Wombat Launches SmishGuru to Combat Phishing Attacks

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Wombat also provides complementary software-training modules that can be used in conjunction with SmishGuru, providing a holistic approach to BYOD threats.

“As more companies embrace BYOD policies to empower employee productivity, cyber-criminals will seek new ways to trick people into providing sensitive information making text message phishing, or ‘smishing,’ one of several attack vectors on smartphones,” principal analyst for enterprise security at Current Analysis Paula Musich said in a statement.

A recent study from Nielsen indicated 67 percent of new mobile phone purchases are smartphones, and yet while they are embracing mobile conveniences such as texting and geo location applications, surveys also suggest users are careless about security. A July 2012 study, this time from EMC’s security division, RSA, revealed people are more likely to fall for phishing attacks on mobile devices than on PCs.

“SmishGuru is part of a holistic approach to security awareness and training that leverages our combination of simulated attacks and highly interactive employee training to help companies protect against the latest breeds of malware and spyware used to infect corporate networks and steal valuable data.”

Link: http://www.eweek.com/mobile/wombat-launches-smishguru-to-combat-phishing-attacks/

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Antibot: Network-based botnet removal tool

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A bot (short for robot) is a malware-infected PC or device that is remotely controlled by cybercriminals, and a botnet is a whole network of those infected devices. Cybercriminals can use the device to make money by sending spam, displaying and clicking ads or in the case of a smartphone, sending text messages to premium numbers.

Helpdesk call volumes increase when customers experience slow connections or other problems, and infected devices that send spam take up bandwidth that slows down the network for everyone. By cleaning infected devices and restoring their performance, Antibot’s automated cleaning capabilities will turn a negative user experience into a positive one, and the reductions in volume and length of calls to operator support will result in considerable savings for operators.

A smooth user experience with few interaction steps keeps Antibot light for the consumer, and its “always up-to-date” status and capability to remove complex malware make it the most effective product of its kind.

Link: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=14435

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Pakistan and Iran sign security cooperation agreement | Business Recorder

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Some other areas include activities which will endanger the national security of the other party, transnational organised crimes, terrorism and any other crimes referred to in this agreement, human trafficking as well as illegal immigration, particularly abuse of women and children and also cyber crimes and other offences which take place by misuse of communication and telecommunication devices.

On a question about methods of co-operation, Rehman Malik said each country will adopt measures for implementation of this agreement which would identify group or persons involved in transnational organized crimes or who are wanted for such crimes and providing relevant information such as pictures, fingerprints.

The other areas are exchange of information on laws for prevention of crimes, which have been included in this agreement, exchange of information and experiences on strengthening the management and controlling of borders such as through equipping the border stations and regular meetings between border guards and exchange of information and experiences on new types of narcotics, psychotropic substances, basic and chemical substances and the routes used for drug trafficking.

As per agreement both the countries would also cooperate in exchange of experiences in organising, training, management and education of their own forces as well as exchange of experts in order to expand bilateral co-operation to prevent organised crimes, terrorist acts, drug trafficking.

The Minister said co-operation between the two countries to prevent and combat terrorism is an important element of this agreement and added both the countries have agreed to combat the activities of terrorists groups which are considered as an offence according to the internal laws and regulations of either of the two countries or against the international convention to which both the countries are signatories.

He said the two countries have agreed to establish a joint working group headed by the Deputy Interior Minister of Iran for Security and the Secretary, Ministry of Interior of Pakistan for monitoring the performance of this agreement, to offer solutions in respect of problems faced during the course of implementation of the agreement and for reviewing and updating of this agreement, if and when required.

Link: http://www.brecorder.com/general-news/172:pakistan/1155671:pakistan-and-iran-sign-security-cooperation-agreement/?date=2013-02-20

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Apple confirms cyber attack, releases Java update and malware removal tool | PCWorld

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The patch also updates Apple’s provided version of Java to 1.6.0_41; the update is available by choosing Software Update from the Apple menu or visiting the Mac App Store and clicking on Updates.

In line with the company’s recent policy on Java, these downloads will disable Apple’s built-in Java plugin; users who try to run applets in their browser will instead be prompted to download the latest version of the Java plug-in from Oracle. One additional casualty this time around, for 10.7 and later, is the Java Preferences app that usually lives in OS X’s Utilities folder—Apple says it’s no longer necessary for configuration.

Apple is only the latest target in a recent spate of cyber attacks that have hit institutions like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal along with tech companies like Facebook and Twitter; most of those attacks have been traced back to China.

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2028740/apple-confirms-cyber-attack-will-release-security-tool.html

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Offensive Cyber: Superiority or Stuck in Legal Hurdles? | Defense News | defensenews.com

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For example, the vast majority of these academic legal scholars would require the United States ensure that malicious software attack only combatant systems and legitimate military targets, and not affect any other systems.

While code can be targeted to a specific military system, that is no guarantee it will be limited because of the dual use of information technology.

The legal perception of cyber is based on an assumption that actors are either civilian or military, but there is no such clear distinction in the militarized and contested digital world.

In cyberspace, universities, municipal utilities, communication companies and other actors are a part of the war-fighting effort without clear boundaries to being civilian or military. If the U.S. became engaged in a cyber conflict with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, an organization that is a mix of crude arms manufacturing, terrorism training and soup kitchens for the poor, there is no way to ensure that a counter cyber attack would not affect the soup kitchens. But there is no territorial or international cyberspace as long as attribution is unsolved — and even with attribution solved, the answer to where, when and by whom is troublesome to answer.

Applying laws of war that have origins in the 1800s, when massive armies fought on a field in broad daylight, in an abundance of object permanence, is not relevant to cyber when the contested space is changed, lost, created, reborn and redesigned in real time.

Link: http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130217/DEFFEAT05/302170016/Offensive-Cyber-Superiority-Stuck-Legal-Hurdles-

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How will EU cybersecurity directive affect business?

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“This is huge,” said Stewart Room, partner at FFW, because the directive recognises that anything on the web that permits anyone to sell anything, offer information or engage with the rest of the world requires as much regulation as a telecommunications company.

This is the logical next step of an EU directive introduced in 2009 that required telcos and internet service providers not only to report all breaches of personal data, but also introduced a separate legal obligation to report all other data breaches in the interests of cyber security.

The important thing to note is that the proposed directive introduces the idea of a “market operator” which currently covers not only providers of information society services and critical infrastructure, but also organisations that fall into six broad categories.

In addition to the obvious large firms like Amazon, iTunes, PayPal, Google, LinkedIn and Facebook, the proposed directive will affect a whole range of other smaller organisations, potentially even down to the level of small family-owned businesses, said Room.

Theoretically, this will have the positive effect of improving the security and resilience of all networks and information systems, but this is a classic case of having to “be careful what you wish for,” he said, because the cost implications for businesses large and small could be enormous.

Whether or not the cyber threat is as bad as the EU, US and security technology suppliers are making it out to be, network and information system security will be the cost of doing business in a cyber-enabled world as old business models fade away and slip into history.

Not every company is as rich as Google, Facebook and the like, and this proposed directive will not only affect those big companies, much smaller ones will be covered too “The big problem is not every company is as rich as Google, Facebook and the like, and this proposed directive will not only affect those big companies, much smaller ones will be covered too,” said Room.

Link: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240178256/How-will-EU-cybersecurity-directive-affect-business?utm_medium=EM&asrc=EM_ERU_20700092&utm_campaign=20130220_ERU%20Transmission%20for%2002/20/2013%20(UserUniverse:%20635379)_myka-reports@techtarget.com&utm_source=ERU&src=5109056

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