Computer Security News Categories
Check the latest global news related to computer security.
ESET ThreatBlog
February 7, 2010 10:38:45 AM CET
Ten Ways to Dodge Cyber-Bullets (Part 7)
[Part 7 of an occasional series, updating a blog series I ran in early 2009 to reflect changes in the threat landscape. This series will also be available shortly as a white paper.]
Call For Backup
If sensitive information is stored on your hard drive (and if you don’t have something worth protecting on your system, you’re probably not reading this blog), protect it with encryption.
Furthermore, when you copy or move data elsewhere, it’s usually at least as important to protect/encrypt it when it’s on removable media, or transferred electronically. Even if the target storage device is secure from malware or hacking, you also need to be aware of other dangers such as physical risks, transit risks, business-related risks such as an escrow site going out of business and so on.
Consider (seriously!) regularly backing up your data to a separate disk (as a bare minimum) and, where possible, a remote site or facility. Sounds extreme? Think about it.
- You can’t rely on backing up to another partition on the same disk as the original: if the disk dies, the chances are that all partitions will be lost.
- You can’t rely on backing up to another disk on the same system. If the system is stolen, or there’s a fire, for instance, then in the immortal words of Tom Lehrer they’ll "all go together". In the latter instance, the chances are that you’ll lose your thumb drives, CD-RWs and so on as well.
- And if you’re working in a corporate environment, you might want to avoid doing what one site I know of did, and back up data to a server, but forget to back up the server itself.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind you to take care of your passwords as well, do I?
David Harley BA CISSP FBCS CITP
Director of Malware Intelligence
ESET Threatblog (TinyURL with preview enabled): http://preview.tinyurl.com/esetblog
ESET Threatblog notifications on Twitter: http://twitter.com/esetresearch (or @ESETblog)
ESET White Papers Page: http://www.eset.com/download/whitepapers.php
Securing Our eCity community initiative: http://www.securingourecity.org/
Also blogging at:
http://smallbluegreenblog.wordpress.com/
http://avien.net/blog
http://blogs.securiteam.com
http://blog.isc2.org/
http://macviruscom.wordpress.com/
» Read more
Previous News
February 7, 2010 9:06:56 PM CET
NOD32 Antivirus for Mac: Some Questions – These are a few questions relating to ESET's antivirus scanner for OS X, which is currently in beta, that I was asked in response to a post at Mac Virus. (If you want to take the beta out for a spin, you can still download it at http://beta.eset.com/macosx.) As these questions are very ESET-specific, I thought [...]
February 6, 2010 12:45:57 AM CET
Firefox Add-ons Infected – Perhaps you read the Mozilla blog at http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2010/02/04/please-read-security-issue-on-amo/ where it was revealed that two add-ons for Firefox were infected with Trojans. In this case the distribution was very small, so not many users were infected, but this type of attack is likely to grow. A large part of the time I worked at Microsoft I was [...]
February 5, 2010 3:22:00 PM CET
14% of searches for trends lead to malware – Websense reveals 225% surge in malicious websitesNearly 14 percent of all searches for news trends on Google or buzzwords on Yahoo lead to malware, says Websense.
February 5, 2010 1:33:00 PM CET
Firefox browser add-ons contained malware – Mopzilla suspects up to 4,600 users were infectedMozilla has confirmed that a pair of add-ons for its Firefox browser contained malware and may have infected up to 4,600 users.
February 5, 2010 1:11:47 PM CET
Mac Virus Resurgent – No, I'm not talking about a newly-discovered and virulent OS X upconversion of SevenDust or AutoStart 9805. Mac Virus is a site founded by Susan Lesch in the 1990s, when pre-OS X Mac-specific malware was still a serious issue - AutoStart in particular caused significant damage back then – and cross-platform macro viruses were also a major problem. [...]
February 5, 2010 10:41:00 AM CET
Research: iPhone security claims exaggerated – Sandboxing permissions are "way too loose"Apple's claims about the security of the iPhone privacy have been exaggerated, says software engineer and security expert Nicolas Seriot.
February 5, 2010 10:25:00 AM CET
Brits use banking login details on other sites – 73% use online banking password on different siteFar too many web users rely on the same login details for multiple websites, says Trusteer.
February 5, 2010 9:54:00 AM CET
Hackers use fake Firefox update to spread toolbar – Hotbar app successor to Zango spyware toolbarA security firm is urging web users to be wary of fake Firefox updates that instead install a toolbar, which is the successor to the notorious Zango spyware toolbar.
February 5, 2010 9:46:00 AM CET
Microsoft to patch 26 flaws, 5 critical – Record Patch Tuesday for Windows and OfficeMicrosoft will deliver a record 13 security updates next Tuesday. The massive batch of patches aims to fix more than two dozen vulnerabilities in Windows and Microsoft Office.
February 5, 2010 9:29:32 AM CET
Patchday ahead: 13 Bulletins announced – For the Tuesday to come Microsoft announced to release 13 Security Bulletins. They close 26 security holes according to Microsofts Security Response Center (MSRC). While 11 of those bulletins affect Windows, 2 deal with security issues in Office. 5 bulletins are rated critical, 7 important and 1 moderate. The MSRC also mentions the recently detected information [...]
