Security
Port
A Security Port Blog
Authorities: Teens at Risk on Web
Sites |
02/20/2006 | |
On MySpace.com, teenagers can find kindred
spirits who share their love of sports, their passion
for photography or their crush on a Hollywood star. They
can also find out where their online friends live, where
they attend school, even what they look like.
Parents, school administrators and police are
increasingly worried that teens are finding trouble
online at sites like MySpace, the leader of the
social-networking sites that encourage users to build
larger and larger circles of friends.
Police in
Middletown, Conn., are investigating recent reports that
as many as seven local girls were sexually assaulted by
men in their 20s who contacted them through MySpace
pretending to be teenagers.
Complete
Aricle
|
Apple Uses Poem to Deter
Hackers |
02/19/2006 | |
Apple Computer Inc. added something extra
in its newest Macintosh computers last month: a poem
embedded in the software to ward off hackers.
The
poem reads: There once was a user that whined His
existing OS was so blind He'd do better to
pirate An OS that ran great But found his hardware
declined.
Text after the verse adds that it is
"way uncool" to steal the program. "We have many legal
warnings and hopefully this will remind people that they
should not steal Mac OS X," spokeswoman Natalie Kerris
said yesterday. |
First Mac OS X Malware Infects Via
iChat |
02/17/2006 | |
The first piece of malicious code
targeting Apple Computer's Mac OS X was identified by
several security firms Thursday.
Dubbed
"OSX/Leap.a" by McAfee, Sophos, and Symantec, the
malware spreads using the Mac's built-in iChat instant
messaging service, where it arrives as an IM file
transfer. If the recipient opens the "latestpics.tgz"
archive file received from someone on her iChat contact
list, the payload, actually a compressed Unix shell
program, installs. The Unix shell then uses Mac OS X
10.4' Spotlight search tool to sniff out other
applications on the machine, and inserts a small bit of
code into each application.
Complete
Article
|
Security Aquisitions |
02/17/2006 | |
Security companies that are privately held
and in the business of protecting information from
espionage and offering up secure access are attractive
among potential buyers, a panel of security titans and
bankers said on Thursday during the RSA Conference
2006.
The panel, speaking to a standing-room-only
crowd, addressed the current mergers and acquisitions
environment for security companies, as well as what it
takes for them to gain interest in potential buyout
candidates.
Complete
Article
|
Mobile Security Taking Hold |
02/17/2006 | |
Corporations are starting to invest to
mobile security software, but among consumers the takeup
is still at least a year away, a senior official of U.S.
security software firm Symantec said on
Thursday.
"In enterprises, this is starting to
happen now, but in consumer side I would not expect a
large uptake at least for a year," Sarah Hicks, vice
president for strategy, told Reuters in an interview at
mobile communications fair 3GSM in Barcelona.
|
RSA
Security Conference |
02/15/2006 | |
One of the computer and Internet security
industry's largest events opens today in San Jose and is
expected to draw more than 14,000 attendees. Over four
days the conference will present 200 sessions on various
aspects of security, privacy, government policies,
hackers and threats, identity management and wireless
issues. WHAT: 15th annual RSA Security
Conference WHERE: McEnery Convention Center, San
Jose WHEN: Feb 13-17, 2006 |
Microsoft Warns of Security
Flaws |
02/15/2006 | |
Microsoft Corp. on has warned of two
"critical" security flaws that could allow attackers to
use its media player or Internet Explorer Web browser to
possibly take control of a computer.
Microsoft,
the world's top software company whose Windows operating
system runs on 90 percent of the world's computers,
issued patches to fix the problems as part of its
monthly security bulletin. It listed both as critical
vulnerabilities.
One flaw is a vulnerability in
some versions of the Windows Media Player for playing
music or video files. The flaw makes it possible for an
attacker to use a malicious file that controls the
appearance of the player to launch other programs on a
computer. |
Security versus security: There's
more than one kind |
02/13/2006 | |
Most of the time when we talk about
privacy, we talk about the trade-offs that have to be
made between privacy and convenience, or the trade-offs
between security and privacy.
Complete
Article
|
Test
For Massive Internet Security Attack |
02/10/2006 | |
Homeland Security Tests U.S. Readiness for
Massive Internet Attack
The cyber-disaster drill
originally had been scheduled for last year but had to
be postponed because of Hurricane Katrina. Even before
that emergency, however, many lawmakers were calling for
the test to determine how prepared the U.S. is for a
massive Internet attack.
