you visit. Many reputable websites have privacy policies saying they will not sell your information to third parties. If this is the case, they should be safe to visit and allow any cookies from them.
* Don’t register your personal information on websites. Many website require that you register and provide your email address to use certain features on their site. If you do not want your personal email address to be spammed, you can set up free email account to use for this purpose, like Yahoo Mail or Gmail, and use a name and address other than your own. You can also simply refuse to use these sites, but this could severely limit your shopping options.
* In your Internet Options, click on the Settings button under Browsing History (or Temporary Internet Files) and click Veiw Files. You can select all or some of the cookies that are stored on your computer and view or delete them as often as you like. This will not, however, prevent websites from reassigning a cookie to you if you visit their site again.
* Under the Privacy Tab of Internet Options, you will see a slider that has different levels that handle cookies. You can raise or lower the strictness of cookie handling here, as well as manually enter a list of website that you trust from which cookies are always allowed. If, after you have made these changes, you cannot veiw a webpage, you may need to add it to your allowed list or lower your privacy settings so the website can load properly.
*If you don’t want to use the slider, simply click the Advanced button on the Privacy Tab of Internet Options, and check “Override automatic cookie handling”. Then choose specifically how to handle different types of cookies. First party cookies are from the website and third party cookies are from other websites that the website you are visiting uses. The “Prompt” option will ask your permission on each separate occasion that a website attempts to save a cookie on your computer.
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Can End User Monitoring Bring More to the Organisation Than Just Increased Security and Compliance?
by admin on Oct.06, 2011, under Security
As firewalls, email and content filters work invisibly in the background, is the most obvious place to detect IT wrong doing, or even take a snapshot of business activity, right in front of our eyes? User activity monitoring could, potentially, yield enormous benefits for an organization far beyond just detecting user transgressions. The real advantage this approach could bring to the security community is that these additional benefits can increase organizational buy-in to security and compliance issues and their resolution.
If it were possible to screen everything a user sees and everything a user does, such activity could then be checked against a set of policies so that breeches could be detected and reported. If the screening can take place without the need to record every action this screening need not infringe on a users privacy or interfere with productivity Such a facility could enforce the policies to tackle one the most widespread IT issues that of computer misuse within the organization itself e.g. IP Theft, insider trading and inappropriate, personal use of resources.
If these policies could also detect the completion of online documents, copies of such documents (image, content, etc) could be archived as an independent audit trail for compliance purposes.
Such document capture can provide an instantaneous raw data feed for compiling up to the minute “state of the business” information, BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) and BIM (Business Impact Monitoring) so that companies can demonstrate “due diligence” with regards to their business “state of readiness and compliance” capabilities. BAM also brings other benefits:
BAM – “A term coined by Gartner, BAM is a way to gain meaningful, instant visibility into critical business operations. It works by capturing events from operational systems… To be effective, BAM should permit deep visibility into operations, but BAM should also perform the event-context correlation extremely quickly.” Diaz Nesamoney, CEO, Celequest.
First, however, the raw data must be captured and this where the difficulties begin. The main Electronic Points of Capture (EPOC) for an organization are:
Desktops Websites Web Services EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale)
Technologies already exist to independently monitor Websites (in page agents), and Web Services (via a Web Service proxies). EPOS already feeds raw data into the organization which leaves the Desktop. Windowing systems such as MS Windows are notoriously difficult to monitor due to the sheer amount of activity in a Windowing system and the diverse nature of the technologies used “behind the scenes”. There, however, emerging techniques to enable the generic capture of Window content for both MS Windows and Non-MS Windows based systems.
Is should not be overlooked, however, that the monitoring of user activity data would also enable the accurate measurement of policy breech activity and therefore policy effectiveness. Such capabilities enable Management to spot and take action to alter trends and thus assist demonstrate corporate compliance and “Due Diligence”.
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Cyber Espionage Network Uses Rootkits to Spy on High-Profile Targets
by admin on Sep.08, 2011, under Security
Reports Conclude Social Malware Surveillance Used on Organizations in 103 Countries.
