April First Viruses 03/31/2009

The fast-moving Conficker computer worm, a scourge of the Internet that has infected at least 3 million PCs, is set to spring to life in a new way on Wednesday — April Fools Day. That's when many of the poisoned machines will get more aggressive about phoning home to the worms creators over the Internet. When that happens, the bad guys behind the worm will be able to trigger the program to send spam, spread more infections, clog networks with traffic, or try and bring down Web sites.

Security Worries in Suburbs 03/31/2009

An outcry is growing in Alexandria over a prospect no one seems to like: terrorist suspects in the suburbs. The historic, vibrant community less than 10 miles from the White House markets itself as a federal friendly zone. But it has turned decidedly unfriendly to news that the Obama administration might move some detainees from their highly controlled military fortress at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Alexandria to stand trial at the federal courthouse.

UN Security Council Extends Mission 03/30/2009

The UN Security Council on Wednesday extended the United Nations presence in Afghanistan for another year, while recognizing the key role played by the world body in coordinating international efforts in the country and in supporting upcoming elections.

Electronic Spy Network 03/30/2009

An electronic spy network, based mainly in China, has infiltrated computers from government offices around the world, Canadian researchers say. They said the network had infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries.

Security PowerPoint Templates 03/30/2009

Large collection of security powerpoint templates.

Security Concerns in Child Database 03/29/2009

Security flaws have halted work on the internet database designed to hold the details of 11 million children and teenagers. The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) admitted last night that it had uncovered problems in the system for shielding details of an estimated 55,000 vulnerable children. These include children who are victims of domestic violence, those in difficult adoptions or witness protection programs and the children of the rich and famous, whose whereabouts may need to be kept secret.

Tibetan Unrest 03/28/2009

A weekend riot by hundreds of ethnic Tibetans was a spontaneous response to tough Chinese security measures, activists and an expert said on Monday, and more destabilising outbursts are likely in coming months. Beijing has flooded Tibet and ethnic Tibetan areas in neighbouring provinces with security forces, cut off some Internet and mobile phone services and closed the region to almost all foreigners in March, a month of sensitive anniversaries and a controversial new holiday.

New Zealand Withdraws Law 03/27/2009

New Zealand Monday withdrew a controversial law which could have forced firms to disconnect Internet users accused of illegal use of material such as music or films.

AIG Security Concerns 03/26/2009

American International Group is warning employees to take protective measures given the publics outrage over the companys retention-bonus payments. The company also provided some rather obvious safety and security guidelines, including advising against wearing apparel emblazoned with the companys insignia, making sure AIG corporate badges are not readily visible when exiting the office and to be aware of individuals who appear to be out of place or spending an inordinate amount of time near an AIG facility.

Early Warning for Internet Outages 03/25/2009

A long-overdue internet early warning system for Europe could help the region avoid deliberate or inadvertent outages, reduce the spread of new computer viruses, and ensure continuity of services.

Social Network Security Risks 03/24/2009

Social networking already has passed through the firewall of every company on the planet. Now CIOs need to ask, What else snuck in with it? Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace already are a part of employees lives. They are also one of the greatest tools for hackers to gain entry into the corporate enterprise, no matter how impenetrable a company thinks it is from the bad guys. And it's not just the 20-something employees. With workers of all ages showing growing angst over their jobs, they have been flooding onto LinkedIn to build up their contact lists in case they get laid off.

Organ Scam 03/23/2009

The operator of Liver4you.org is facing wire fraud charges for an alleged scheme to use the Web site to entice people needing organ transplants to wire tens of thousands of dollars to the Philippines in exchange for nonexistent surgeries, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Crack Down in Iran 03/23/2009

Irans Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Thursday it has launched a crackdown on several groups who had set up anti-Islamic and pornographic Internet sites.

Software Industry Conference 03/22/2009

Early bird discount is available only until April 1st, 2009 for the Software Industry Conference. The conference is designed for Software Developers and Software Marketers it is scheduled for July 16-18th, 2009 in Boston, MA.

How to Protect Software 03/21/2009

It likely came as no surprise that when software developers began disabling software functionality, their sales increased significantly. Protecting software and limiting its usage beyond a specified trial period has become a necessity and protecting software from cracks can be critical to an applications success. In fact, some statistics suggest that a software crack can impact software sales by as much as 30%! How to Protect Software

Cyber Security Leadership 03/20/2009

Halfway into a 60-day review of U.S. cybersecurity policy, lawmakers and tech industry experts are expressing alarm about the state of the nations cyberdefenses and hunger for leadership in the unacknowledged cyberwar against America.

Must Have Tools for Webmasters 03/19/2009

Here is a collection of what we consider must have tools for webmasters. These tools will benefit any webmaster, both novices and experts alike. Arm yourself with these tools in order to achieve a more professional online presence.

Churches Need Security Plans 03/18/2009

Churches can stop a shooter or anyone else intent on harming church members with the proper security measures in place, an expert on protecting places of worship said Monday. A church is not helpless when they have a plan.

Anonymous Blog Comments 03/17/2009

If you comment on a blog, should your identity be fair game if that bloggers post becomes the subject of a lawsuit? That is the question facing Virginia blogger Waldo Jaquith, who runs cvillenews.com. Jaquith is scheduled to appear in a Buckingham County court Thursday after being hit with a subpoena that requests he reveal any and all information he has on the people who left comments on a December blog post.

