Warning: 3G service may lead you into trouble

Bangalore, Dec 11: Newton's third law of motion states that, "Every action have their equal and opposite reaction." This theory is also applicable to Indian handset market. On one side, technology advances like a bullet train, but at the same time cyber crime and viruses surge at an alarming rate.

With the launch of 3G services in India, the mobile web usage has started to grow at an never before rate. Major mobile service providers like Tata Docomo, Airtel, Aircel and BSNL have rolled out the 3rd Generation technology. Using a 3G service, users have access to broadband internet, live mobile TV, video calls and fast downloading.

Just months after the 3G service launch, security experts have warned about the possibility of increase in cyber crimes. Experts said that mobile phones are more vulnerable to cyber crimes than any other electronic gadgets as many of the users won't use anti-virus or other safety applications.

Security experts said that, using spying softwares or virus hackers can easily get into the data of a mobile. Hackers can record calls, videos and even use the contact informations. Many experts strongly recommend to anti-virus softwares or fireballs and to switch off Bluetooth service while using 3G services.

Computer Scientist, Student Design Software to Combat Hacking Using Keystroke Anti-Spoofing Technique

One of the serious threats to a user's computer is a software program that might cause unwanted keystroke sequences to occur in order to hack someone's identity. This form of an attack is increasing, infecting enterprise and personal computers, and caused by "organized malicious botnets," said Daphne Yao, assistant professor of computer science at Virginia Tech.

To combat the "spoofing attacks," Yao and her former student, Deian Stefan, now a graduate student in the computer science department at Stanford University, developed an authentication framework called "Telling Human and Bot Apart" (TUBA), a remote biometrics system based on keystroke-dynamics information.

Their work won a best paper award at CollaborateCom '10, the 6th International Conference on Collaborative Computing, held in Chicago and sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Computer Society, Create-Net, and the Institute for Computer Sciences.

Computer Scientist, Student Design Software to Combat Hacking Using Keystroke Anti-Spoofing Technique

One of the serious threats to a user's computer is a software program that might cause unwanted keystroke sequences to occur in order to hack someone's identity. This form of an attack is increasing, infecting enterprise and personal computers, and caused by "organized malicious botnets," said Daphne Yao, assistant professor of computer science at Virginia Tech.

DNS Rebinding Attack Can Be Used to Hack Home Routers

A security researcher has devised a special attack that can be used to access the LAN-facing admin interfaces of many widely used home router models. The technique is a variation of DNS rebinding, but is able to bypass traditional protections against such attacks.

The attack method will be demonstrated at the upcoming Black Hat technical security conference in Las Vegas, by a ethical hacker named Craig Heffner, who currently works as a senior security engineer at Seismic. Heffner's presentation, called “How to Hack Millions of Routers” will be accompanied by the release of a tool which automates the attack.

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Researcher Forces Cash Out of Automated Teller Machines

Security researcher Barnaby Jack gave his long overdue presentation on ATM exploits in front of an audience at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. The hacker managed to force two different ATM models to dispense cash using both remote and local attacks.

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are pretty much ubiquitous these days and most people are used to trusting them. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that these machines are far from safe and the rate of ATM crime is on a steep climb.

Attacks like ATM skimming have been around for a long time and several variants of ATM malware have also appeared in the past two years. However, Barnaby Jack's research, which involve remotely exploitable vulnerabilities, takes ATM security risks to a whole new level.

Researcher Releases Phone Call Eavesdropping Software

A security researcher has released open source software that can be used to record and decrypt communications passing over 2G GSM networks. Unlike other available solutions, that require very expensive set-ups, this free set of tools can work on off-the-shelf equipment.

The software was demoed at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas by Karsten Nohl, a security researcher who specializes in probing GSM security. His previous research focused on the A5/1 stream cipher used to encrypt GSM communications.

This cipher dates back to 1987 and is still widely used in Europe and the United States, despite being reverse-engineered in 1999. GSM operators have began adopting the more secure A5/3 cipher, which is used to encrypt traffic passing over 3G networks. However, when 3G coverage is not available, phones drop back to the insecure 2G standard.

