Secure and speedy access to online data storage with e-Storage

Backing up your important data with a secure online data storage provider means that you won't have to worry about losing data if your computer's hard drive breaks down. TM's e-Storage service is an online storage & backup service that can be accessed anywhere with an Internet connection. With an Internet connection and an encrypted & password-protected Web browser interface, your remotely hosted files & folders appear as if they are stored on an external hard drive. This is done with minor configurations through a familiar Web browser-based interface called "StorageSync". which is a software client dedicated for auto synchronization between the desktop files & storage server. Data is kept at TM's Tier-One data centre located in Cyberjaya, which complies with the Information Security Management System standards BS7799 certification & ISO 27001 standards. Since the data is hosted locally, the data transfer rate is faster when compared to the free ones hosted overseas. You can choose from either a 500MB or 1GB space for personal online storage or choose the enterprise online storage, which starts at 1GB for business customers. Both the personal & enterprise online storage packages come with the Private folder option. However, only the enterprise package has the additional 'Company Share' folder, which allows other members of the company to share files & data. The personal online storage is available at RM1 per month for 500MB and RM2 per month for 1GB storage. For business subscribers, the monthly subscription fee is RM4 per month, which includes 1GB of online storage with three user ID accounts. Enjoy 30-day FREE trial of e-Storage for all existing 'Dial-up' 1515 & Streamyx customers. You can activate the online storage trial anytime, after which if the subscription is not renewed, the trial account will be automatically cancelled & all residing data will be deleted. For more information on e-Storage, visit Netmyne. For more information on TM's Internet products & services, visit TM website.

Malware writers get creative to target iPhone

Technological convergence came full circle with the release of the iPhone, Apple's newest wonder gadget. Arguably the most anticipated product so far for 2007, the iPhone is a multimedia & Internet enabled mobile phone that brings Apple into the mobile telecommunications market. While Apple plans to corner a 1% share in the global mobile phone market (roughly 10 million units) in its first year of availability, several analysis have forecasted even greater expectations given the iPod's amazing success.

With all the hype surrounding the iPhone, security researchers are waiting to determine whether it is secure enough to do more than just communicate & entertain. The platforms on which these mobile phones are running (such as Linux, Symbian, Palm & Windows Mobile) provide software development kits (SDKs) to 3rd-party vendors so that they may create compatible applications. Hackers have easy access to these platform blueprints, enabling them to find vulnerabilities in the system to inject malware. Some malware creators leveraged the type early without even creating malware for the device itself. On June 30, 2007, researchers reported the discovery of a pop-up ad that disguises as a venue that sells iPhone.

Trigged when visiting Google.com.my or Yahoo.com.my, the Trojan generated a pop-up ad that referred interested iPhone buyers to a phony Web site. However, the malware authors took the money from confirmed purchases & the buyers received nothing in return. A few months later, SDA Asia reported an e-mail spam version of this malware. The malware tried to improve its chances of successful installation by exploiting over 10 ActiveX vulnerabilities to install its malicious payload. Other features include use of XOR encryption & multiple fake Web sites to thwart detection. Apple developed the iPhone without releasing a software development kit (SDK), meaning developers & hackers alike will not find it easy to develop applications or malware for the iPhone.

However, days after its launch, Errata Security reported that one of the applications in the iPhone contained one of the vulnerabilities found in the beta version of Apple's Safari 3 browser. This vulnerability, when successfully exploited, may allow a remote user to assume control of Safari 3 to execute code of choice. Safari is the 3rd most popular Web browser with almost 5% of market share as of May 2007 (according to Net Applications.com). Hours after the release of the Safari 3 Beta for Mac & Windows on June 12, independent security researcher Thor Larholm found a zero-day vulnerability relating to the URL (uniform resource locator) protocol handler in the Windows version.

