Internet Security and Privacy at stake

Ever since the news broke out about the wide spread surveillance programmes through monitoring and interception of communications of individuals and organizations alike, the confidence of an average internet user is fast eroding in the security policies of the internet which seemed fool proof at least in terms of high end communications, such as ATM transactions and private communication networks.

But detailed media reports in the recent times showing how monitoring agencies carried out the surveillance, left many users high and sundry. Private organizations have alleged secret surveillance of their businesses and black listing them out for continued surveillance can sum up the seriousness of the issue. The data about how an organization is going to conduct their business in the near future can practically be damaging to the interests of a private business.

In other instances individuals are reported to have been fooled into believing that they are communicating or logging into servers of giants like Google is quite alarming. There are allegations in the media about surveillance agencies carrying out Man in the Middle (MITM) attacks thereby intercepting and routing the user generated traffic to servers belonging to surveillance networks without the user not knowing is quite alarming.

Industry experts are already pointing towards the damage these findings are causing to the internet industry world wide. The biggest names in the internet industry like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others are tight lipped and have confirmed of giving out data belonging to consumers to surveillance agencies when there are specific requests from the government. What this corresponds to is whether anybody has committed a crime or not you are going to be monitored. Even the banking transactions over secure tunnels of ATM network is not out of the purview of surveillance, which means any body using any thing on the internet is under constant surveillance. Whether they write emails, conduct monetary transaction, shop online or even read any material, someone out there is watching you.

Though the technology is highly enabling but constant and relentless requests by the governments can scare away even legal and law abiding entities who want their business transactions and other lawful business plans coming into the domain of intelligentsia could spell the doom for the industry.

Nobody any longer would want to believe the technology that used to rely on is secure and cannot be deciphered and analyzed for any length of time. The world has come to know bitterly that internet is not secure no matter what the encryption standards are no matter how private a network is, no matter what the industry has to offer.

Decades of innovation, research and design has come under intense scrutiny that has given rise to plethora of questions, whether the internet is going to be a secure, fast, reliable, anywhere, anytime communication technology is going to be seen in the near future.

An ISP can track you, a hacker could break into your network, a surveillance network can intercept your online data, cyber criminals looting your private data from public entities such as hospitals, insurance companies, banks. How is it going to be any safer on the internet?

For Further Reading :

Discussing Internet Privacy issues 

Browser Security Essentials for User Privacy Part 3

It is long time since I have delivered a post at my blog due to my busy schedule, but please remember one thing, that in absence of ready information, you should try to inculcate the habit of searching for latest trends related with Internet security.

And now we will further discuss Browser Security with respect to User's privacy, and how to handle the cookies that a user might come across while surfing the web. We will also discuss about scripts and flash running on a system in upcoming posts.

So now, lets settle down to discuss cookies. It is important to understand all the privacy issues associated with all types of cookies.

The types of cookies are tracking cookies( these are cookies specially designed to track the movements of a user when surfing the web),  session cookies, persistent cookies and and also the Local Shared Objects( Flash cookies ).

Session cookie are session based that are erased after a browser is closed, they are no longer stored on a users system, and that work with a typical session ID. They are stored in a temporary folder and automatically get erased.

Session Cookies are sometimes used as authentication cookies in order to log-in a customer into a restricted area, like chat clients, e mail, bank accounts and other authentication based user access websites. These cookies are specially designed both ways to protect a users account from intrusion from a hacker waiting in line to attack,  to record user's visit to a website and give seamless access to all the web pages associated with that website also recording your visit length simultaneously.

The persistent cookies are the one's which notes customer settings like language, Geographic location and other user preferences while visiting a site and stores this information in the form of a cookie to be placed onto the user's system. So, when user makes the next visit it is easy for him/her to be identified and offered services at a faster speed. But the problem with these set of cookies is same as ever, that it could to be used to target you knowing your preferences if a malicious user gains access to these cookies. It will be up to the user to clear the cookies when visiting a site. Or the level of trust a user place's with the site.

User need to focus on how to set privacy settings on the local browser, if you're using multiple browsers, you need to understand, where you need to look for the same privacy settings in different browsers. You need to understand how to clear cookies from your system, how often and when.

In the upcoming posts we will look into how other types of persistent cookies, flash objects and scripts pose privacy issues for a user.

Bogus E-mails 'From' FDIC Link Computer Users To Viruses, Says Computer Forensics Expert

Cyber criminals are using fake messages claiming to be from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to deliver a virus capable of stealing unsuspecting victims' bank passwords and other sensitive personal information, says a computer forensics specialist.

Read the full story at Science Daily

Identifying ID Theft And Fraud

                                  

                   
                           
                   If the wife of FBI boss Robert Mueller has warned him not to use internet banking because of the threat of online fraud, then what hope is there for the average Joe? The results of research suggests that more of us are no longer entrusting our finances to virtual accounts.

Read the full article at sciencedaily.com

Introduction Posts :

1. Are you secure online ? gives a good introduction overview on the Internet Security threats we face today. I recommend to give it a read along with the post Mobile Security in Focus