Sunday, January 30, 2011
Might be a good idea to change your Amazon password
So, there' an alleged bug in Amazon's authentication mechanism. There's a fix in place. but the catch is you need to change your password to alleviate the problem. And, as the author states, please do not use the word password in your password. If you think the word 'password' is a secure password, well, then I've got more educatin' to do. Gotta go, there's password changin' to do.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Kama Sutra, Trojans, and I'm not talkin' bout the good kinds
So, apparently, there's a new trojan horse floating around in the form of a PowerPoint slide show, which promises to educate the user on the Kama Sutra. It may be called "Real kamasutra.pps.exe," but could have any name. While the slide show may actually have images of Kama Sutra positions, there is a malware program embedded inside the executable that allows an attacker to take control of your machine, at which point they can steal your info, or enlist your services in their botnet.
Attackers prey on weaknesses. People have two major weaknesses: money, and sex -- not necessarily in that order. Put them together (money-free sex) and it's the perfect storm of human weakness.
For some it may go without saying. For others, not so much. Just stay away from the "free sex." You may not pay for it now, but at some point, you will. And for g-d's sake, don't fool around with anything with a ".exe" extension, unless you know where it's been. . . and you've both been tested.
Safe Surfing!
Attackers prey on weaknesses. People have two major weaknesses: money, and sex -- not necessarily in that order. Put them together (money-free sex) and it's the perfect storm of human weakness.
For some it may go without saying. For others, not so much. Just stay away from the "free sex." You may not pay for it now, but at some point, you will. And for g-d's sake, don't fool around with anything with a ".exe" extension, unless you know where it's been. . . and you've both been tested.
Safe Surfing!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Facebook scams hit mobile users
"What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on out there?"
In This post, the author cites statistics surrounding the percentage of scams on Facebook that hit mobile users. Approximately 24% of the hits to scam web pages came from mobile devices, e.g. Windows mobile phones, iPhones, Blackberrys, etc.. Unfortunately, scammers targeting mobile users will only increase as the number of people "going mobile" is increasing. Actually, it's not the "going mobile" aspect as much as it is the smart/droid/i phone aspect. More and more users are discovering the cool things that these powerful hand-held devices can do.
What's the fix? It's a simple one. Don't click on any links on your mobile device, which is easier said than done. It's very easy to hide a scam web page inside a HTML link that is legitimate. Here's an example:
I can say that I'm sending you to Google, but if you actually click on the link, it will take you to Microsoft's home page.
In This post, the author cites statistics surrounding the percentage of scams on Facebook that hit mobile users. Approximately 24% of the hits to scam web pages came from mobile devices, e.g. Windows mobile phones, iPhones, Blackberrys, etc.. Unfortunately, scammers targeting mobile users will only increase as the number of people "going mobile" is increasing. Actually, it's not the "going mobile" aspect as much as it is the smart/droid/i phone aspect. More and more users are discovering the cool things that these powerful hand-held devices can do.
What's the fix? It's a simple one. Don't click on any links on your mobile device, which is easier said than done. It's very easy to hide a scam web page inside a HTML link that is legitimate. Here's an example:
I can say that I'm sending you to Google, but if you actually click on the link, it will take you to Microsoft's home page.
Friday, November 19, 2010
McAfee's 12 scams of Christmas
While my McAfee software has been pissing me off lately to the point of wanting to throw it through a window, I still think their 12 Scams of Christmas is a good warning to all users of the Interwebs. Remember, if it's free now, you'll pay for it later, maybe with the loss of your personal info.
PortKnocking
It's been a while since I've posted -- been busy with school.
A coworker mentioned something called portknocking and it sounded pretty interesting, so I did a little digging. check out this link for an in-depth description. Basically, it's a way to make your computer even more secure, sort of like adding a combination lock to your firewall. While not recommended for everyday users, it's an interesting concept. You start by configuring iptables/chains to drop all incoming packets. Then you add a rule to your chain that says something like "If I have a connection attempt on port 1024, 1025, and then 1026, then allow ssh connections." you can then ssh into your machine. When you're finished, you have a rule that says "If I have a connection attempt on port 1026, 1025, then 1024, close port 22." Done. Pretty nifty.