Illegal Download Punishments 03/16/2009

French bloggers and high-tech experts scorned Tuesday plans to punish illegal downloaders by cutting off Internet access, saying the move was unfair, unworkable and would not stop online piracy. One in three of Frances 30 million web users admit to downloading music, films or video games on the Internet, a recent poll showed, with some 450,000 movie copies a day downloaded in France last year.

Online Humiliation 03/15/2009

In schoolyards across the country, all it takes to attract a crowd are the words Fight! Fight! Fight! But students are increasingly showing up with cameras to record the brawls, then posting the footage on the Internet. Some of the videos have been viewed more than a million times. Now school officials and cyberspace watchdogs are worried that the videos will encourage violence and sharpen the humiliation of defeat for the losers.

CyberSecurity Chief Resigned 03/14/2009

The U.S. governments director for cybersecurity resigned on last week, criticizing the excessive role of the National Security Agency in countering threats to the countrys computer systems.

Social Media Primer 03/13/2009

Social media is the Internets version of viral messaging and marketing. Social media can be used to disseminate news or information, as well as to attract attention. There are a wide variety of social media channels and networks available. Social networks and social media websites are community-driven websites that allow visitors to submit items of interest. Visitors also decide what items appeal to them by voting or tagging; the more popular an item is determined to be by the visitors, the more exposure the item is given. Social Media Primer

Facebook Infestation 03/12/2009

According to the security firm, four hoax applications have become available on the social network along with a new variation of the Koobface virus, which was first detected at the end of last year, and directs users to a fake YouTube page where they are encouraged to install malware. Two of the hoax applications that have been downloaded by Facebook users include F a c e b o o k - closing down!!! and Error Check System. By downloading the app, users are giving hackers access to their profile and personal information, and also unwittingly forwarding fake messages to their friends, also encouraging them to download the programs.

The Email Cloud 03/11/2009

Cisco is planning to offer a new set of managed, hosted and hybrid e-mail security services to give businesses more choice in defending their networks. Ciscos approach puts them on a path similar to the one vendors such as Symantec and Google are walking. Cisco Systems has hopped aboard the cloud security train with a set of new managed, hosted and hybrid e-mail security services.

Importance of Backing Up 03/10/2009

Three things in life are certain; death, taxes and loss of data.

How To Delete a File ... For Good 03/09/2009

This is a good question, and raises an issue that many PC users do not fully understand: Deleting a file from your system does not permanently remove it from your hard drive. When you delete a file in Windows, it gets moved into the Recycle Bin -- a sort of second drive reserved for deleted files, from which documents can be easily recovered. Once you're sure files are no longer needed, you can empty the Recycle Bin to make them unrecoverable by Windows -- but in truth, they're still ripe for recovery. Fact is, when you delete a file or folder, it is not erased from the disk media: Instead, the operating system simply removes the reference to the file from the file system table, marking its space as free to be occupied or overwritten by another file. And even after a new file is created over it, it's still possible to recover the original data by analyzing the magnetic fields on the disk surface. The only way to truly eradicate your data is to have the system overwrite old files sectors of the hard drive with new data -- and then do it again and again. In fact, modern recovery technology is so through that even when you employ extreme measures such as reformatting the drive or removing the system partition, experts can still salvage the data.

Security Contest 03/07/2009

3Coms security branch, TippingPoint, says that the 2009 edition of the Pwn2Own challenge will ask security experts and others attending the Vancouver, Canada event to hack smartphones, not just computers, in an attempt to find exploits that would allow arbitrary code. Garnering publicity by way of Fortune, the two-day contest -- which begins along with CanSecWest on March 18th -- will give participants the opportunity to breach the safeguards of any one of five mobile platforms, each represented by a single device. Apple's iPhone will have to compete against the other heavyweights of the cellular world, including a BlackBerry as well as representative models for Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile. The contestants will have to depend solely on remote access and are thus forced to use techniques that are more likely to be seen in the wild, such as dangerous websites visited through the mobile web browser, harmful e-mail contents, or deliberately malformed SMS text messages.

Warrantless Wire Tapping 03/06/2009

The Obama administration on Friday lost its bid to halt a lawsuit charging that President George W. Bush broke the law when he authorized warrantless spying on terrorism suspects, the only such case to make it to federal court. A federal appeals court rejected the Justice Departments bid to halt the lawsuit by a now-defunct Islamic charity over warrantless wiretapping.

Blackwater Step Down 03/05/2009

Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater Worldwide security firm, announced Monday he has resigned as head of the company, recently renamed Xe.

Homeland Security and Immigration 03/04/2009

Late Monday, President Obama said he would nominate veteran prosecutor John Morton to become the next assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Homeland Security Department. John P. Torres, a career law enforcement official, now holds that position on an acting basis. Morton is acting deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's criminal division and has extensive experience in immigration enforcement.

Twitter Security Concerns 03/01/2009

Despite the popularity, Twitter still a lot to do when it comes to securing the platform. Just days after popular social networking tool Twitter was hit was a phishing scam, the company is now trying to clean up a mess surrounding a separate hacking attack. Over the weekend, some Twitter users received scam tweets, or direct messages, to visit certain sites or blogs. The URL in the message redirected users to a bogus login page in an attempt to steal login credentials for a phishing scheme. Monday, thing got worse as Twitter officials revealed several high profile accounts, such as those of Britney Spears and Barack Obama were hacked.

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