spyware - Tag Archive

Governments using Spyare, but for What?

2 Replies Jonny Hankins

Last week the New York Times ran an article about some investigative work conducted by a researcher and student in the Toronto and Berkley universities. The two were investigating government use of surveillance software, and seem to have discovered evidence that many governments are using off the shelf software to spy on their own citizens.

And we are not talking about despot regimes here, the list of 25 countries includes Australia, Britain, Canada and the US. The chosen mode of dissemination is typical of virus or spyware spreading techniques, an email is sent to whoever is to be monitored, once opened the software is downloaded into the computer.

In Vietnam the system has been found running on Android phones, so I would say if they can do it in Vietnam they can do it elsewhere.

You are under survelliance poster

You are Under Surveillance

The alarm bells ring if you look at who is being targeted. In some cases political dissidents (as is the case in Ethiopia) receive the emails. Another worrying factor is where the spyware is sent from (IP addresses registered to Turkmenistan’s Ministry for Communication in one case).

The company manufacturing the program is British, and they state that they sell their product to governments to help them crack down on terrorism and organized crime, but the possibilities for abuse are obvious and also demonstrated.

One problem is that the sale of surveillance is largely unregulated. Commercially available software can remotely turn your webcam on and watch what you are doing, record Skype conversations, email exchanges, log keystrokes and look at images inside the machine, practically anything you would like to see you can. Useful maybe in a crime investigation, but a powerful tool in the wrong hands.

If you would like to ponder the matter of ethics in technological development and marketing more, I recently interviewed Chris Howard, CEO of online publisher LIBBOO. They have devised and patented a system of measuring how much influence an individual has upon a group, and which stimuli create and use that influence. In the interview I asked him about the responsibility he holds when his invention gets into the wrong hands, and you can read his response here on the Bassetti Foundation website.

I also have another post about other spyware and monitoring systems that are freely available on the Internet here, although they are toys in comparison to the system described above.

I have deliberately omitted all names above, but the New York Times article contains them all.

What are the risks of getting infected by malicious software?

11 Replies Alan

Have you ever thought of what is going to happen when you are infected by a computer malware? About a decade ago, computer virus aims were to replicate themselves and destroying key operating system functions. If you got a computer malware infection at that time, most probably your operating system will be corrupted by the malware and you will need to format your hard disk to solve your problem.

Today, malicious software behaves a little different. We have more than 10 types of computer security threats such as virus, trojan, worms, spyware and many more. Each type of malware has their own speciality and here are top 3 risks of getting infected by a computer malware.

1. Having your login credentials stolen

It is very popular today that a keylogger/keystroke logging is used to log a victim’s login credentials. Once the keylogger has a set of your username and password, they can login into the account and do almost everything unless your account is protected by a two factor authentication.

2. Losing hard disk space

Hard disk space today can be very cheap but we should not waste it on storing malicious software. Malware such as worms will replicate in your operating system and take up your hard disk space. You will not feel the burden at the beginning but as the process gets longer, you will start to feel the pain of having insufficient disk space.

3. Spending money on unnecessary stuff

There is also a type of malware where they scare you off by telling you that your computer has hundreds of infections which you actually don’t have. Upon scaring you, they urge you to purchase a bogus antivirus which claims that can clean all the mentioned infections. All in all, you end up actually paying for nothing.

4. Being part of a minion for DDoS attack

Have you ever thought of how DDoS can bring thousands to millions of traffic to a server? It is actually all the computers which are infected with some sort of trojan that explains how the attacker can have such massive amount of traffic. By getting a malware infection, you are at risk of becoming part of this big project which you do not want to be.

5. Losing your privacy

Another form of malware which is known as spyware is built to spy your daily activities. By knowing your daily activities, the attacker will be able to understand you better before attacking you. For instance, if you regularly surf to adult sites, the attacker will probably start off with some fake adult material to lure you into their trap.

Looking at someones internet usageBack to you now, are you able to take all the risks mentioned? If you are not, be sure you have a good habit when it comes to internet and computer security and always remember that having an antivirus and firewall is not sufficient for a good security.

Are Antivirus and Firewall Sufficient for Good Security?

19 Replies Alan

Whenever people talk about computer and internet security, they talk about malware which consists of virus, trojan, worms, spyware and many more. When they come to talk about the solution for those threats, the solution is to get an antivirus and firewall to do the work.

The question now is, are they sufficient for a good computer and internet security? I would say ‘No’. It is very irresponsible to put the blame into that awesome software when you become a victim of malware infection. I believe that software like antivirus and firewall are there to help you in achieving good security, but not creating some sort of plasma shield to you.

The reasons why you have a poor security

As I said, you can’t blame the software for being too poor as the reason that you to get infected. Part of the reason why you are infected can be several below.

You are too careless when handling incoming links from email

Incoming links from emails especially from an unknown sender are usually malicious. They don’t lead to valuable site but either phishing site or malicious site. If you happen to land on a malicious site, your computer will most probably infected with virus, trojan, or worm the next minute.

If you don’t update and patch your operating system, the wounded area is the target for hackers

Sad to say, there is no such thing such as perfect software. Software is always 95% complete where 5% is the section for bugs and vulnerabilities to exist. It is the matter of time whether those vulnerabilities are found.

If the creator happened to find those vulnerabilities before the bad guys, they will still able to patch the wounded area. So if you don’t update and apply the patch, you will the one targeted by hackers to exploit your vulnerabilities.

You are the owner of your computer, not the administrator

Many of us think that being the owner of the computer means being the administrator as well. But do you know that Microsoft did not design it this way for us? There is an option to create a Standard User and there is User Account Control (UAC) so that we will use our computer in the way that we don’t have full privileges to do everything, same goes to the hacker.

A set of keysBy having a strict UAC, you will realize that every single time you run an application that might affect your System files, you will be asked for permission. The benefit here is, if a hacker tries to run an application to harm your system files, I bet you will know it as well when your UAC pops up.

My verdict to poor security

Having a bad security does not mean your antivirus is not efficient enough or your firewall is not solid enough. At times, it is the user who lacks of experience in handling computer threats. As a result, it is important to always stay alert whenever you are browsing the internet.

If you want to learn more about security, you can grab my copy of eBook for free on how to Build Your Own Security.