True, the holiday’s is the hottest time when credit card fraud runs into the millions of dollars. There are many incidents of fraud out on the market and shopping is a very casual task many take for granted. A leading credit card company from the US reported losses in the millions of dollars that they do not readily publicize for it has an impact on their customers confidence in their systems.
There is no true protective measure for something as small and compact as a credit card which in the wrong hands can cost you a few hundred dollars or even max out your credit limit. Crime syndicates use the said tactic for their illegal activities where they have people who handle these fraudulent transactions. There is still a wide open gap when it comes to credit card which may be covered by newer fool-proof security. The addition of biometrics to the standard card swipe can provide an added level of security along with fingerprinting.
Simple steps can also be taken to prevent these actions towards you such as being careful where and when you use your credit cards. When paying, be sure to have in plain sight the reader or terminal where the card is swiped to be sure they are used only for the intended purchase a card fraud scheme wherein a separate card reader is used to record the information contained within the card has been going on for a long time where the captured information can be used for purchases. Before signing the print-out or receipt, be sure to check all details such as the purchase amount and other such vital information. If you do end up loosing a credit card or your whole wallet, immediately call your card company so the said card can be tagged as stolen so further purchases are not billed to you. If there happens to be any inaccuracies in your card’s statement, call information at once for there may be a problem with your card of worst somebody may have already copied the information from your original card. Vigilance and awareness is the key so be on the lookout for any dubious people around you. Keep safe people and a Merry Christmas to all.
The Security problems of Torrents
Ever since it was introduced, torrents have flourished into one of the world’s most widespread file sharing protocols in use today. It was introduced as a method of sharing huge files without the worries of heaving one source or having to consider the varying bandwidth’s people are linked to the internet through all the world’s providers ( different providers offer different bandwidths and speeds and they vary from country to country). The system is a no-fuss file transfer protocol that does not rely much on bandwidth. Another advantage is that there is no spy-ware or pop-up advertising on bit-torrents.
The system has a server that hosts the bit-torrent file sharing system and all the users have a client side program that connects to that said server facility. When a user conducts a search, the server provided the user with the most likely source of the said file and allows the user to get the said file from those sources that are mirrored or specified in the server’s database. The future of bit-torrents is to eliminate the need for centralized servers running the host applications and to get both server-side and user or client side programs installed onto a pc without a need for the remote server.
Now for the dark side, the said ongoing improvement of eliminating the server side of the system is to eliminate the need for toughened security at the server end where one can get the history and IP addresses a user has gone through. There is also growing concern for the said file sharing technology has now being used as a propagation grounds for pornographic materials over the internet. Do a quick search on torrents sites and you’ll se what I mean. Also, being a straight-forward file sharing system, as the data travels through the internet anyone intercepting the said file can easily get any information they want for the simplified processing and file transfer is accomplished by taking away most of the security features other systems employ. The elimination of security makes transactions (file transfers) faster but less safer and vulnerable to attack.
Handhelds : Still the Biggest threat to Corporate Security
Employee’s love them, Network Administrators hate them, the advent of more function packed handheld devices have sparked a re-evaluation of the threat these small devices pose. Traditionally, networks were quite safe for to gain access to it you needed to be hooked up to the network, physically with a LAN cable. Now that the shift to wireless has become the network engineer’s best friend the network has surely been simplified and companies are switching to the new technology. Thy no longer needed wires and all existing computers are either replaced with ones that support Wi-Fi or bought individual dongles that allowed connection within the office. That was still an easy security agenda for they usually had a range of a couple of hundred feet.
Then came wireless internet hotspots which commercial developers started to put up to get more workers out of the office into their shops allowing them to work while, say having coffee. That’s where the problems began for the more office correspondence left the walls of the office, the more harder was it to secure. VPN’s were implemented that allowed a secure channel within existing networks making it a bit better. But that was still quite vulnerable to attack and security experts needed a better way of securing corporate data where-ever the user might be. Projections by business and security analysts estimate volume to increase to 100 million email transactions to and from outside the office locations that is still causing nightmares as the next step is found in the drive to secure this network without physical bounds.
