Tag: Cyber Security Page 45 of 48

Steps Towards Online Identity Safety

On July 29, 2015

July 29, 2015

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing methods used by hackers to carry out criminal activities. It is an attempt to gain unauthorized access to the personal information of internet users, such as email ids, passwords, credit card details, social security numbers etc. With internet being a crucial part of our everyday lives, the risk for identity theft has also increased manifold. Therefore, it is important that you are aware of the dos and don’ts for keeping your information secure over the internet.

Read on to know some of the essential steps that you must follow to ensure online identity safety:

Create Strong Passwords: Choosing small and easy passwords is like providing hackers the key to your virtual world. These are the most common ways crimes like identify theft are carried out. In order to avoid being a victim of these attacks, you should create passwords that are lengthy, unique and hard to crack. A good password comprises minimum 8 characters with a combination of numbers, alphabets and symbols. You can also use a two-factor authentication method to prevent unauthorized access to your online accounts.
Use Multiple Email Accounts: Using different email accounts for important and spam emails can help to minimize the risk of hacking attacks. For instance, you can create a separate email id for work related conversations, another for personal emails and yet another to be used for unsecure or trivial websites. Thus, spam emails will no longer pose a threat to your sensitive information.
Ignore Emails From Unknown Senders: If you receive an email from an unknown sender, you must not open or download its attachments. These could be malware attempting to infect your system and steal important data. You should also be cautious of emails asking you to enter your personal information or verify password. If you receive an email claiming to be from a bank or any reputed business, make sure you validate its legitimacy by directly contacting the company.
Ensure Secure Network: Before entering your credit card details for internet banking or other ecommerce transactions, look for the padlock symbol in your browser’s address bar. Additionally, the URL of the website should begin with ‘https’ instead of ‘http’. This ensures that the connection is secure and the information you enter will be properly encrypted.
Ignore Pop-Ups: Pop-ups are also a common method of getting users to download malware into their devices. Advertizements that claim to offer a prize or reward usually contain bugs programmed to damage your system, gather important data or simply manipulate stored information.

For more online identity safety tips, feel free to contact Centex Technologies at (855) 375 – 9654.

Wi-Fi Password Sharing Feature In Windows 10 Raises Security Concerns

By centexitguy

On July 16, 2015

In Security

July 16, 2015

With Microsoft taking its last leap with the Windows 10, most tech professionals are looking forward to the new competences added to this operating system. One such feature, that has managed to garner more controversies than commendations, is the ‘Wi-Fi Sense’. Essentially, it is a mode of sharing network information among users. It is designed to allow an easy and quick connection to in-range password protected wireless hotspots within friends. Though Microsoft initially rolled out this Wi-Fi password sharing feature in Windows Phone 8.1, it did not gain much popularity due to its limited user base.

How Does Wi-Fi-Sense Work?

Wi-Fi Sense enables users to share network connection with their Facebook, Skype and Outlook contacts. Working at the back-end, this feature agrees to Wi-Fi terms and conditions, shares log-in credentials as well as connects your friends whenever they are in-range of the network that you want to share. Hence, if any of your friends tries to access your internet connection, Wi-Fi Sense will evaluate his actions and provide access spontaneously, without making the password visible to him. Other users, who are in your contact list and have Windows 10 on their device, will also have their network details shared with you, provided they have enabled Wi-Fi Sense.

Security Risks With Wi-Fi Sense

According to Microsoft’s official sources, the Wi-Fi password is shared in an encrypted form through the company’s internal servers. The user is granted access only to internet connection and not to the files or data stored in your system. However, even the basic sharing of password may compromise the security of your network and make it vulnerable to various hacking attacks. The idea of sharing internet connection can be great for family and friends, but not for corporate settings. Sharing passwords with all your Facebook, Outlook and Skype contacts could also mean inadvertently providing your network information to people whom you barely know.

The best way to safeguard your network from these privacy risks is by taking a few preventive measures. As the feature is likely to be enabled by default in Windows 10 PCs and laptops, make sure you turn it off. However, it is a not a perfect solution for business firms that encourage bring your own device (BYOD) culture. Another option to keep your network out of Wi-Fi Sense is to add the phrase “_optout” to its name. For instance, if your internet connection is named “mynetwork”, you must change it to “mynetwork_optout”.

Considering the security concerns emerging around Wi-Fi Sense, it is recommended that you use 802.1X authentication or implement stricter access controls to your network connection.

Beware Of Rombertik Virus

By centexitguy

On June 28, 2015

In Security

June 29, 2015

Cybersecurity experts have come up with a new self-destructive virus, Rombertik, which is remarkably inimitable with respect to its functionality and perplexity. Identified by Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group, the deadly virus has been designed to decode any text entered into the user’s internet browser. It aims at stealing user names, passwords, bank account details, credit card codes and other sensitive information. Also known as the ‘suicide virus’, Rombertik attempts to destroy the infected computer if it gets detected.

How Does Rombertik Work?

Rombertik mainly targets a user’s computer through spam emails. When a user downloads the attachment files that accompany these emails, the virus installs itself on the device. Initially, Rombertik performs some checks to confirm it is not running inside the sandbox, after which it starts with its execution. What makes Rombertik different from other malware is its bloated file size. As stated by Talos, the unpacked version of Rombertik is merely 28 KB whereas the packed file is more than 1 MB. This implies that almost 97 percent of the data in packed version is included just to make the file look legitimate.

