Keep Cyber attackers at bay with these easy pointers

Lately have you felt your PC has been at the receiving end of attacks launched by Cyber criminals or attackers? Do you feel they are hell bent on ensuring your PC gets reduced to a pile of heap? If yes, then start paying heed to these pointers for they would end up coming in good to bolster the defense mechanism of your PC big time. So, go ahead and read all such pointers in order to bolster your PC’s defense mechanism big time. Starting with:   

·    Get the senior management onboard – The prospect of getting the senior management onboard augurs well because a PC user would always be made aware about the risks and opportunities out there in the cyber world.

·    Take a good hard look as to how prepared your organization is prepared to take on cybercrime – unlike the traditional economic crimes, cybercrime is fast-paced and new risks emerge all the time; meaning the organization needs to bring about a change in its procedures to continually take on such challenges head on.

·       Awareness about the current and emerging cyber environment enables an organization to make well-informed decisions and do the right things at the right times.

·   By setting up a cyber incident response team that can act and adapt quickly – the organization can always end up tracking, do risk-assessment and deal with incidents as soon as they are spotted in a business.

·     Recruiting people with the relevant skills and experience helps in creation of a ‘cyber-aware’ organization that can end up protecting itself better.

·    Taking a tough and clearer stance on cybercrime enables an organization to take the requisite legal action against cyber criminals and announcing what it really intends to do about any future threats and incidents. http://www.pccare247.com/pc-security/malware-removal.html

Four Knights in shining armor ready to defend your PC 24X7

The yearning for openness and ease of access ends up coming with a price. And precisely it is this same need for having the world at our fingertips has led to an exponential increase in cyber crime. With each new advance, criminals and rogue nation states are getting emboldened with opportunities to steal, manipulate, disrupt and destroy.

But not the one to sit back and relax in an effort to thwart these attacks, the security industry has delivered a range of technologies. Whilst, many of such technologies offer limited benefits and have been quickly shelved, others have gone on to become a de facto standard for sprucing up security in any organizational setup.

But then again no matter how big the contingency would be there are four knights which are always willing to defend an organization even in the most contingent scenarios. Popularly comprising of:

·         Firewalls

·         Intrusion Prevention Products

·         Anti Virus Software

·         Web Gateways

Gearing up to mount an effective defense at your behest

All PC users know an effective defense against an incoming threat would go a long way in keeping their PC up and running. So, in this regards, as it goes what better way would be there do the same than to spruce up the defenses by means of anything but:

Firewalls

Firewalls are configured with the sole purpose of strictly limiting which systems can communicate with internal systems and what ports could be used for communications. They shield systems and services not generally considered as accessible and otherwise known to be vulnerable. However, in spite of being considered as a necessity for most organizations, firewalls are completely blind when it comes to preventing any targeted and zero-day malware attacks.

Network Intrusion Prevention Systems

Network intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and intrusion detection systems (IDS) have been developed to address any firewall’s visibility and granularity limitations. To filter out attacks, IPS solutions inspect network communications and try to understand various application data being transmitted. Earlier IDS solutions performed passive monitoring, thoroughly analyzed network traffic and identified attacks based on signatures of known exploits. But then again as IDS morphed into IPS, these solutions could not prevent attacks in which signatures ended up matching a known exploit.

Antivirus

Every antivirus application ends up maintaining a large database of known threats. Should at any time a signature of a threat be identified on a system file, it quarantines or removes that file. Here once again, security teams would be required to use a reactive solution for identifying threats well in advance. But then again somewhere down the line as advanced malware and other threats increasingly focused on unknown threats and became more dynamic, an antivirus solution became completely redundant in combating such threats.

Web Gateways

While Web gateways provided some initial security value, attackers have shifted tactics. They have moved to completely dynamic and obfuscated models of both attack delivery and malware communication, rendering lists of malicious Web sites obsolete. Consequently, just as Web gateways started to be widely adopted, they became outmoded from a security perspective. While these technologies still have utility in enforcing HR policies limiting employee Web browsing, in combating modern attacks, Web gateways have been relegated to an increasingly marginal security role. Then again the same is also true of antivirus and other technologies due to a radical shift in tactics adopted cyber criminals.

Take care!! Security concerns for 2012 are knocking on the door

With 2012 just about round-the-corner, security concerns are also rather new and are being considered more than menacing in their outlook ever before. What’s more, adding to already burgeoning security hassles are the influx of bring your own devices (BYOD), social media, cloud computing and other operational challenges. In short, all we can say is buckle up, for if 2011 was a shocker, then 2012 is likely to be a motherload of all security issues.

