Category: News

Police now believe that the company’s 26-year-old head of data security in Helsinki stole banking software from the company along with passwords for its bank account. Accomplices then accessed the account from a laptop computer using an unprotected network at a nearby apartment building in Helsinki’s Kallio district. Suspicion initially fell on the owner of the Wi-Fi network until police searched his apartment and determined he was not involved. They then deduced from the laptop’s MAC address that it belonged to GE Money, and fingers started to point toward the bank’s security officer.

“After a while there were too many leads pointing against him, and after we found the laptop, that was it,” said Jukkapekka Risu, investigating officer for the Helsinki police.

The case was picked up by television news programs in Finland and caused something of a buzz. It also prompted the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority to remind citizens this week about the dangers of not securing their wireless networks. Wi-Fi is starting to become popular in Finland, particularly among home users. The agency advised people to employ at least the standard WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?go=news.view&news=4986

At Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire, almost 1,000 students will arrive on campus this week, most with one or more computers in tow. The influx will more than double the number of systems on the campus network, which operates 50 or 60 Windows and Linux servers and around 650 desktops to support administration and other college employees, said Scott Brown, an information security analyst. All students are provided and required to install free copies of NOD32, a desktop antivirus software product from ESET Software and with Webroot Software Inc.’s Spy Sweeper antispyware software before they connect to the campus network.

To enforce that policy, Brown and his colleagues are using Campus Manager, a product from Bradford Networks Inc. that tracks student computers using their unique MAC (Media Access Control) address. Students who attempt to connect to the campus network are directed by Campus Manager to a virtual LAN where they can install the ESET Software and Webroot Software.

Colby-Sawyer also removes existing antivirus and antispam software from the student computers and connects the system to Microsoft’s Web site to obtain the latest Windows operating system patches, Brown said.

Before giving students access to campus resources, Colby-Sawyer also uses a new CAT (client assessment tool) that scans the student computers and verifies that antivirus and spyware definitions, as well as Windows patches are up to date.

The story is similar at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, where network administrators used home-grown technology to quarantine systems belonging to about 6,500 students who arrived on campus last week.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1852852,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Starting on page 10 defensive measures are outlined, emphasizing education and awareness.

It notes that social engineering is a major means of distributing spyware by tricking users into downloading and installing malware.

Don’t trust unknown or known high-risk sources.

Read the fine print.

Pay attention when installing applications.

Keep operating systems and software patched.

If you are running Windows XP, install Service Pack 2.

Use trusted anti-virus and anti-spyware tools.

Alternative internet applications

Browser configuration.

If I had to pick the single most important recommendation in the list, it would be to keep your operating system and software patched, including updating Windows XP to Service Pack 2.

A lot of spyware and malware is being spread through exploits.

Much of this can be prevented by keeping Windows updated and avoiding high risk sources, as stated in the first recommendation.

Porn sites and sites with illegal content, cracks, hacks and warez, are usually the worst offenders.

Lyrics and wrestling sites are also known offenders.

The report includes references that are also excellent sources of more information.

 

Defcon is a no-man’s land where customary adversaries — federal agents vs. digital mavericks — are supposed to share ideas about making the Internet a safer place.

This year’s hot topics included a demonstration of just how easy it may be to attack supposedly foolproof biometric safeguards, which determine a person’s identity by scanning such things as thumb prints, irises and voice patterns.

Banks, supermarkets and even some airports have begun to rely on such systems, but a security analyst who goes by the name Zamboni challenged hackers to bypass biometrics by attacking their backend systems networks.

Radio frequency identification tags that send wireless signals and that are used to track a growing list of items including retail merchandise, animals and U.S. military shipments– also came under scrutiny. A group of twentysomethings from Southern California climbed onto the hotel roof to show that RFID tags could be read from as far as 69 feet (21 meters). That’s important because the tags have been proposed for such things as U.S. passports, and critics have raised fears that kidnappers could use RFID readers to pick traveling U.S. citizens out of a crowd.
RFID companies had said the signals didn’t reach more than 20 feet (six meters), said John Hering, one of the founders of Flexilis, the company that conducted the experiment.

An annual highlight of the conference is the “Meet the Feds” panel, which this year included representatives from the FBI, NSA and the Treasury and Defense departments. Morris and other panel members said they would love to hire the “best and brightest” hackers but cautioned that the offer wouldn’t be extended to lawbreakers. During the session, Agent Jim Christy of the Defense Department’s Cyber Crime Center asked the audience to stand.