Another researcher, Errata Security found 6 other vulnerabilities in the Windows version - 4 of which could allow denial of service (DoS) attacks while the other 2 could allow remote code execution on the affected system. The bugs found on the Windows version of Safari may affect the iPhone as loopholes in one version can easily be located on another. Furthermore, the iPhones runs on Mac OS X, which has several issues of its own & it is likely that these will be encountered in the iPhone. These vulnerabilities may offset Apple's closed platform strategy, as they provide hackers with material to explore.

The Safari 3 & iPhone vulnerabilities combined with the malware events seem to tell the world that Apple products are popular enough to serve as prime targets for lucrative exploits & bugs. It is wise to expect additional attacks in the future as the iPhone rolls out & availability & popularity increase.

Yahoo! & eBay move to block phishers

Yahoo! Inc is working with auction leader eBay Inc & its PayPal payments unit to block fake e-mail messages to users purporting to be from eBay & PayPal, hoping to spur on an industry that has been slow to fight the scourage of socalled phishing attacks. eBay & PayPal have upgraded their computer systems to support an emerging technology standard known as DomainKeys invented by Yahoo! that authenticates e-mail senders are who they say they are, allowing Yahoo! to block fake e-mail messages. The technology upgrade will be made available to Yahoo! Mail users worldwide over the next several weeks. It is a big step forward for consumers in defense against the bad guys.

Along with banks & pharmaceutical makers, eBay & PayPal are among the brands most targeted by phishers seeking to trick consumers into divulging personal information such as credit card or password data in order to commit financial fraud. Over the past decade, phishing has been clogging the inboxes of e-mail users worldwide with ever more sophisticated attempts to fool users into clicking on fraudulent sites or giving up personal financial details to commit fraud. But to date, many of the defenses put forward by security software vendors & industry consortiums have failed to take hold with e-mail senders due to their complexity or costliness, or political infighting over standards, leaving individual consumers always guessing which e-mail may be real or fake.

A PayPal official said Yahoo!s system provides a way of automatically detecting potential phishing attacks without relying on the consumer to do anything new. If the consumer doesn't receive an e-mail in their inbox then it is very hard for the phisher to victimise them.

Fear of blocking

2 camps have emerged among technology providers seeking to develop a coherent approach to identifying e-mail senders. One backed by Yahoo! & Cisco Systems Inc, along with AOL, Google Inc, IBM Corp, Sendmail & VeriSign Inc, is the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) technology, which allows e-mail providers to identify the web domain from which a sender has sent e-mail. A 2nd standard known as Sender Policy Network (SPF) has been led by Microsoft Corp, which offers its own versions of SPF known as Sender ID. SPFbased protections are used by Amazon, AOL, GoDaddy & eBay, which supports both DKIM & SPF. DomainKeys relies on more sophisticated cryptography than the Microsoft-supported approach.

This sophistication can make DomainKeys harder for websites to install but offers greater long-term defense against phishing attacks. So far, most consumers have installed sender authentication inside their e-mail systems as a monitoring tool but do not block e-mail for fear of false positives mistakenly treating legitimate customer messages as phishing attempts. However, despite the industry disagreements, an underlying consensus is emerging among software vendors, Internet service providers & corporate websites that digital e-mail signing in one form or another is the best shot to combat phishing.

2 years ago if you asked companies whether they were using e-mail authentication, most people wouldn't have cared. Today if you ask most organisations if they think it is a good thing people would say, 'Yes'. The industry is slowly coming around. eBay & PayPal are some of the first to actively block unauthenticated e-mail messages.

How to protect your kids while they surf the Internet?

