Take note for the Social Media is indeed a potent source of Malware

Social media even though considered to be a vital cog in the communication process tends to possess chinks in its armour through which malware can easily seep into an organization. And in this scenario just to put the point across; the famous breed of malware which gets introduced into an organization through unfettered use of social media popularly tends to comprise of:

• Koobface

The worm is known to target social media biggies such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace along with other social media sites. The main goal of the worm is to gather login information for purposes of building a peer-to-peer botnet.

• Boonana

Written in Java and first reported in late October 2010, Boonana is known to target Macs. The modus operandi of this worm is very much like that of Koobface.

• Bugat

Considered to resemble the infamous keystroke-logging malware Zeus, Bugat is responsible for delivering a large-scale phishing attack against famous social media application LinkedIn. www.pccare247.com

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: An ultimate nemesis for SMB’s

Malicious attacks via social networks and through other mediums are considered to be a number one cause for data breaches, surpassing lost or stolen laptops and accidental sharing.

Impacting businesses big time, the costs comprise of detection, remediation, notification efforts, tech support, credit monitoring and legal fees.

In dire situations, resources are even diverted from other sales, marketing, customer service projects to focus on repair and damage control. With effect, leading the management teams to shift tasks to emergency communication efforts in order to repair customer trust.

But that’s not all, in addition to increased costs; businesses even end up risking the loss of their intellectual property. And if in a situation a cybercriminal were to end up gaining access to a corporate network, the company stands to lose new product development plans, confidential marketing, shareholder information and even its intellectual capital.

SMB’s need to tread with caution

Malware attacks can end up playing havoc with any organization, but for SMBs (Small and Medium-Sized Businesses) the costs are magnified. And in such a situation, the best protection strategy against social networking malware would be to go in for a two-pronged approach: education and technology.

To start with the easiest way to prepare employees against malware would be by means of showing them examples. Say for instance, one could always start by showing screenshots of Facebook scams, Twitter hacks or fake LinkedIn invitations. Yet, at the same time coming up with inclusive quick tips on how to avoid social malware via creation of strong passwords, using only trustworthy news sources and not clicking on questionable links. www.pccare247.com

And yes at the end of the day when employees do up realizing how convincing such attacks might be, giving them a good understanding of how to end up avoiding them.

Source your antivirus judiciously

Only employee education won’t do, for at the end of the day blue-chip business antivirus solutions are considered as an effective solution against social malware. However, as it goes all AV solutions are equal, so the one you should end up choosing should be inclusive of:

•  A powerful scanning technology. High-quality AV solutions come in good towards analyzing and   detecting potential viruses and malware before they end up infecting user machines.
•  Active monitoring and protection as a majority of the SMBs don’t have time or resources to constantly monitor their networks for security threats. So, investing in a solution protecting your network and user machines in real time would end up helping big time.
• Web filtering for malicious elements and blocking bad URLs before they hit the network. This should  be done by implementing a solution using the latest behavioral analysis and malware URL detection technology.

Is Social Networking really an evil or more of a necessity?

The platform of social networking is always ready to embrace one and all. For not only in reality is it a concept where old acquaintances and friends can go ahead and catch up on old times but rather are also at a liberty to opinionate and shop around for some of the most lucrative deals around. 

In fact, as trends would point out social networking as a concept also does well to blur boundaries, increase transparency and create fluidity in almost anything and everything we do. Linking a twelfth of society and growing rapidly, it may be added companies large and small can no longer ignore or even try blocking social networking. In essence, all I can say it is the part of the fabric in which we not only learn but play and work at the same time.

Making sense of social networking

The reality is you need to go where your target audiences are and people are more likely to participate in a social media forum than any other venue. Clients, channel partners and employees alike are more or less likely to engage via social media –  in short, it is a way for you to stay connected, gather feedback, recruit, and collaborate. As a result, I can really vouch that supporting social media in any environment readily gives an impetus to innovation, productivity, and accelerated growth which will ensure a business expands well and beyond what is expected.

The Ugly face of Social Networking

In spite of factors such as personalization, the ease with which information can be shared, and the real-time nature of the medium, it might be worth pointing social media also ends up posing significant risks to a business. And following are the top four risks which come tagged along with social networking. Starting with:

·         Malware

With more than 700 billion minutes being spent per month on Facebook alone, social networking sites are fast turning into ideal malware targets. And yes, if statistics would be anything to go by then nearly 40% of users are infected by malware from social networking sites. Typical attacks often stem from the trust relationship established between users and their connections users are tricked into giving up financial information that can be further exploited for financial gain. Some examples of malware are:

o   Phishing: Employing increasingly sophisticated techniques; attackers pose as legitimate social networking connections and try to lure PC users into providing sensitive information, such as your login credentials. Preying on the tendency of most people to use same passwords for all accounts hackers believe PC users are tricked into divulging confidential information related to banking and other financial transactions.

o   Click-Jacking: This concept uses the dynamic nature of social networking and a willingness to click on links from known contacts, and even those ones you don’t know to reach a large audience, cajoling you into revealing private information (e.g. through surveys), collecting hits for ad revenues and eventually allow access to an entire social network.

·         Productivity Loss

Online destinations such as social networking enable you to post and read messages, date, shop, upload or check out videos, and play games. In turn making such platforms an increasingly convenient and engaging target for users, drawing them to spend more and more time and better still at the end of the day making it increasingly challenging for a business to apply control.

·         Bandwidth Consumption

With nearly 40% of employees accessing social networking sites at work, a potential strain on bandwidth ends up acting as a detriment of other business applications.

·         Data Loss

There been cases in which employees have unintentionally posted proprietary software code to social networking sites, exposing sensitive intellectual property. These actions, though unintentional, can potentially violate industry specific regulations, impact reputation, or put an organization at a competitive disadvantage with unprecedented data loss. Just visit any kind of Support for Malware Removal http://www.pccare247.com/pc-security/malware-removal.html