Is Our Web Site Assisting the Terrorists?
Are We Unwittingly Contributing to The Worlds Terrorist Problems?
Are terrorists using Malware to infect our web site and recruit new members.
The FBI uses malware to combat online anonymity.
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Online anonymity is a beautiful, terrible thing, so naturally governments and law enforcement types are eager to see what happens behind the web’s closed doors. Naturally, that includes the folks at the FBI: According to Wired, the FBI has been using “network investigative techniques” — like highly specific, purpose-built malware — to help peel back popular anonymizing service Tor’s layers of obscurity to catch criminals.
The bureau’s efforts began in earnest with an involved child pornography investigation dubbed Operation Torpedo back in 2012. They eventually lucked out by gaining access to a CP site called Pedoboard, arresting the operator, taking over the servers, and delivering malware to visitors who thought they were protected by Tor.
There’s no denying that some good has come from the bureau’s use of malware, as Wired’s Kevin Poulsen points out that more than 12 child porn aficionados are headed to trial as a result. The flip side of that coin is that the FBI’s success with Operation Torpedo led to another effort to bypass the anonymity that Tor provides… and possibly exposed some innocent people’s information to the FBI’s eager eyes. With a little Javascript, understanding of Firefox and Tor security issues and a “tiny” Windows program, users of some Tor-hidden services like Tormail (hosted by an outfit called Freedom Hosting, which itself was being investigated for “tolerating” child porn) essentially had their IP addresses unmasked.
Hackers Use Malware to Steal $300 Million From Banks
Hackers used malware attached to phishing emails to compromise the security systems of more than 100 banks across the world, according to a new report from security firm Kaspersky.
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Malware uses video and tags to infect 100,000 people on Facebook
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Facebook – the world’s most active social media website, boasting some 1.4 billion registered users, is no stranger to viral attacks that spread quickly.
Over the weekend, researchers started noticing an uptick in tag spam that was delivering malware to users.
The campaign was first noticed on Saturday by researchers at Bitdefender, an anti-Virus firm in Bucharest, Romania. Initially, the three-day campaign was said to have infected just over 5,000 users. However, earlier this week, security researcher, Mohammad Reza Faghani, reported that the number had increased to 110,000 users.
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Malware, short for malicious software, is any software used to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems.
[1] Malware is defined by its malicious intent, acting against the requirements of the computer user, and does not include software that causes unintentional harm due to some deficiency. The term badware is sometimes used, and applied to both true (malicious) malware and unintentionally harmful software.
[2] Malware may be stealthy, intended to steal information or spy on computer users for an extended period without their knowledge, as for example Regin, or it may be designed to cause harm, often as sabotage (e.g., Stuxnet), or to extort payment (CryptoLocker). ‘Malware’ is an umbrella term used to refer to a variety of forms of hostile or intrusive software,
[3] including computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, scareware, and other malicious programs. It can take the form of executable code, scripts, active content, and other software.
[4] Malware is often disguised as, or embedded in, non-malicious files. As of 2011 the majority of active malware threats were worms or trojan’s rather than viruses.
[5] In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant, as in the legal codes of several U.S. states.
[6] Spyware or other malware is sometimes found embedded in programs supplied officially by companies, e.g., downloadable from websites, that appear useful or attractive, but may have, for example, additional hidden tracking functionality that gathers marketing statistics.
[7] An example of such software, which was described as illegitimate, is the Sony rootkit, a Trojan embedded into CDs sold by Sony, which silently installed and concealed itself on purchasers’ computers with the intention of preventing illicit copying; it also reported on users’ listening habits, and unintentionally created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware.
[8] Software such as anti-virus, anti-malware, and firewalls are used to protect against activity identified as malicious, and to recover from attacks.
So the question begs Do Terrorists use malware?
Well I suppose in the light of the foregoing, you can bet your bottom dollar.
Malware that infect out computers and Tablets
As we have already discussed, malware can be introduced in to our computers by the use of CD’s as in the case of Sony rootkit. Images and videos can also infect our computer too.
Obviously we need to protect our hardware through a firewall and other anti-virus programs but what if we have a web site. How do we know whether our web site has been infected?
Web Sites Could Be the Obvious Targets for Terrorists
The best answer we have for this issue is to make sure that your web site is fitted with an analytic program. Appart from the fact that how useful this can be in checking out the usage of your visitors to your web site and how they are searching its pages, it also allows you to gage the amount of traffic you are gaining verses the amount that is actually staying within the confines of your site. One obvious tell tale scenario would be that all of a sudden, you are enjoying thousands of visitors to your web site, but, when you check the amount of time they have stayed, if you have less than say 10% that have surfed your pages after 30 seconds then that should raise a flag, In other words if in a month you have say 20,000 visitors and nearly all of them are leaving in less than 30 seconds, then, this is a clear sign of a redirect script that is taking them away to another destination.
How can we become infected?
If we have Images on our web site, then we have to ask ourselves where did they come from? Were they downloaded from an image sharing web site that may harbour virus infected images that we can download and use royalty free. the same can be said if we have other peoples videos installed on our servers, applied for in the same manner as the Images.
All of these issues are common mistakes that students make when given the task of creating a web site for say a family member who is just starting up in business.
How do we at Net Marketing Direct combat the situation?
Well! dealing with the issue raised with images and videos, we create as many as we can, in house, Particularly Video. But, Malware can also gain access to your web site through the admin login page by what’s called Brutal Attack.
Brutal Attack is when a robot/crawler or some other intrusive element tries to compromise your login by trying to second guess your username and password. It just sits there all day long, (week long if necessary) trying out different combinations until the correct one is found. We have the following ways of exterminating these attacks.
1.) We force the admin user to adopt a strong password with a little script that doesn’t accept weak ones.
2.) We immediately ban any IP address that tries to login with the word Admin.
3.) We place a Captcha that is impossible for these spiders to read, (Only Humans can see them)
4.) We place what’s called a honey pot on all forms to identify robotic activity. This is usually an extra hidden field that humans cannot see, but spiders/robots can, and as they try to enter information there in effect expose themselves as robots.
5.) Our web site Databases are backed up on a Daily basis. The web site in its entirety is backed up on a weekly basis.
6.) A Malware scan is executed on a weekly basis, and any changes to the html or other scripts can be identified and reversed.
7.) As a really secure method we can always endorse a double login, here, the Web Site script can send a text message to the admin’s mobile phone with a special code that then can be added to the login process. Banks often use this method, so we can have full satisfaction that this process will inevitably crush any brutal attack our web sites might occasionally be forced to defend itself against.
This is a main feature that we show in our Definitive range of products and has to be one of the main reasons why Net Marketing Direct can be relied upon for a secure successful online marketing experience.
from Web Marketing Experts for Mobile Apps, SEO, Social Engagement Leeds http://ift.tt/1RWu5sz
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