The Department of
Homeland Security has embarked on the first
international test of the United States' preparedness
against a massive Internet attack by terrorists. The
national exercise, which began on February 6 and will
end on February 10, has been dubbed "Cyber Storm."
|
RSS
Security Concerns |
02/08/2006 | |
RSS is growing at a lightening speed.
What was once only known as a "techie tool", RSS is
becoming a tool that is continuously being used by the
general population. Along with the good comes, the not
so good. And while some have mentioned the emergence of
RSS spam, where content publishers dynamically generate
nonsensical feeds stuffed with keywords, the real
concern relates to security. While an annoyance to the
search engines, spam in RSS feeds pales in comparison to
the possible security concerns that could be in RSS'
future.
RSS Security
Concerns
|
Microsoft to Unveil Paid Security
Service |
02/08/2006 | |
A new security service from Microsoft
Corp. will charge users $49.95 per year to better
protect its Windows operating system from spyware,
viruses and other Internet attacks.
Microsoft
plans to release the product in early
June.
Called Windows OneCare Live, the
subscription service will compete with security products
made by traditional Microsoft partners, including
Symantec Corp. and McAfee
Inc.
|
The
Mac Skeptic: Straight Talk on Mac Security
Risks |
02/07/2006 | |
Are Macs impervious to malicious
software? No. Have Macs been the subject of catastrophic
attacks? No again. Should Mac users be vigilant anyway?
Of course.
It's time for me to fess
up: I've been as complacent as most Mac users when it
comes to taking precautions to safeguard my data and the
integrity of my system. Although my Windows PC is
swaddled in antivirus, anti-spyware, and firewall
software, my Mac has been fairly undefended, up to now.
I just haven't felt much urgency to put up barriers
against threats that don't seem to
exist.
But at Macworld Expo last
month, I stopped by the booths of several security
software vendors and began to wonder if they are pushing
products people don't need, or if they know something I
don't.
Complete
Article
|
Internet Crime With Ficticious
Victim |
02/06/2006 | |
Connecticut's highest court has ruled that
sexual assault against minors is a crime even when it
involves made-up victims, after a detective posed as a
13-year-old girl on the Internet in a police sting
operation.
The ruling by the state Supreme Court
followed an appeal in March 2005 by defendant John
Sorabella, who was found guilty on two counts of
attempted second-degree sexual assault against someone
he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.
|
Beefing Up E-Mail Security |
02/06/2006 | |
In an effort to get tougher on spam and
phishing attacks, e-mail security vendor IronPort
Systems has launched a new capability that enables its
appliances to assess the trustworthiness of Web links
embedded in e-mails. The vendor’s new Web Reputation
technology, rolled out this month, aims to increase the
antispam functionality of its e-mail security appliances
and is supported by its SenderBase Network security
database. Assessing the reputation of the e-mail
sender is not enough to block spam and phishing attacks,
which are becoming increasingly complex, said Pat
Peterson, vice president of technology at IronPort, San
Bruno, Calif.
That’s why IronPort now is
tracking URLs within the content of the e-mail and
placing a reputation score on the URLs based on criteria
such as the length of time they have been registered or
the country the site is hosted in. Messages that contain
suspicious Web links are filtered out, helping to block
spam, phishing attacks, URL-based viruses and spyware
spread through e-mail that can look identical to
legitimate messages but instead contain malicious URL
links. |
Sharing Data Critical to
Security |
02/06/2006 | |
Greater training for communications
equipment is the most urgent security need for San
Diego's seaport, a top harbor security official said
yesterday.
John MacIntyre, program manager for
homeland security at the San Diego Unified Port
District, said he wants various security agencies –
from the police to the U.S. Border Patrol – to improve
the way they share data and information.
|
Symantec Readies Security
Subscription Service |
02/01/2006 | |
Genesis service, coming later this year,
will offer antivirus, antispyware, and anti-phishing
capabilities.
Symantec expects to begin offering
a new consumer security service similar to Microsoft's
Windows OneCare Live by September of this year, a
company executive said this week. Code-named "Genesis,"
the service will integrate components of Symantec's
security, PC tuning, and backup software into a single
service that is accessible over the Internet.
|
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