Credit BBC News
Our lives and daily activities revolve around computers and the Internet these days. We use computers to communicate through emails and other computer based audio & video conferencing facilities. Our telephone systems, both fixed and cellphones are supported by computer systems. The entertainment industry both video and audio entertainment, the transport industry, navigation functions are also run using computer systems. Shopping is what it is today due to online stores and the use of credit cards. Most of our banking activities and transactions can be done online. Medical data and equipment are supported by the very computer systems. A lot of our information is stored in computers either in our homes, offices or elsewhere, and Cyber Security involves protecting that information by preventing, detecting, and responding to attacks on these very systems.
The risks facing this very essential support system range from viruses erasing an entire system, hackers accessing ones system and altering files, or altering files remotely through other work-stations. There is also the danger of leakage of sensitive information like security information, bank account access codes and credit-card information.
In February 2009, President Obama ordered a cyber security audit and review of the online security of government IT system be conducted to check for vulnerabilities
Mr. John Brennan, assistant to the president for counter-terrorism and homeland security said
"The president is confident that we can protect our nation's critical cyber infrastructure while at the same time adhering to the rule of law and safeguarding privacy rights and civil liberties."
Rick Howard, director of intelligence at managed security services firm iDefense, welcomed the move by Obama.
"Cyber warfare is now a real threat," he added. "Russian hackers, individually and grouped into cartels, are good at attacking an opposing government’s infrastructure in campaigns of annoyance and frustration."
Going by the frequency of reports on cyber Insecurity featured daily in various Medias, the threat appears to be increasing by the day. History will testify that the tempo of alerts and warnings preceding any attack tends to rise to a crescendo just before the attack is launched. Unless an offensive crackdown on the individuals and cartels involved in cyber crimes is launched, then we should brace up for the worst. A few of the reports appearing in the news on 5th April are sited below: -
CyberInsecure.com
A report by CyberInsecure.com released on 5th May 2009, revealed that Torpig Botnet Hijacking, a zombie network revealed 70GB of stolen credit cards and passwords, all these stolen in ten days only. The information included more than 8,300 credentials used to log in to 410 different financial institutions, according to the research team from the University of California at Santa Barbara. More than 21 percent of the accounts belonged to PayPal users. Overall, a total of almost 298,000 unique credentials were intercepted from more than 52,000 infected machines.
One of the secrets behind the unusually large haul is Torpig’s ability to siphon credentials from a large number of computer programs. After wrapping its tentacles around Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook, Skype, ICQ, and 26 other applications, Torpig constantly monitors every keystroke entered into them. Every 20 minutes, the malware automatically uploads new data to servers controlled by the authors. Because the software runs at such a low level, it is able to intercept passwords before they may be encrypted by secure sockets layer or other programs. To read the whole story click Cyberinsecure.
FedaralComputerWeek
Malicious cyber activity has grown more prevalent and sophisticated during the past year and threats come from organized crime groups, terrorist organizations and foreign governments, according to a senior FBI official.
The increase in activity and sophistication poses a criminal and national security threat and has raised concerns from the government, the private sector and the country's overseas partners, Shawn Henry, an assistant director of the FBI who runs its Cyber Division, told reporters today. Henry said the current threats involve denying access to networks, compromising or changing data to affect its integrity and the theft of data. To read the whole story click FCW.
BBC News/Technology
Twelve million computers have been hijacked by cyber-criminals and detected by security vendor McAfee since January’09, the firm has said. It reports there has been a 50% increase in the number of detected so-called "zombie" computers since 2008. The true number of newly hijacked PCs is likely to be higher than those detected by McAfee alone. The figures come as a report from Deloitte said a global approach to cyber-security was needed.
"Doing nothing is not an option," said Deloitte's Greg Pellegrino. Everything that depended on cyberspace face unprecedented risks, said Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT). "This issue is moving so quickly, and with so much at stake economically and in terms of safety and security for people, we don't have 100 years to figure this out," explained Mr Pellegrino, who is a global public sector industry leader at DTT.
McAfee also revealed that the United States now hosted the world's largest percentage of infected computers at 18% with China a not too distant second with just over 13%. To read the whole story click BBC News
Other cyber crime related reports carried by the BBC News are listed below: -
29 Apr 09 | Technology US cyber-security 'embarrassing'
05 May 09 | Technology US needs 'digital warfare force'
21 Apr 09 | Technology Call to rally against cyber crime
09 Apr 09 | Technology Spies 'infiltrate US power grid'
09 Dec 08 | Business Downturn 'boosting cyber-crime'
16 Apr 09 | Spam 'produces 17m tons of CO2'
In the BBC News report, Mr Pellegrino, the global public sector industry leader at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT) warned "Not only do we have to take action; we don't have enough time,"
No comments:
Post a Comment