A coworker mentioned something called portknocking and it sounded pretty interesting, so I did a little digging. check out this link for an in-depth description. Basically, it's a way to make your computer even more secure, sort of like adding a combination lock to your firewall. While not recommended for everyday users, it's an interesting concept. You start by configuring iptables/chains to drop all incoming packets. Then you add a rule to your chain that says something like "If I have a connection attempt on port 1024, 1025, and then 1026, then allow ssh connections." you can then ssh into your machine. When you're finished, you have a rule that says "If I have a connection attempt on port 1026, 1025, then 1024, close port 22." Done. Pretty nifty.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
KeePass
So, I've finally had some time to take a look at a few of the tools I learned about in the past few weeks of school, and one that even the home user can benefit from is call KeePass. Basically it is an application that can store all of your passwords (securely) for all of your applications, websites, etc...
A couple of features that I found handy were the ability to create a random password, and the ability to copy the password to your clipboard. Keepass has a feature that will create a pseudo-random password, which you can save for any of your applications so you don't have to remember it. It also has the ability to copy that password to your clipboard so you can just paste it into the login field of your particular application. There's a catch though. It only keeps the password stored in your clipboard for a few seconds, then wipes it. This is a good thing, as I'm sure I'm not the only one guilty of requesting a password reset from a web site, getting the email, and copying and pasting the new password into my login field. The problem with this? Well, the clipboard is just a small memory space that stores things until they get overwritten. So if the last thing you've copied to your clipboard is your banking password and I have access to your computer (by any means), I can grab it either from memory or, if I have phyical access, just hit ctrl-v.
...and if you're paranoid like me, you can run KeePass from an encrypted thumb drive using TrueCrypt, so your passwords will never be on your computer; and if you lose your thumb drive, well, you've lost your passwords, but a bad guy won't be able to recover the encrypted data -- at least not in our lifetime.
Check out KeePass here:
KeePass
A couple of features that I found handy were the ability to create a random password, and the ability to copy the password to your clipboard. Keepass has a feature that will create a pseudo-random password, which you can save for any of your applications so you don't have to remember it. It also has the ability to copy that password to your clipboard so you can just paste it into the login field of your particular application. There's a catch though. It only keeps the password stored in your clipboard for a few seconds, then wipes it. This is a good thing, as I'm sure I'm not the only one guilty of requesting a password reset from a web site, getting the email, and copying and pasting the new password into my login field. The problem with this? Well, the clipboard is just a small memory space that stores things until they get overwritten. So if the last thing you've copied to your clipboard is your banking password and I have access to your computer (by any means), I can grab it either from memory or, if I have phyical access, just hit ctrl-v.
...and if you're paranoid like me, you can run KeePass from an encrypted thumb drive using TrueCrypt, so your passwords will never be on your computer; and if you lose your thumb drive, well, you've lost your passwords, but a bad guy won't be able to recover the encrypted data -- at least not in our lifetime.
Check out KeePass here:
KeePass
Cross-Site Request Forgery, huh?
WTF Does that mean? Well, it's kinda tricky to explain, but it's pretty frightening. Basically, as server and application security has improved over the past few years, the bad guys have begun changing their means of attack. Now that the apps and servers are more protected, they move to the weakest link; the desktop and the browser. Instead of exploiting your trust in a bank's website, it exploits the bank website's trust in your browser.
Imagine you're logged into your banking site, and surfing Facebook or your favorite blog. A bad guy can post a malicious link (even embed it in an image so you never even see it) that counts on the fact that your banking site has already authenticated you. That malicious link or image sends a request to your banking site on your behalf that transfers some ungodly amount of money to some guy in Nigeria. You don't even see it happen. Your bank isn't alerted because you were logged in sucessfully, and you've just lost your money. While the stars may have to align for a bud guy to be able to exploit this, it is still listed in OWASP's Top Ten Vulnerabilities.
Is there a fix? Kinda. The easy fix is just to make sure that you don't surf to pages that you don't fully trust while logged into a sensitive site. If you're paranoid like me, you can use completely separate browsers for "surfing" and banking.
Imagine you're logged into your banking site, and surfing Facebook or your favorite blog. A bad guy can post a malicious link (even embed it in an image so you never even see it) that counts on the fact that your banking site has already authenticated you. That malicious link or image sends a request to your banking site on your behalf that transfers some ungodly amount of money to some guy in Nigeria. You don't even see it happen. Your bank isn't alerted because you were logged in sucessfully, and you've just lost your money. While the stars may have to align for a bud guy to be able to exploit this, it is still listed in OWASP's Top Ten Vulnerabilities.
Is there a fix? Kinda. The easy fix is just to make sure that you don't surf to pages that you don't fully trust while logged into a sensitive site. If you're paranoid like me, you can use completely separate browsers for "surfing" and banking.
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