Some federal agents were indeed taking careful notes, though, when researcher Michael Lynn set the tone for the conference by publicizing earlier in the week a vulnerability in Cisco routers that he said could allow hackers to virtually shut down the Internet. That flaw was patched in April, but Lynn showed that Cisco hadn’t quite finished the repair job — that the same technique could be used to exploit other vulnerabilities in Cisco routers. Cisco and ISS went to court to try to stop Lynn from going public, but Lynn quit ISS and spoke anyway.

“We’re never going to secure the Net if we don’t air and criticize vulnerabilities,” said David Cowan, a managing partner at venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners.

During a session on ATM machines, Morris said thieves have been able to dupe people out of their bank cards and passwords by changing the software in old ATM machines bought off eBay for as little as $1,000 and placing the machines out in public venues.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/ap/ap_080405.asp

The computer that ships in the kit features a security chip called the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The TPM is an open industry standard governed by the Trusted Computing Group, a non-profit organisation which develops security standards. Apple did not respond to questions about the TPM in time for this story’s posting.

The chips inclusion with the new Apple hardware doesn’t come as a complete surprise. It has been previously suggested that Apple could use the TPM to prevent that computer users install the OS X operating system on a non-Mac PC such as a models made by Dell or HP.

“The TPM is going to be the barrier for moving the Macintosh software to any PC,” Martin Reynolds, a research fellow with analyst firm Gartner told vnunet.com. Each TPM chip contains an encrypted serial number that allows the operating system to verify if it’s running on Apple made hardware. Hackers in theory could forge the serial number, said Reynolds, fooling the software into believing that its running on Mac hardware even when it isn’t.

The security chips currently are included with some PCs for the enterprise market from IBM/Lenovo and HP. They use the TPM to security store passwords or encrypt data.

The upcoming Windows Vista relies on the TPM for a technology dubbed Secure Startup, which blocks access to the computer if the content of the hard drive is compromised. This prevents a laptop thief from swapping out the hard drive, or booting the system from a floppy disk to circumvent security features.

In the future software developers could also use the chip as an anti piracy device, Reynolds suggested. The vendor then would link the TPM identification number to the software registration key. But the TPM has also gained notoriety because it is seen as a way to invade the user’s privacy. The identifying number build into the chip can be used to limit the fair use of digital media by enforcing digital rights management technologies, or could track users online. The fear of such scenarios however is overstated, said Reynolds. Privacy infringing schemes are uncovered sooner or later at great expense to the computer maker. “There are things that manufacturers could do with the TPM that is very much against the interest of the user. But in practice, the manufactures have found that it is best not to do that.”

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2140687/apple-embraces-controversial

US-VISIT uses biometric information from photos and fingerprints taken from non-Canadians at border crossings to track residents from other countries who enter the U.S. Travellers required to use the technology include landed immigrants living in Canada, Canadian citizens who are either engaged to a U.S. citizen or who have applied for a special business visa. They’ll have to carry the wireless devices as a way for border guards to access the electronic information stored inside a document about the size of a large index card. Visitors to the U.S. will get the card the first time they cross the border and will be required the carry the document on subsequent crossings to and from the States.

Border guards will be able to access the information electronically from 12 metres away to enable those carrying the devices to be processed more quickly.

Kimberly Weissman, spokeswoman for the US-VISIT program at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told The Whig-Standard yesterday that the new devices can’t be tracked outside the border crossing area. “The UHF frequency that we’ve chosen makes it impossible to locate a specific person.”

But the use of the wireless technology raises alarm bells for Queen’s University law professor and privacy expert Art Cockfield. “Often these technologies are introduced in a fairly minor form and then the technology is extended.What would be very troubling to me would be the tracking of visitors after they’ve crossed the border.” Cockfield, who’s part of a Queen’s research group called the Globalization of Personal Data Team, said he’s so alarmed by these new devices that his team will likely investigate them further after learning about them yesterday.

Though the new devices don’t violate Canadian law, because visitors are under the jurisdiction of American law once inside the U.S., Cockfield said their use raises disturbing questions about how the technology may be used in the future. “If we think we’re subject to government surveillance, that immediately changes our behaviour,” he said. Sam Laldin of Kingston and District Immigrant Services also agrees that requiring non-Canadians to carry such electronic devices may deter some people from travelling to the U.S.

http://www.thewhig.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentID=119603&catname=Local+News