Provide a safe & secure surfing environment for your family with 2 valuable services - Xfilter & Xblocker. Xfilter blocks inappropriate Web content such as pornography, sexual & other sites, which parents can customise to their requirements. For only RM10 a month, choose between Xfilter Ishield & Xfilter eSscan. Xfilter Ishield uses state-of-the-art image processing & artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to detect & block pornographic content within web-pages. xFilter eScan uses multiple methods to check for pages that contain profanities & other undesirable phrases. On the other hand, Xblocker is a service available for all narrowband Internet users. Xblocker prevents your computer from redirecting your dial-up connection to another Internet access number, usually an international connection. Xblocker intercepts any dial attempts & will only grant authorised numbers to be dialed while blocking unauthorised numbers from being dialed. It will also inform you of any possible dial attempts & you can choose to allow or block any dial attempts. Xblocker is available at a monthly subscription of RM5.

Centre to combat cyber threats

Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC - SKMM) is investing some RM5 million under the first phase of its project to establish a network security centre (NSC) to address rising cyber attacks, hacking activities & spreading of viruses in local Internet network. The centre, to be located in Cyberjaya, will be the hub for monitoring incoming Internet traffic to the local Internet service providers (ISPs).

The first phase will involve setting up the physical infrastructure & linking the first 7 main ISP's in the country via a dedicated leased line. The second phase, meanwhile, will see the rest of the ISPs be linked up to the NSC. The 7 main ISPs are said to collectively cover about 90% of the country's 12 million Internet subscribers. With the centre in place, any threat that comes into the local ISP network will be shared among all the players, hence benefiting the whole industry. The NSC will provide a 'layer' of security on top all the ISPs. That as a regulator to all the ISPs, it will be easier for MCMC to issue directives to the ISPs on any actions to take regarding cyber security. Based on the latest findings by CyberSecurity Malaysia, the number of cybercrime incidents reported has increased from just 347 cases in 2000 to 1,372 cases in 2006.

Most of these threats & malicious activities will go through the ISPs first before they reach consumers, and by having a centralised monitoring mechanism, the security threats can be better controlled & information about all teh identified threats can be shared with all the ISPs in the country. Although each ISP has its own mechanism of security handling, most of the time the threats that one ISP discovers will remain in that particular ISP & not shared. The NSC will be operated & managed by MCMC from its headquarters in Cyberjaya, and is expected to be completed by year-end. It should be fully operational by the first quarter of this year. The NSC functions will overlap that of order establishments liek CyberSecurity Malaysia.

CyberSecurity Malaysia addresses issues related to the Internet Web sites such as blogs, contents & the Web sites. MCMC will address issues relating to the ISPs. As the ISPs are our licensees, it would be better & more effective if we control these issues & regulate the instructions to the licensees. However, we are also getting help from CyberSecurity & security industry players like F-Secure and Symantec to assist us in this initiative.

Malware

Malware is malicious software that has been designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system. The effects of malware can range from mere frustration to serious problem that require a lot of time & money to fix. Some common types of malware include computer viruses, worms & Trojan horses. A computer virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into documents or other programs. The insertion of a virus into the document or programs is called an infection, and the infected file is called a host. A virus spreads from one computer to another when its host is transferred to an uninfected computer, for instance when a user sends it over a network or carries it on a removable medium such as floppy disk. Viruses can also spread to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or on a file system accessed by another computer. Although some viruses can be destructive, for example by deleting or destroying data, many are fairly benign or simply annoying. The uncontrolled self-replication, which wastes or overwhelms computer resources (memory, disk space, etc.), is the main negative effect of viruses.

A computer worm is a seld-replicating computer program, similar to a virus. Unlike a virus, however, a worm does not need a host to spread. A worm uses a network to send copies itself to other computer systems. Although a worm can be prorgammed to damage files on a computer, more often it harms the network by consuming bandwidth & slowing it down. Viruses generally do not affect network performance as their malicious activities are mostly confined within the target computer.