In an effort to set up a meeting with a foreign diplomat on behalf of the Dalai Lama, staff at the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (OHHDL) sent a private email to the invited the guest. When the Chinese allegedly approached the foreign diplomat and discouraged the meeting, the OHHDL knew the email somehow landed in the wrong hands.
But how?
To find out, researchers with the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory conducted on-site research at the OHHDL to determine if a computer compromise caused the leak.
The resulting technical report, The Snooping Dragon: Social-Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement, revealed a number of successful logins to the OHHDL’s email servers came from IP addresses belonging to ISPs within China and Hong Kong, two places where none of the email users would have been associated.
Specifically, the March 2009 report indicates these logins came from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the home-base of intelligence units dealing with Tibetan movement.
But how did the Chinese gain access to the secret login information of the OHHDL?
“Email attachments appear to have been the favorured strategy to deliver malicious payloads,” according to the report. “This worked because the attackers took the trouble to write emails that appeared to come from fellow Tibetans and indeed from co-workers.”
The hacker set up the emails to look like they were coming from other monks, according to the report. These emails spread malware using infected attachments and links to infected websites. Because the recipients thought the emails came from fellow monks, they clicked on attachments or links that downloaded the malware, which came in the form of a rootkit.
Rootkits enter your computer as trojans, hide themselves deep inside your operating system, and open a secret backdoor through which anyone can enter and hide files and processes, alter your operating system, hide registry keys, steal personal information, intercept emails and more.
“Once installed, rootkits are almost undetectable by traditional security software solutions,” says Himanshu Sonkar, chief technologist and researcher at X-Wire Technology, the company which developed Tizer Rootkit Razor™, a free tool that detects and removes most kinds of rootkits.
Larger Network of Rootkits
The rootkits found at the OHHDL were only the beginning. The University of Cambridge field research in India was the first leg of an overall University of Toronto investigation, which included additional field research in India, Europe and North America.
Upon analyzing the gathered data, University of Toronto researchers and partners uncovered a large cyber espionage network called GhostNet that infected 1,295 computers in 103 countries. The project, titled Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network, found that 30% of those infected computers were considered high-value diplomatic, political, economic and military targets.
Just as at the OHHDL, the GhostNet system uses contextually relevant emails directed at specific recipients who unwittingly downloaded Trojan programs and malicious code attached to these emails. Once the so called gh0st RAT infects these computers, attackers gain complete, real-time control over these computers via commercial internet accounts located on the island of Hainan in the People’s Republic of China.
That means attackers can operate attached devices—including web cameras and microphones—to see and hear what’s happening in the target offices. Worse yet, attackers can download specific files to mine for contact information. Once attackers secure this contact information, they can use it to spread more malware through additional email documents that appear to come from legitimate sources.
Malware-Based Crime Spree
“The industrialization of online crime over the past five years means that capably-written malware, which will not be detected by anti-virus programs, is now available on the market,” reports the Cambridge study. “All an attacker needs is the social skill and patience to work the malware from one person to another until enough machines have been compromised to complete the mission.”
The Cambridge report, therefore, concludes that social malware is unlikely to remain a tool of well-funded, developed countries. In time, low-budget criminals from less developed countries will likely follow their lead.
Researchers at X-Wire Technology want to prevent such a vast criminal network in the future.
“To prevent such widespread criminal activity, we’ve developed a new tool to handle such malicious rootkits,” says X-Wire Technology’s Sonkar. “Unlike traditional antivirus software, Tizer Rootkit Razor™ works at the driver level to find the hidden rootkits through the processes they hide.”
Detecting and removing rootkits using this method assures your system will not become part of the next wave of rootkit-based computer crimes.
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The three biggest threats to modern businesses
by admin on Jul.19, 2011, under Security
The three biggest threats to modern businesses are hackers, employees, and regulators.
Hackers:
Today’s hackers aren’t just a couple of kids who live at home and have too much time on their hands. They’re hardened criminals, living all over the world, and they’re in it for the money. They’ll use sophisticated, automated tools to try to infect your computer with spyware, viruses, Trojans and other so-called malware. Their purpose? To take over your computer and steal your identity. To use your PC to infect other machines and send out SPAM; to collect your IDs, your passwords, and the details of your bank account..To take anything and everything of value that’s currently stored on your computer—or in your internet browser.