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Now, a social network for bookworms

LONDON: Penguin is set to launch a social network for teenaged bookworms called Spinebreakers, to keep them interested in reading.

Penguin views Spinebreakers, the social network, as a crucial part of future-proofing the book industry.

Spinebreakers, as a content website, already exists but does not have any tools which allow its users to communicate and interact about their shared pastime. Instead, it is a site where teenagers write about books and authors.

Anna Rafferty, managing director of Penguin Digital, who founded the site three years ago, told The Telegraph: "I set up the site as I felt there were fewer and fewer places talking about books in a way which appealed to teenagers."

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Russia To Say Bye-Bye To Microsoft's Windows!

MOSCOW: The Russian state plans to revamp its computer services with a Windows rival to reduce its dependence on US giant Microsoft and better monitor computer security, a lawmaker said.


Moscow will earmark 150 million rubles (3.5 million euros, $4.9 million) to develop a national software system based on the Linux operating system, Russian deputy Ilia Ponomarev said, confirming an earlier report in the Vedomosti daily.

"The devil is in the details," said Ponomarev, a computer expert, adding those details would be hashed out during a December meeting headed by vice-prime minister Sergei Ivanov.

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New Firefox add-on hijacks Facebook, Twitter sessions

A new Firefox add-on lets "pretty much anyone" scan a Wi-Fi network and hijack others' access to Facebook, Twitter and a host of other services, a security researcher warned today.

The add-on, dubbed "Firesheep," was released Sunday by Eric Butler, a Seattle-based freelance Web application developer, at the ToorCon security conference, which took place Oct. 22-24 in San Diego.

Butler said he created Firesheep to show the danger of accessing unencrypted Web sites from public Wi-Fi spots.

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India overtakes US as biggest virus producer

India has overtaken the US as the single biggest producer of viruses, according to analysis of internet threats by Network Box. India is now responsible for 13.74 per cent of the world’s viruses, up from 9.5 per cent in July. Russia is the next in line, producing just over 11 per cent of viruses - a jump from last month’s 4.01 per cent.The U.S. accounts for just over eight per cent, a significant decrease from 14.65 per cent last month. Virus levels from the UK have dropped to 2.5 per cent; down from five per cent last month. The UK is now the seventh-largest threat producing country in the world (down from fourth last month).

The highest number of firewall blocks come from the U.S. (18.3 per cent) and Korea (13 per cent). Simon Heron, internet security analyst for Network Box, says: “It is interesting to see that UDP:137 (NetBIOS’ name service) was the second most attacked port. It is obviously worth users and businesses checking their firewall rules as these figures indicate that there must still be systems out there with this port open to the internet. Also, it would appear that web proxies are also worth probing as TCP:8080 was third in the list, which suggests that hackers see this as another backdoor.”

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Indian hackers focus on botnet attacks: Microsoft

New Delhi, Oct 15: A new report released by computer giant Microsoft has revealed that the attack of 'botnets' on computers has increased in India.

A botnet is a network of computers, controlled by one computer (bot herder), which attacks another PC and makes it a part of its network. The report says that the Indian cybercriminals are looking at creating botnets.

Microsoft security Report version 9, which covered more than 200 countries and territories, ranked India 25th in terms of bot infections detected and removed in the quarter ended Jun 2010.

CWG Official Website Attacked by Pakistani & China Hackers

New Delhi: The Commonwealth Games (CWG) website, which got more than seven million visitors everyday, buckled not because of technical glitches but a deliberate mischief, sources said.

Few weeks ago, the Commonwealth Games website came under cyber attack which was possibly routed from China.

Sources tell CNN-IBN that within two hours of the Games opening ceremony, the website faced massive cyber attacks, possibly from China. India's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERTIN) had to set up a special cyber control room at the games village. But the cyber attacks continued till the end of Games.