What’s 2012 got in store?

2012 is for sure going to pain in the neck or the IT guys dealing with the security scenario. Since, as it goes the year will end up promising hassles galore in fields such as:

·         Social Media

It goes without saying identity may prove more valuable to cybercriminals than credit cards. For at the end of the day, bad guys would be actively involved in the activity of buying and selling social media credentials on online forums. And if facts are anything to go by then with Facebook nearly boasting of more than 800 million active users and over half of them logging on to the site daily, with every user nearly boasting of as many 130 friends on an average, a less than favorable scenario is not far away.  And yes with trust ending up being the foundation of social networking, if in case a bad guy does end up compromising with the logins, there is a good chance a manipulation on friends list is in the pipeline.

·         Blended Attacks

This method is considered as one of the most advanced attacks trying to sneak its way past elements social media elements such as ‘friends’, ‘mobile devices’ and the cloud. Blended attacks are generally a considered as a mix of two elements, namely E-mail and the Web. In the coming year advanced attacks are increasingly going to rely on at least two and sometimes all the emerging technologies such as social media, cloud platforms and mobile.

·         Volley of Attacks in 2012

End up expecting an increase in exposed vulnerabilities from black hats and white hats in coming year for mobile devices. In 2012, if estimates are anything to go by then nearly 1,000 different variants of exploits, malicious applications, and botnets would be ready to infect hand held devices and those plugged to the head. And yes with nearly a new variant every day the number of people falling victim to believable social engineering scams will rise manifold.

·         Containment is the new prevention 

For years, security defenses have focused on keeping cybercrime and malware out. There’s been much less attention on watching outbound traffic for data theft and evasive command and control communications. Organizations on the leading edge will implement outbound inspection and will focus on adapting prevention technologies to be more about containment, severing communications, and data loss mitigation after an initial infection.

·         Social Event Magnets

The London Olympics, U.S. presidential elections, Mayan calendar and apocalyptic predictions are events cyber criminals will try and exploit to the hilt. SEO poisoning has become an everyday occurrence and one just needs to the name the trend and it is for sure going to be poisoned. Further, as the bigger search engines have become savvier towards removing poisoned results; criminals in 2012 will end up using the same techniques ported to new platforms. So, in short Twitter feeds, Facebook posts/emails, LinkedIn updates, YouTube video comments, and forum conversations need to be handled with extreme caution. Better still searches, wall posts, forum discussions, and tweets dealing with topics listed above, as well as any celebrity death or other surprising news are considered to be magnets for unsuspecting netizens. www.pccare247.com

Malware is out there to get you

Malware, Viruses, Trojans as a dreaded trifecta have made the internet an easy and plum target for cyber criminals. And with malware scoring heavily over the other two, organizations are in dire need to take drastic measures for safeguarding their crucial data. For the failure to do so may bring all doomsday theories to life; while at the same time leaving one groping for answers as to what really devoured their data with such nonchalant ease.

The Weapons Creators

·         Zero-day exploit finders  - Wade though software, digging up undocumented  bugs and vulnerabilities

·         Toolkit Authors  - Purchase exploits and build malware using them, before licensing o selling it out to attackers

The Launderers

·         Mules - Figure out ways to transfer or move stolen money to the hands of criminals running malware networks, for a percentage fee.

·         Exchangers - Acquire large amounts of virtual currencies to split and sell in smaller, untraceable quantities.

·         Virtual currency sellers - Sell stolen virtual currencies.

The Attackers

·         Financial data stealers - Either sell your credit card and bank information by the hundreds to other criminals, or use them to make fraudulent transactions on your behalf.

·         Identity Stealers - Steal and user identities, including financial and personal.

·         PPC generators - use infected computers to deliver millions of fake ad clicks on web sites, earning money from ad providers like Google in the process.

The Delivery Amplifiers

·         Botnet herders - A key component of the malware supply chain, herders infect and turn tens of thousands of computers around the world into “zombies”. Controlling them to do anything such as spreading viruses, producing internet traffic or attacking websites.

·         Spammers - Infect millions of unsuspecting users by sending them infected attachments or guide them to infected websites.

·         Phishers - Create fake Web sites for tricking users into revealing their personal information.

·         Black hat SEO - Use illegal techniques to boost search engine rankings of malware removal-hosting Web sites, usually by commandeering botnets