Employees:
Hopefully, we’ve all got employees who are both competent and trustworthy. So what’s the problem? Carelessness, inattention, or even simply ignorance about how they should protect themselves. Common risks include:
Employees who engage in peer-to-peer file sharing Employees whose laptops or home computers, which contain valuable customer data, are stolen Employees who lose backup tapes, CDs or DVDs Companies who lack a proper IT staff due to budget cuts or other reasons, and whose computer networks are haphazardly serviced by an assortment of consultants, nephews, and friends
Regulators:
Information security is important, and that’s exactly why state and federal lawmakers are growing more concerned about it. But navigating the complex body of rules and regulations they’ve set forth is no easy task. Will your own networks hold up under scrutiny?
HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and PCI/CISP Credit Card Security Compliance laws & rules affect almost all small businesses. 21 states have now passed data breach or Personal Information Privacy Act (PIPA) laws . The IRS and the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets are thinking about applying the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to non-profits. Federal Data Breach laws that would protect Social Security Numbers, Driver License Numbers, and Credit/Debit/Checking account numbers are being discussed in the U.S. Congress.
Sound scary? Unless your business is adequately protected and prepared, it can be.
Brainlink’s expert IT security team can evaluate your networks and make sure the right defences are in place. We’ll spot the problems. We’ll fix the mess. We’ll do it quickly and effectively, and we’ll even help you save money in the process.
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The Risk of File Attachments in Email
by admin on Jul.09, 2011, under Security
Email is fine for getting a message across and sorting out meetings, but it can be a bit dull, which is where file attachments come in. For instance, if you see a funny cartoon on the Net that you’d like to share with your mate, by all means send it, but check that it’s fine by them first. Their email account may have a limit on such things – they may only be able to accept straight text, or files up to a certain size.
Also be aware that there are limits to the amount of data people are willing to download. As a rule of thumb, keep your attachments under 256k – a one minute download with a 56k modem. If you need to send something bigger, contact the other person first and check that they really want it and know how long it will take them to download. You may want to break it up into several smaller files and attach them to separate messages, so they don’t lose everything if they have a connection problem while they’re downloading.
If someone has sent you a massive file, you may have to download it before you can get to your other messages. This can be a nightmare if you’re on-line at peak-rate time and you need some of the other emails. Remember that many people are justifiably dubious about opening unsolicited program, zip, or word files, because they can carry viruses.
The abundance of viruses has resulted in the birth of a whole new industry – antivirus software. Antivirus software abounds on the Net.
Which Antivirus Software is the Best?
Which software package is the best is a common question. The answer is: use a reputable, licensed copy and update it regularly. There are some differences between various programs, like file size, ability to scan zipped files and email, the update process, cost, and so on. On the whole, they all do a great job if installed correctly and updated often.
Prevention is Better than Cure
To adequately protect your computer against viruses it’s essential that you follow these guidelines.
Load a reputable, licensed antivirus package onto your PC. These programs run silently in the background and are activated only when there’s a virus alert.
Download virus definitions and updates on a weekly basis. New viruses come out daily. Disinfection patches are created to disable the viruses. If you do not update your definitions regularly your program will not be able to recognize new strands and new viruses.
Scan your files and drives for viruses at least once a week. If a virus somehow crept in without you knowing about it, scanning will find it. The software will then give you options to quarantine, inoculate or delete the culprit.
Backup important work often. Be sure to backup to floppy or CD so you have backups of any disk and/or file on the computer that may be corrupted by a virus if it strikes on your computer.
Stay informed. Sign up for free newsletters and visit your antivirus software site on a regular basis to keep up-to-date on the latest viruses and how to prevent loading them onto your machine.
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Office space consolidation is a great idea, regardless of the economy
by admin on Jul.02, 2011, under Security
Office space consolidation is a great idea, regardless of the economy. When dealing with subleasing or selling the space, however, there are a few issues you should take into consideration regarding the physical and logical segregation of your IT infrastructure.
