Danger of new generation security

In January of this year, a 20-year-old boy was accused of infiltrating US government computers and controlling them into fraudulent missions.

Source: Techcentral

Jeanson James Ancheta implanted Trojan software into the China Lake Naval Center computer system in the Mojave Desert in California, from there, gained control of the computer throughout the network. Jeanson used this "botnet VIP" to generate hits for advertisements on the website and leisurely collect payment from advertisers.

Does it sound too harmless and subtle? You won't say that, if you know this business has helped Ancheta pocket up to $ 60,000 before being discovered.

And yet, the investigators also discovered that Ancheta is controlling about 400,000 computers worldwide. This number of Zombie computers completely bowed to all his remote directives, from generating hits for banner ads, spreading spam to sending malware to other perverted computers.

It can be said, Ancheta is a good example of a new kind of crime on the Internet, with a strong motivation for money and material. Spyware or Trojan programs that they implanted into a user's computer, once installed, will work as hard and diligently as loyal slaves, serving their bosses from afar.

Rarely does a carefree user know that their computer has been hacked. The system still works normally, except for a little bit of a slow motion. And of course, they are unaware of the secret tasks that their computers are working on.

New boils

Botnets are becoming a new, painful mass in Internet security. According to security firm CipherTrust, more than 180,000 computers are turned into zombies every day, and this number doesn't want to stop there.

Source: Infotech

Hackers can use botnets to deceive online advertisers (like in Ancheta), or can rent hourly to distribute spam in large quantities. Many even hire botnets to launch denial-of-service attacks against rival websites.

It is easy to see that these activities take place very professionally, following a closed process "pay porridge". It is gradually replacing the behavior of previous amateur hackers, who consider attack to be a hobby.

" The large outbreaks of viruses like Sasser and Blaster are getting less and less. Many people think that the situation is improving, while in fact it is getting worse and worse, " said Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's research director. said. " The attacks are more concentrated, have more specific goals so less users know. But the damage is huge ."

In Hypponen's eyes, botnets are a headache that is not easy to cure, because Zombie computers are mostly home-networking PCs. " It takes a lot of time and effort to explain to a normal user about these concepts, as well as how to" free up "their computers, so most ISPs have their arms crossed ignore ".

New front of phishing

Most analysts predict phishing attacks will increase with rocket speeds, both in quantity and sophistication.

Source: Techcentral

David Sancho, an antivirus expert at Trend Micro, proved a recent attack in Germany. The attacker disguises a power company, sends an email to the victims and asks them to check the bill by clicking on the attached PDF file. In this case, the attachment has the extension .pdf.exe and it has implanted Trojan on the recipient computer.

" Once activated, it will silently monitor all Internet connections, every time you visit your website, password and username and report back to" Boss. "This is very clever, because hackers There is no need to create a fake server ".

Hypponen also predicts that phishers will soon find a way to break a one-time password that many banks are using as security fences. " The recipient is tricked into logging into a fake bank, and here, they ask them to declare the authentication code. The fake bank will access the real bank with this password and then withdraw the money. Then it will Go back to the user, notice that an error has occurred and ask for another authentication code . "

Find "chicken" to "blanket"

Source: Infotech

The biggest challenge for phishers is to find "chickens" to "blanket", as more and more users are aware of this form of attack. Their solution is targeting smaller targets and using languages ​​other than English, such as Greek, Czech and Finnish.

Although Windows computers are still the main target, be prepared to receive phisher attacks on mobile phones. F-Secure said it has detected 179 mobile viruses and estimates that tens of thousands of phones have been "caught up".

Nokia has responded to the warning by launching integrated anti-virus phones, while tightening security barriers for Symbian OS 9 models.

However, F-Secure has also recorded the first malicious Java software specifically written for mobile phones, meaning that every cellphone model, not just the high-end model, is in the risk zone. Last March, Hypponen found a mobile Trojan that called for a phone number in Russia. Every time, it brought about 5 euros for the dispenser.

Thien Y