What is Spyware? How to protect your Mobile/PC from it?

A Software program designed in such a way to extricate information from a device Mobile/PC or communication/electronic device including identity details, financial transactions, property certificates, bank information, credit card information, other personal communications etc.,

 Intrusion into a system through a software program is one of the ways to do it. Often spyware is loaded on to a computer in the form of a legitimate PC game or a Browser Tool bar etc etc.,. Then it logs your activity, the sites you visit, the communications you make and transfers data remotely without the user even knowing about it on a regular basis, unless it scanned and removed from the system regularly.

Often the cookies that you receive from the sites you visit they record and trace your browsing info, but when you store those cookies continuously, they will continue to know about even after several months that you have visited their site. The companies use such information to target customers when they are browsing the Internet. And ads that Pop up in your browsers reflect that reality. Those are Adware.

Always have an Anti-Virus and Spyware protection on hand. Run the spyware scan and remove any unwanted program on your computer. Buy your Spyware Protection and Anti-Virus from a reputed brand.

There is no fool proof security, some or other way a User clicks on unwanted Pop-up. Sometimes visit a website while browsing and malware catches it. It's always useful to close Pop-Ups by clicking the X sign instead of cancel.

Don't click on suspicious links on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace etc.,

Three basic steps for Android Users :
1. Do not leave 'unknown sources enabled'
2.Avoid third party apps i.e., use only apps from Google Play store.
3. Read App Permissions carefully.

For Apple Users :
 It is a Unix based operating system it is less susceptible to attacks.

1. Apple has built in Anti-Malware X protect officially known as File Quarantine, snow leopard, Apple OS X
2.  Do Not Install Norton Anti-Virus on a Mac machine. Not compatible and it will seriously damage your device
3. Number of fake security products don't install them.
4. Block Pop-ups
5. Avoid suspected websites
6. Avoid Peer to Peer communications.
7. Consider using Mac OS X built in firewalls.
8. Use an Anti Virus Program like ClamXav.

Further reading :

What is malware? How to protect your PC/Mobile from it? 

What is Computer Virus? How to protect your Mobile/PC from it? 
 
  Valleyz

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 

Discussing Internet Privacy Issues

Now we will look at some of the web links related with Internet Privacy issues .

This paper by a suffolk University researcher Morris A. Singer  notes in particular the privacy issues involved in Social Networking sphere. You can take a look at it   

http://suffolkmedialaw.com/2010/05/20/how-privacy-limits-utility-using-facebook-as-a-case-study/

Below is an excerpt from that paper.

"On April 27, 2010, U.S. Sens. Al Franken, Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, and Mark Begich wrote a letter to Facebook, urging the social networking company to change their privacy settings modifications from opt-out to opt-in. In a statement accompanying the letter, Sen. Schumer said:


Millions of New Yorkers use social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter every day with an expectation that their private information is shared only with those they choose to connect with . . . . [I]t’s vitally important that safeguards are in place that provide users with control over their personal information to ensure they don’t receive unwanted solicitations and other nuisances, and that they are not automatically gathered into online groups without their consent."

Science Daily had some of the reports below running  last year, discussing issues related with Privacy, How Facebook and other  Social Networking sites pose concerns for a user, where the user signs away his rights to the online entity.

You can read about the Science Daily  report discussing this particular issue.

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091013162746.htm

Another Science daily  report discussing a research at Worcester Polytechnic Institute,  how practices of many social networking websites make available a User's browsing information with the tracking websites.

You can read this report

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090824151307.htm

Recently there were many privacy issues reported in the media, when it was noted that Engineers at the web giant Google were detected to have copied or collected a huge volume of private data illegally, while surveying the streets in European cites, for the Google's Street View application.

Read related BBC story

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8684110.stm

Google has been since in damage control mode and  made clear that it has already purged or are on the way to purge complete data collected illegally, and then recently Google tightened up it's employee privacy policy when dealing with Customer data. Read related Yahoo report here.

There's no reason to doubt the steps taken by Google in this direction, but the concern will remain high with How much user data changed hands or the content duplicated. Though these issues are still unfolding, and it will take time till the user's swarming the Social sphere can comprehend about what exactly is been done with their virtual identity, that's increasingly revealing more and more information about a User. And a fact that it no longer gives a User an identity, which used to seem so anonymous online a couple of years ago.

You can take a look at the Privacy Policy of the facebook

 http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

You can  take a look about the latest privacy features introduced by facebook recently  

http://www.pcworld.com/article/194866/facebooks_new_features_and_your_privacy_what_you_need_to_know.html
 
How do you think that your Privacy might be affected online ?
Do you think it is OK for tracking websites to scan your data from Social Networking sites with which a User actually signs a Privacy and Terms contract ?
When did you felt that your Online Privacy has been violated ?
Are you satisfied with Privacy Policy of all the online majors in the Social Networking realm ?