Regarding your business, consider the following: Have you conducted an IT assets audit? A network security audit? Catalog printing? We recommend performing an IT assets/network security audit annually and whenever major changes occur–office moves, consolidations, prior to switching accounting systems, after mass layoffs, et cetera.
Other points for consideration:
When you move your employees/staff, are you organizing them by current lines of business or future growth strategies? Make sure to leave room for staff growth, as the last thing you’d want to do is constrain your business expansion plans. An office consolidation is a disruption in your business processes. Are you poised to take advantage of it? This is a great opportunity to re-evaluate your technology needs and increase productivity. For instance, if your PCs are three to five years old, this is a great time to look at upgrading or replacing older, slower systems. And if your staffs have become more mobile, you may be better off switching over to laptops. Also, if you have legacy servers in your wiring closet or IT room, have you considered consolidating them into smaller, faster servers? Server virtualization is a great way to combine several separate systems into one or two physical systems.
When it comes to subleasing, consider the following:
Is your wiring plant (the network and telephone cables that run throughout your space and converge into the telephone closet or IT room) set up such that you can physically isolate and segregate the network and telecommunications jacks in the sublease space into their own switches? What about Internet access for the subtenants? Will they share yours, or can you segregate them and put them on their own DSL or cable modem circuit? Does your telephone system allow you to bill separately for the phones in the sublease space? Or will you charge the tenants a flat rate? Will the subtenants be allowed off-hours access to the space? What about access to the IT closet? Will the tenants have access to your printers or faxes? We find that Sharing high-end color printers, scanners, plotters, et cetera can be a real Challenge, especially if these resources are set up in the default “we Trust all network traffic modes”. Does your office have wifi (wireless Internet) access? If so, have you locked it down and secured it? Does it allow unfettered access to your network assets or is the wireless traffic shunted to an untrusted zone? Will you allow your subtenants access to your wireless network? Allow them to set up their own?
Finally, if you are selling off space, consider the following issues:
When selling off space, you must absolutely ensure that the network and telecom wiring is segregated off your network. If you can partition or physically isolate your IT closet, great. If not, you may have to get those cables re-run into a new IT closet/IT space. For a whole host of security, reliability and compliance reasons, you must ensure that no one in the sold-off space can access your network and telephone systems. You cannot control what the buyers will do in their space, so you must ensure that your wired and wireless networks, servers and desktops are safe and secure.
Overall, to maximize ROI, when performing changes to your IT infrastructure, pay attention to the operating expenses, not just capital expenditures. Over time, reasonable investments in capex can lead to significant decreases in opex.
The Ultimate Ways To Lock Folders And Files
by admin on Jun.30, 2011, under Security
Nowadays people look for data security. Every person has a different reason for securing his data, some wants to secure it because leak out of those data might cost him his business and some want to secure it (especially teenagers) from their parents, for not to spoil their image and hide facts from them.
Data security or data protection now is of prior importance, their are various ways of protecting your data, but none will prove to give you complete guarantee that your data will be safe. The only way that will give you complete satisfaction that your data is completely safe is by locking your important files and folders. Your files and folders an be locked with a software and it can also be locked without a software too, but then it will depend upon the Operating System that is being used.
Locking your Data without Software’s :
1. Using Linux/UNIX:
For Linux and UNIX systems, they have got permissions set so that no one other than administrators can see the folders, you can enforce these restrictions via “chmod go-rxw “.
2. Using Windows:
Using the advanced security tab in Windows and remove every user from it (using DENY option) is a good way not to let anyone view your data. And if you want to restore your access back, simply add yourself back.
Locking your Data using Software’s :
Using Desksense:
Desksense is a software used to password protect folders from snooping eyes.No one can access your locked folders without using the appropriate password to access the locker room.
Now easily drag and drop your fear into safe vault.
Note : Desksense is creating a huge appeal in the internet marketing world in a very short interval of time. And well Desksense works in Windows Operating System ( XP, 2000, 2003 and Vista )
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