by Andrea Mella

In California, a man was accused in federal court in Sacramento with numerous counts of computer deception and trickery, wire fraud and even mail fraud for reportedly breaching 58,000 fake brokerage accounts. Michael Largent, 22, of Plumas Lake, was charged in using countless bogus identifications such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and even used the names of caricature and comic book characters in opening the accounts. He then used the financial statement to take a alleged micro-deposits of a few cents to a few dollars set down by brokerage firms into new accounts to bear out so that users can contact them.

by Andrea Mella

Internet service resources in India are asking to put an end to BlackBerry’s services unless RIM supplied the government with a way to poke around on the communications. If precise, the taunt would bring to a head a subject that has been exhausted on for at least the two months, when Indian officials began inquiring about RIM for a means to interrupt BlackBerry communications, quoting terrorism concerns related to Kashmir. The Indian government requested RIM to moreover supply with some type of master key for loosening encrypted BlackBerry communications or to set connections via a server in the country from end to end which infrastructures could be in retreat and in all probability cut off as needed. 

It would also speed up booking and flight scheduling for if use din conjunction with their automated booking and ticketing system it would indeed lessen the length of lines at airports. The most significant problem with RFID is that it is an active system that can be accessed, re-programmed and cloned into a number of identical copies, defeating the security purpose it was said to defeat. RFID tags unlike passive tags are easier to re-program for a user with the right tool can detect the needed information from a passport, encode it onto a new one and then be off on his way without anybody knowing about it. Tools and methods are widely available to programmers and hackers so the high-tech passport is truly just another waste of taxpayer money.

Europe has started to issue RFID passports that have unique codes that identify it as a fingerprint. The only problem is that the technology also opens a whole new avenue for hackers for a well-equipped person can remotely detect a passport with the right equipment from a distance without that person even knowing the data exchange. The move by the UK to move into high-tech passports was to lessen eh time it took to verify the true identity of the holders and of the passport itself. Fake passports would have none of the pre-set information encoded from the issuing office so they can easily be detected and security does the rest.

Four employees of a private Israeli Investigation Agency were found guilty to have employed Spyware to steal information from companies. The investigation firm, Modi’in Ezrahi has three of its employees were convicted and given jail terms from 9 months to one and a half year due to industrial espionage the authorities have been monitoring since 2005. This is a common practice of investigation agencies who regularly conduct espionage on rival firms of customers, selling the information they gather to the highest bidder. Corporate espionage is increasing as much as Cybercrime and is forcing many governments to take notice. This incident highlights the need for better protection from cyber criminals in the form of intrusion prevention systems and antivirus software. The authors of the Trojan horse program were sentenced to two and four years of jail time plus hefty fines.

They also report that the amount of malware has increased significantly with them growing ever complex making it harder for industry to cope unless there is mass infections. The initial detection of a threat mobilizes emergency centers that these software company’s have who work against the clock to provide updates to their many registered subscribers which they send updates to once they have the cure. They also send out updates to virus signature databases which allows the anti-virus, Intrusion detection and Prevention Systems to counter attacks by letting them recognize them hopefully in time to prevent mass infection.

Symantec Inc., one of the industry’s leaders in virus and internet protection software has released their analyses of malware activities that wanted to steal personal information for the year 2007. It shows that from Jan to Jun last year, there were almost 7,000 incidents of attacks on the internet and systems their software are protecting while almost double for the next half year. This trend is quite alarming for cyber attacks have grown considerably that more and more people are falling victim to such attacks. The company conducts their own hacker communications analyses and other intelligence by analyzing information they set in honey-pots (purposely set traps to track hacker activities) and the results their software sends in to them for analyses.

The Sans Institute has been monitoring activity of a Trojan that has been using seemingly valid PDF files as a propagation method. Thought the risk is very low and no major incident has been seen, it may be signs of a new frontier malware authors are trying out. The Trojan installs itself as you open the infected Trojan and then opens the PDF as if nothing happened. The SANS institute has issued warnings that even though there are no major incidents of attacks, people should update their Adobe readers to the latest versions. They also advise users to turn off Adobe’s JavaScript facility. More detailed explanation of the incident from the Sans Institute Storm Center Diary entry.

The IT industry hailed the coming of the social network as the next step in the evolution of the internet, and it truly is. But as much as we spend more time on our computers in the office and even when we get home, we expose ourselves to more and more threats, more than we could handle. In Europe, the trend in crime has moved into the mainstream internet with many crime organizations shifting from risky manual labor to safer online communications and operations. The various security leaks that resulted in millions of personal records being either lost or stolen have mounted to immeasurable levels the British government had to enforce stiffer data management protocol.

FaceBook has again reaped the attention of a hacker who managed to find a workaround at new privacy measures installed on the social networking site. FaceBook has long advertised its commitment to utmost security for it’s users (which has been proven wrong several times over) which have been targeted by hackers ever since they went online. The use of social networking sites at work is a real threat to corporate security for it can cause the leakage of confidential corporate data to the internet through tunnels in the security net that hovers above you. FaceBook has initiated measures by which users can restrict the amount of information fellow users can see. The function also allows a select group for select facilities which was quickly found by working around that very security net giving him access to the latest pictures that have been uploaded into the site. This occurred while all the new security measures and sharing abilities were turned on. People have a tendency to display confidential information all over the place and it would only be time before all security can be breached and the information stolen. Imagine a worker at the Department of National Defense who accesses a social network form his desk at the Pentagon who is currently reviewing plans for the latest ship defense systems. Imagine that information getting out and into the hands of the enemy (this by the way is for visualization purposes only for the Pentagon would have tougher security, or we sure hope they do).