Security can encompass many things and while this weekly roundup is geared mainly to computers and software it is not the only battlefield we face in maintaining our personal space. For those interested in other areas where our security of personal space is being mauled I also started a new blog called On Every Street Corner.
Anyway, on to the round up:
Extra Eyes Watch Online – Connecticut News
More and more, police in Connecticut and across the country are surfing popular websites, such as MySpace.com, trolling for threatening language, pornography or drug and alcohol use. And they are making arrests based on teen banter and digital pictures snapped at practically every occasion by kids, most of whom have no clue the police are watching.
Police can even use a software program that searches for such keywords as “kill” or “gun.”
Civil liberties groups are carefully watching the cyber policing, saying they are concerned that such scrutiny could trample free speech and privacy rights.
Watch for identity thieves – The Advertiser
Unsuspecting victims are being targeted by criminal activity ranging from sifting through private rubbish to find personal details, to highly technical online schemes to obtain banking passwords.
“Stolen credit cards, credit card numbers and bank account numbers are some of the types of information criminals can use to perpetrate identity fraud,” says eBay’s Australian e-Commerce Safety Guide 2005. “Such information allows a criminal to access existing credit cards and bank accounts and may assist them in opening new accounts that will be charged to the victim.”
Internet security key role for Unit – Stuff.co.nz
Downloading illegal music and pornography could become a thing of the past, if a local IT business gets its way.
Unit Networks launched a security package recently that aims to reduce freeloaders abusing unprotected computer networks.
The package kicks in when an internet connection is activated. If a wireless broadband connection is unprotected, people with wireless-capable laptops can easily steal that bandwidth and download what they want.
New Windows attack can kill firewall – InfoWorld
The code, which was posted on the Internet early Sunday morning, could be used to disable the Windows Firewall on a fully patched Windows XP PC that was running Windows’ Internet Connection Service (ICS). This service allows Windows users to essentially turn their PC into a router and share their Internet connection with other computers on the local area network (LAN.) It is typically used by home and small-business users
Tricky New Malware Challenges Security Vendors – CIO Tech Informer
A tricky malicious program has become more prevalent in spam, but experts don’t know what its creators plan to do with it.
Many vendors are rating the malware—called “Warezov,” “Stration” and “Stratio”—as a low risk. But they also say it is tricky to deal with.
US expert calls for data security laws – Sydney Morning Herald
DATA security breaches involving the public’s personal details are probably a daily event at every big company in Australia, a visiting US expert says.
But because of the lack of data breach disclosure laws, says Dr Larry Ponemon of the Carnegie Mellon University, most of those breaches are swept under the carpet by IT departments and not even brought to the attention of senior management.
1,200 Dutch e-voting machines vulnerable to hacking – The Register
Dutch intelligence service AIVD has ruled 1,200 e-voting computers inadequate for next month’s national elections after testing showed the machines could be be easily intercepted from 20 to 30 metres away.
Hackers break into water system network – InfoWorld
The plant’s systems were accessed in early October after an employee’s laptop computer was compromised via the Internet, and then used as an entry point to install a computer virus and spyware on the plant’s computer system, according to a report by ABC News.
The incident is under investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, but no arrests have been made in the matter, said Special Agent Jerri Williams of the FBI’s Philadelphia office. The attackers are believed to have been operating outside of the U.S.
Cuyahoga County Possibly Exposed Election System to Computer Virus – Freedom to Tinker
The Election Science Institute just released a statement revealing that the memory cards that will be used to store votes on Election Day in Cuyahoga County, Ohio were stuck into ordinary laptop computers in September.
The release points to an online video shot by Cleveland-area filmmaker Jeffrey Kirkby, shows a group of election workers sitting at tables, each with a laptop computer. An official explains that these laptops were gathered from around the office, and some are the personal laptops of election workers. Each worker has a laptop and a stack of memory cards, and is inserting the memory cards one by one into the laptop.
McAfee says Botnets growing problem – eChannelLine
With botnets becoming a growing problem for Internet security, McAfee Inc. released a whitepaper report that looked at the rise of these attacks and what companies and governments can do to prevent them.
The report, entitled “Killing botnets: a view from the trenches,” defined a bot as a compromised host connected to the Internet that has been infected with malicious code installed by a hacker or a self-propagating worm. While a botnet, the report said, is a connection of bots that run autonomously.
Macs, Hackers and the Computer Security Game – TechNewsWorld
The Macintosh is a tantalizing platform for hackers, especially because of the perception some have that it is bulletproof, perhaps the most secure platform on the market. Yet, such perceptions may not be accurate. Security vendor Internet Security Systems found that there were three times as many vulnerabilities found for the Macintosh in May of this year as there were for Windows.