The malware Rombertik is self-aware, meaning that it recognizes if the user tries to dismiss it with anti-virus software. In an attempt to avoid detection, the virus starts to destroy itself along with the computer’s Master Boot Record (MBR), rendering it unusable.

How Does Rombertik Remain Undetected?

The huge amount of junk elements contained in the executable file of Rombertik is never utilized by the malware. This inflates the volume of the file, which needs to be analyzed and studied by the cyber experts, thus, adjourning the virus identification process.

The virus overwrites a single byte of random data 960 million times on the computer memory. This is done to deceive sandbox to take Rombertik to be an authentic program. It leads to extending the data log over 100 GB, thus, complicating the investigation and detection of the malware.

How To Protect Against Rombertik?

One should not download attachments in emails from unknown sources.
Anti-virus software should be updated to block the malware in the first place.
Set up email security settings and block downloading of certain types of attachments.

Cyber security professionals recommend that users should constantly update their system’s security software and keep a backup of all the important data to minimize the effects of getting the system infected with Rombertik.

Man-In-The-Middle-Attack

By centexitguy

On May 30, 2015

In Security

May 30, 2015

A man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack occurs when an unauthorized user attempts to actively monitor, capture and control the information transmitted between the source and destination computer. The attack may be carried out to simply gain access to the encrypted/unencrypted information or empower the hacker to modify the message before passing it further.

How Does A Man-In-The-Middle Attack Works?

The man-in-the-middle attack is performed when the attacker gains complete control over the networking router along a normal flow of traffic. The cybercriminal, in most cases, is in the same broadcast domain as the victim. For example, a TCP connection exists between the server and client in an HTTP session. The MITM splits the link into two – one between the server and attacker and other between the victim and attacker. By interrupting the TCP connection, the attacker decodes, alters and inserts fake data into the communication. A man-in-the-middle attack aims to exploit the weaknesses in the communication protocol, convincing the source network to divert traffic through the attacker’s router.

Tips To Prevent Man-In-The-Middle Attacks

Pay Attention To Certificate Warnings: A security certificate warning appearing for a website might indicate a serious problem. If the certificate doesn’t match with the server, you might be communicating with a malicious server carrying out a man-in-the-middle attack. Thus, you must not visit such websites, specifically if it involves entering important information like user names, passwords, bank account details etc.
Check for HTTPS Encryption: When connecting to sites that process financial transactions such as online shopping or banking, make sure that the session has an HTTPS encryption. When communicating over HTTPS, your web browser checks identity certificates to confirm the credibility of the servers you are connecting to, thus, reducing the possibility of a phishing server.
Be Careful While Using Wi-Fi Networks: Avoid doing any online transaction or sharing sensitive information if you are using a public Wi-Fi network. Be more alert if you see certificate warnings and websites without HTTPS encryption on such networks. Always try to use a private virtual private network (VPN) to create a secure connection to a trusted server.
Install Anti-Virus Software: Installing and regularly updating anti-virus software can help you defend against man-in-the-middle attacks that involve infecting your computer with a malware.

We, at Centex Technologies provide the most advanced cyber security solutions for businesses. For more information, you can call us at (855) 375 – 9654.

What is a Sniffer Attack?

By centexitguy

On May 18, 2015

In Security

May 18, 2015

A sniffer attack involves capturing, inspecting, decoding and interpreting the network packets and information exchanges on a TCP/IP network. It aims at stealing unencrypted information, such as user IDs, passwords, email text, transferred files, credit card numbers, network details etc. It is also referred as a passive cyber-threat as the attacker is usually invisible and difficult to detect on the network.

Types Of Sniffer Attacks

LAN Sniffing: In this, the sniffer software is installed on the internal LAN to scan the entire network exhaustively. This helps to provide further information such as server inventory, live hosts, open ports etc. Once all the details are gathered, the hacker may launch a port-specific attack.
Protocol Sniffing: This method involves creating separate sniffers to carry out attacks on different network protocols. For instance, if a hacker sees UDP packets in a network, a separate sniffer is started to capture information.
ARP Sniffing: The hackers steal all the important information related to the IP addresses and its associated MAC addresses. This data is further used to initiate packet spoofing attacks, ARP poisoning attacks or exploit vulnerabilities in the network router.
TCP Session Sniffing: This is a basic sniffer attack in which the hackers get hold of the traffic between the source and destination IP address. They target details like service types, port numbers and TCP sequence numbers to create and control a fabricated TCP session.
Web Password Sniffing: In these sniffer attacks, the hackers penetrate the HTTP sessions that do not use secure encryption. Following this, the user IDs and passwords can be stolen and used for malicious purposes.

Tips To Protect Against Sniffer Attacks

Enable a WPA or WPA2 encryption for your router. Also, make sure you change its default password to limit access to your network. Use a long and secure password consisting of numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters and symbols.
Use MAC filtering on your network. You must allow only trusted MAC addresses to access your private VPN, thus, reducing the chances of a sniffer spying on the network.
Ensure that the important sites you use, particularly those that involve making financial transactions, have SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. If a site is SSL enabled, it will have a URL beginning with HTTPS instead of HTTP.

We, at Centex Technologies, can assess and implement advanced cybersecurity measures in your organization. For more information, you can call us at (855) 375 – 9654.