A Trojan horse ia any program that invites the user to run it, but conceals a harmful purpose. It pretends to do something useful or interesting while causing damage. A Trojan horse is technically a normal computer program. It cannot replicate & spread by itself, nor is it able to function on its own. It needs to deceive the computer user into allowing it to perform actions such as deleting the user's files or installing other harmful software. This may occur when the user opens an e-mail or e-mail attachment, or visits a malicious website. the software installed by a Trojan Horse often includes prorgams that record & send valuable information, such as the user's passwords or credit card numbers, to the creator of the Trojan horse. Trojan horses can also install programs that make a computer send out unsolicited e-mails, which may include advertisements & other malware.

Keystroke logging

Keystroke logging (often called keylogging) is a technique used by software programmers to record the keys typed by a user. It can be useful to determine sources of error in a software program, for example to recall the keys typed before the software program crashed. This technique is also applied in law enforcement to track a suspect's use of a computer, for example. Unfortunately, it can also be used to provide a means to obtain passwords or encryption keys & thus bypass other security measures. Keyloggers are widely available on the Internet & can be used by anyone for legitimate as well as illegal purposes.

Firewall

Most PC users know that malicious programs like spyware, viruses & worms can attack their PCs through the Internet & cause serious problem. Yet, many users do not have a firewall running on their networks or PCs.

A firewall is a device that checks every piece of data entering & leaving your computer. It helps protect your computer by restricting the data, based on a set of rules that you define. A firewall can be a special piece of equipment that you connect to a network or a program that you install on your computer. As its name suggests, a firewall is like a fence built around your PC to protect it form unauthorized access & attack through the Internet.

Most users complain that firewalls prevent them from using the Internet properly, so they choose not to use one. Some don't even know the difference between firewalls, antivirus programs & spyware removers. However, there's no excuse. Every PC connected to the Internet needs a firewall. Not having one is like leaving all the doors & windows of your house open & inviting people to enter and do whatever they like. Some malicious users use programs called port scanners to look for online PCs, they will try to hack or break into them. But remember - although firewalls are necessary, never use more than one at a time as this could cause unexpected behaviour on your PC.

Firewalls are easy obtain. Search for them online and you will find many, which you can purchaseor download for free. Also, some operating systems come with their own firewalls, although it is very basic & only checks incoming data. However, using this is good enough for most people as it makes it harder for malicious programs to find & attack their PCs. A good firewall should monitor all programs that try to access your PC from the Internet or any other network & alert you accordingly. It should never allow any unauthorized data to enter or leave your PC without your permission. A good firewall should also hide your PC's presence from the Internet, so if anyone tries to hack into your PC, he or she will not be able to find it. Of course, an ideal firewall should have all these qualities, while still being affordable or even free.

What is firewall & what it does?

A firewall is simply a program or hardware device that filters the information coming through the Internet connection into your private network or computer system. If an incoming packet of information is flagged by the filters, it is not allowed through. If you have read the article How Web Servers Work, then you know a good bit about how data moves on the Internet, and you can easily see how a firewall helps protect computers inside a large company. Let's say that you work at a company with 500 employees. The company will therefore have hundreds of computers that all have network cards connecting them together. In addition, the company will have one or more connections to the Internet through something like T1 or T3 lines. Without a firewall in place, all of those hundreds of computers are directly accessible to anyone on the Internet.

What is a zombie computer?

Imagine that the Internet is a city. It would undoubtedly be the most remarkable & diverse city on the planet, but it would also be incredibly seedy & dangerous. You could find the world's most comprehensive libraries there alongside X-rated theaters. Inside this city, you would also discover that not everyone is who they seem to be - even yourself. You might find out that you've been misbehaving, although you don't remember it. Like the unwitting agent in. "The Manchurian Candidate", you discover you've been doing someone else's bidding & you have no idea how to stop it. A zombie computer is very much like the agent in "The Manchurian Candidate". A hacker secretly infiltrates an unsuspecting victim's computer & uses it to conduct illegal activities. The user generally remains unaware that his computer has been taken over - he can still use it, thought it might slow considerably. As his computer begins to either send out massive amounts of spam or attack Web pages, he becomes the focal point for any investigations involving his computer's suspicious activities.