For Further Reading :

Internet Security and Privacy at stake 

Browser Security Essentials for User Privacy Part 4

Continuing from the previous post, we will discuss now what are session cookies and persistent cookies and how to handle them.

Session Cookies are sometimes used in authentication 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, to record your visit and amount of time spent at a website and give seamless access to all the web pages associated with that website. 

Session cookies are also time duration sensitive and record your activity when using a website, if there isn’t any activity for a stipulated period of time, some websites prompts to re enter the authentication credentials to prove that it is the original user who is using the account, since there are so many ways that an account can be compromised. Always remember to clear the cache and other personal details like search forms, address bars and history of the browser when using a public terminal and also do not forget to close off the browser before leaving. 

The closing of the browser terminates all the connections with communication ports through which the data traverses on the machine. This all information is stored in an Internet Protocol header (IP header) and other memory registers on your system. There are so many other ways to work with IP headers. So when the browser window is closed it terminates all those ports involved in communication at that particular moment of time. So when a new Browser is opened it has to initiate all the requests to establish a new connection with new set of values.This in many ways helps protect your privacy.

Communication technologies have converged fast, 4G networks are already deployed in many parts of the world particularly in some markets in Scandinavia, North America and South East Asia. More and more devices are hooking up, more technologies and gadgets are developing at a rapid pace, the more the security issues are involved with all the devices which we use for our daily communication needs, and it is highly advised to update your understanding and techniques of using these technologies, so that we do not fall victim to attacks and loose our precious data and time.

And now we will come to discuss Persistent cookies, these are the cookies which note a user's preferences and other needs like customer settings like language, mode and other user preferences while visiting a site and stores this information in the cookie to be placed onto your system. So when you make the next visit, it is easy for us to be offered services at a faster speed. But the problem with these set of cookies is same as ever, that it could be used to target you knowing your preferences, if a malicious user gains access to these cookies. So it will be up to you to clear the cookies when you visit a site. Or the level of trust you place with the site being visited.

So you need to focus on how to set privacy settings on your local browser, if you're using multiple browsers, you need to understand where you need to look for the 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( which are almost impossible to remove), flash objects and scripts pose serious privacy issues for a user and how to deal with them.

The reason to take these issues seriously is, it is not all the time that a user can know in any way that his accounts are being used unscrupulously. Sometimes there is every chance that you will never know, how your personal accounts have been abused.

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.

Browser Security Essentials for User Privacy Part 1

                                           
                                                       Source freepixels.com
One of the aspects of computer security mostly neglected or ignored is the browser security. 

Most users tend to neglect or ignore this important feature of securing their system from malware being run on their system when they inadvertently visit a bad site and click scrupulous  links thinking them to be safe. And let the malicious software’s intrude your system, the actions a wary user can avoid.

 This is a news story I followed this morning and this should be an eye opener,  how an unsuspecting consumer is led to click on malicious links and rogue anti-virus software’s getting installed onto your system without you knowing the veracity of the rogue software. 

The big part of the problem is removal, it is hard to get them removed from your system once you have installed them. So protection is better than cure here too. 

Check the authenticity of the security software you are downloading from the web.

One thing you will notice when visiting a website, you come across many other third party sites. Some times these third party sites are vulnerable and can pose a security risk to your system.

One thing a user should keep in mind when visiting a website, that the browser and the network are giving out information to the host. Like the IP address, the type of browser you are using, and other details, as most of us know this fact. So is akin walking onto an open street.

Besides this, our system also shares a level of security when visiting a host. That you allow a host to place a cookie on to your system and run scripts. You can simultaneously block these options. Why ? We will look into the reasons ahead in the next post Browser Security 2.

For Further Reading :

Browser Security Esssentials Part 2 

Broswer Security Essentials Part 3

Browser Security Essentials Part 4 
 

Denying Denial of Service (DoS) attacks

ScienceDaily (2009-09-30) -- A way to filter out denial of service attacks on computer networks, including cloud computing systems, could significantly improve security on government, commercial, and educational systems.

In the past few years we have heard about a large scale DoS attacks across the globe, the more recent in the memory are the one's which took place at the Georgian Government networks just prior to the war breaking out there, researchers noticed at that point of time huge amount of web traffic directed towards the networks and it was viewed new form of modern IT warfare which reflects in how the future wars might take place.

Also there has been large scale attacks on the government websites in US such as NASA and other important government websites, it was suspected to be an attack originiating in Asia particularly in North Korea.

Science daily.com.