FIFA World Cup fans-Hackers target

Special celebrations move our emotions as FIFA World Cup, football is a worldwide passion for kids and adults. Hackers are not the exception; they are following closely this event and take advantage to expand their criminals’ attacks.

The Brazilian soccer coach Dunga, who was given a black eye by an angry fan, has been used as a fishhook to break into emails and extract information for banking fraud, through a junk email which looks like a Brazilian newspaper with links to corrupt websites.

On the other hand, different companies modify their logo or website appearance to be part of the global football celebration, occasion that are used for cyber criminals for phishing, then they redirect the original website into others fake but alike websites. There are few days left for the world cup end, but we should be alert because the malware arise to get more victims.

What to do?

• Install anti-spam software, I recommend SpamJadoo validated by IBM.
• Don't give your email address deliberately, check privacy policy if you are going to subscribe to any website or newsletter.
• Don't click links in spam messages, even open it if you don’t know the sender.
• Be alert and watch details, usually fake websites can have for ex. grammars mistakes or different colors.

Feel free to contact me for more information to avoid becoming a victim of phishing or exchange info.

How online security can affect your business?

At least 31% of companies have been hacked according with a survey of IT professionals at the Infosecurity Europe 2010 conference.

Business email communication has been crucial to stay connect with the world. New technologies are launching every year and at the same time dishonest people take advantage, producing negative effects in companies’ operations.

One day you open an email from a known person and suddenly your system information is erased, just with one click. What happened? For you is a daily task, but something is wrong with it, usually you try to contact your email server but they don’t reply, you just find instructions and help link, for you is incredible fix your problem with an automatic machine, from one step to another try to find the right answer. All your contacts, company files, emails are not longer with you. The virus scope could be from denial of access email to substantial financial lost. Have you heard stories about it? or maybe you have been victim yourself.

Then, what happened? You received an email from an known person..mmm WRONG…You receive an e-mail with a header that appears to have originated from someone known than the actual sender (Email Spoofing), it can be done by spammers. There are a lot of cases every day, also like phishing.

“A hacker broke into part of Russian security company Kaspersky Lab's new US support website. The hacker could have accessed about 2,500 customer e-mail addresses and perhaps 25,000 product activation codes. “

But what are the treats that your company is exposed on internet? Here I am going to refer two issues which affect companies negatively:

Invasion of privacy

Internet is open but supposedly your email account is confidential…you still think so?

• E-mail messages are generally not encrypted, means not exist confidential information.
• Despite deletion from the mailbox, your message can be stored on a server.
• Your message can be read and modified, it is relatively easy for others to intercept and read messages, even before reach its destination.
• Someone breaking into your system and altering files s or using it to attack others.
• And more repercussions…

Companies have to be careful to choose an email server and ask for every details rather than a free one. NEVER use a personal account for business related issues, better get a service from an Enterprise email server like XgenPlus with encrypted messages to make secure and truly confidential your message exchange and transactions.

Phishing

Mostly victims are targeted through email account, banks websites or any online payment services. Basically identity theft, they can take your complete information to use your credit card information and making unauthorized purchases. Contact your friends, clients, suppliers…a valuable database used to malicious purpose, reflecting in big looses for your company.

People can take steps to avoid phishing attempts by slightly modifying their browsing habits, learning to recognize phishing attacks, not trusting any hyperlinks in the suspected phishing message. Now in the market are anti-spam anti-virus applications like SpamJadoo who let you prevent and detect truth senders through challenges response and more techniques developed to make business safe from virtual attacks.

Usually we give enough information to criminals to perform attacks and we are not aware about it. Every day you can find new mechanism to avoid all these kind of risks, is better prevent than solve a big problem and suffer consequences. Be informed.

What you have to know about Cyber Security- Basic level-

How much of your business or personal information do you keep on your computer or internet network? Remember that internet is a public platform where all your information can be display and easily find; your job, family, friends, past, hobbies...providing enough information to be a potential victim of a virtual or even physical attack.

Cyber security implies protecting that info by preventing, detecting and responding to attacks. No one is excluded from big companies to normal persons. Have you heard the case where hacker leaks data about the finances of Latvian banks and state-owned firms to Latvian TV or maybe more familiar for you “a hacker had stolen my credit card information and now I have been charged with unauthorized purchases”.

Well, to minimize the risk, the best defense is to be aware of all the threats, recognize how prevent, but first know some basic terms:

• Hacker, attacker or intruder: It is common used is to describe computer criminals, an expert at a particular programming language who accesses a computer system without authorization.
• Malware: is software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner's informed consent.
• Spam: Unsolicited e-mail, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, advertising everything from pornography and phoney charity scams to dodgy get-rich-quick schemes and free websites.
• DoS: Denial of Service
• Trojan Horse: A program that appears to be legitimate but is designed to have destructive effects, as to data residing in the computer onto which the program was loaded.
• Virus: Reproduces itself by attaching to other executable files.
• Worm: Self-reproducing program. It creates copies of itself. Worms that spread using e-mail address books are often called viruses.
• Phishing: is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details.

Our style of life is integrated to new technologies and deeply with internet, is part of us. The first step is to understand the risks implied, recognize the basic terms and what to do. As worldwide citizen we should collaborate with more people to decrease the virtual attacks to make internet a safer network to share and exchange information.

Facebook Fraud Risk…Are You Safe?

“Hackers have flooded the Internet with virus-tainted spam that targets Facebook's estimated 400 million users in an effort to steal banking passwords and gather other sensitive information”

Reuters, 18th Mar 2010.

One recently case about billions that happen every year but aren’t exposed, internet is an open and free channel to share, do business and pass time, is part of our professional and personal style of life. This kind of fake email are sending every day to your junk folder…and also received in your inbox, having high probabilities to download several types of malicious software, including a program that steals passwords.

What can we do to avoid this risk? In the case of Facebook, they warning users to delete and warn their friends…but if it is not a famous and big company around the world. How do you recognize if it is your real bank or Facebook email? The hackers are specialist to imitate the design of any organization and easily make you victim of an internet fraud, take or damage your sensitive information.

What do you think if you receive an email like "Facebook password reset confirmation customer support"? is Facebook…so you trust them, many people were victims and opened the malware. The same happen with 200 billion emails sending per day on Internet. Spam is not just to lose your time and productivity, also represent risk to be victim of frauds.

Now, you have to options: let your email server like hotmail, gmail, yahoo or others work with their low levels of anti-virus and anti-spam regulations or find a professional solution to prevent and protect your confidential information.

For more information about how stop to get spam and decrease risk of virtual attacks, contact me.