[tags]Handheld Computing, Mobile Computing[/tags]
Another Bug hiding in the Thick – Exploits
The evolution of the internet has given us the Web 2.0 which is a more open form of the previous internet. The traditional internet had people and companies make their own web sites on their own computers or servers, with anybody else just logging in and getting (actually it’s more of reading) the stuff that you need and leave without getting a chance to tell the site’s owner if the information was either very helpful or a complete waste of time. Net 2.0 has allowed the opening up of borders between the said linked computers allowing people to become more interactive in their use of the web. You search for an article on the web through a search engine and find yourself in a blogging site. The information you find is very much useless so you leave a comment telling the owner such. He then reads the post and makes the information on the blog more informative thus giving him feedback on the contents of the site. This was totally unheard of in the old internet days when, what you see was what you got (literally).
The social Net 2.0 has allowed users to influence the way the internet is setup along with the information it contains. Companies get instant feedback from users thus allowing them to improve customer services. The problem, exploits or another form of malicious code that is up to no good. Imagine a social web site like MySpace where you have a page that you share over the net with your pal’s. A hacker finds a hole in the security net and leaves a few short lines of code in the form of a hidden program. It then takes all information you send and receive or use, such as purchase information from internet-based companies. This exploit, turns your page or rather the information gathered from it into his personal atm machine, using the information he has leeched and goes on a shopping spree online. Sounds crazy? You figure it out. Google found almost half a million of such exploited sites out of only 4.5 million surveyed sites (which is only a fraction of the total computers linked on the internet).
You do the math….
Disks???? What Disks?????
In the news, the British Prime Minister Brown has expressed concern regarding the recent security breach that left about half of the British population’s addresses and banking information out in the open, well somewhere out there. The said information was lost while in-transit through the British Post system contained within two computer data disks. This headline dated November 21’st of this year highlights the need for greater security with regards to the handling and safekeeping of vital personal information.
The event happened when a Junior official of the British Government’s Finance Department downloaded the information off a government website for use on another agency. It was then sent through courier service to that agency which was not named but when the disks didn’t arrive after a few days alarm bells started to ring and the police was brought into the investigation to help with the case. The problem was so great that the British Prime Minister apologized to the British public when speaking in Parliament much to the disgust of the MP’s and the public in general.
This event sparks new urgency in the way we handle and treat information even those categorized as personal. The information that was lost had information that was needed for the processing of millions of child and senior benefits support processing which is expected to result in outrage and disgust among many of the affected individuals.
Government’s from around the world spend millions of dollars in safeguarding information of all sorts and questions do arise from such cases such as why a junior officer had access and was even allowed to copy the said information out of a government server down to computer disks.
Corporate Internal Security – The Continuing Battle
The last post tackled the damage an internal threat might do to a person on the outside of a business organization. This post deals more with the threat from within from the viewpoint of the targeted organization itself. The problem with an internally planted backdoor or some other form of malware is that it is integrated with the programs themselves that are supposed to provide security to the system. The system that is affected can most of the time be freed of these stated threats by re-installing the said application with a version that is free of the problem code.
Just imagine the amount of information that has to be moved, re-processed and re-stored just to make up for a few lines of code that has been very well placed, hidden from view. Firewalls were supposed to prevent intrusion to links of the organization from the outside and inside but if the firewall was not to know the workings of the said code, it would recognize it as a legitimate process and allow the transfer of data without taking a second look. Corporate espionage has rival companies trying to get at the other’s secrets in hopes of getting ahead of other competitors. In the US, the FBI and other Internal security forces continuously monitor such activities such as the problem when stocks were manipulated within the Stock Exchange itself to boost the value of a particular stock to favor investors.
The risks the information we entrust to companies who serve us is great and sure they do take all necessary preventive measures as much as they could, but a threat from within is truly an adversary to be dealt with.