High-profile hacks distract attention from serious threats: Sophos

As always you, Human, are the weakest link
  • Stilgherrian (CSO Online (Australia))
  • — 02 August, 2011 17:02

Search engine poisoning, social networking scams and fake anti-virus have been the top security threats in 2011 so far, according to security vendor Sophos. All three rely on social engineering to achieve their aims.

"High-profile hacking attacks against governments and corporations have dominated the security landscape in 2011," says the company's Security Threat Report: Mid-Year 2011 (PDF), but security issues that could pose a greater threat to businesses, governments and consumers are receiving far less attention.

"Web threats -- such as fake antivirus and SEO poisoning -- continue to be the top vehicle for malware attacks this year," the report says.

Search engine poisoning is the label for various search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques used to manipulate search engine results with malicious intent.

"Black Hat SEO techniques stuff legitimate websites with content designed to rank highly in search engine results and then silently redirect users to malicious sites," says the report. "The compromised results appear not just on regular web searches, but also on image searches."

"Black Hat SEO attacks are extremely effective," says Sophos. "A snapshot of the top malware we block on our customer web appliances shows that Black Hat SEO accounts for more than 30 percent of all detections."

The technique's success depends on a user's uncritical use of search engines to look for current news.

"The search engine is our gateway to the web. That’s why cybercriminals manipulate search results from sites such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to lure victims to their malicious pages," the report says.

Fake anti-virus remains a threat in 2011 after being one of the more persistent threats of 2010, says Sophos. "These attacks are now actively targeting Mac users," the company says.

 

Tags: government, hacking, malware, Security threat report 2011, SEO poisoning, sophos

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Security Awareness Tip
Software security company www.clearswift.com gives some advice this holiday season to make sure employees don’t end up on Santa’s naughty list!


At a fundamental business level, social media is a useful additional tool for communicating and collaborating with customers, colleagues and new business prospects. From an HR point of view, the social web is not only useful for recruitment but also as a knowledge network. At an employee level, social media is changing the way we work: Employees increasingly expect to be able to access personal technology and services in the workplace. As the lines between work and home life blur, staff are looking for greater flexibility in their roles; working from home is an increasing trend, but so too is ‘home-ing from work’, where staff expect to be able to perform personal tasks at work.

But social media brings risk and reward to business in equal measure. Information security is a key concern: Many organisations view social media channels as yet another route along which sensitive data can escape from the business, whether accidentally or maliciously. On top of this, senior management may be concerned about the amount of time employees spend on social networks.

This cultural shift raises new questions about trust in the workplace, the balance of power in employer / employee relationship and levels of control over people and content.


Organisations using content and web security technology can manage the way their staff use email and the internet without having to resort to a default position of mistrust. With a whopping third of ANZ employers completely blocking social media access at work, there’s a real danger of throwing the benefits of collaboration out with the risks.


It doesn’t have to be that way.

Trust breeds responsibility: People underestimate the amount of company time they spend on personal browsing. Allow staff to view their own web usage and foster more responsible behaviour without undermining trust.


Know limits: Set clear limits on personal surfing and communicate them to users. Alert them when they are approaching their limit. Help your people to play by the rules.


Share the load: Spread responsibility for usage reporting among managers and department heads so everyone gets to see how their usage impacts on the rest of the organisation. This also gives managers greater control and visibility into usage.


Need to know: Yes, you need reports and visibility. What you don’t need is employee data becoming common knowledge. Access control means reporting can be adjusted on a need-to-know basis.


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