Malware / Cybercrime

Perhaps it was an omen of what was to come when the city of San Francisco on New Year's Eve 2010 couldn't get a backup system running in its Emergency Operations Center because no one knew the password.

'Tis the season to begin ramping up online shopping activity, and for retailers that means doing all they can to ensure their websites are up, highly available and able to handle peak capacity. Looming in many IT managers' minds is the cautionary tale of Target, whose website crashed twice after it was inundated by an unprecedented number of online shoppers when the retailer began selling clothing and accessories from high-end Italian fashion company Missoni.

No company wants to be associated with a data breach, but if your systems are compromised the fallout can sometimes be more damaging than the act itself.

Stealthy, sometime long-term cyber-espionage attacks to steal sensitive proprietary information -- what some now call "advanced persistent threats" (APT) -- have become a top worry for businesses.

This is a real issue, and not just one for the well publicised attacks on major corporations such as Sony, Lockheed, Google, and Citi. It affects every business and organisation, large and small. More worrying still, it is now widely suggested that hackers and espionage organisations are moving away from directly attacking their target company, choosing instead to route their attack through suppliers to their target. Thus, even small and seemingly innocuous “third party” businesses who would not consider themselves as potential targets are now on the front line of this cyber war.

Cyber security is the double edged sword of modern business. Because the Internet is an evolving technology that carries enormous potential and vulnerability, cyber security embraces questions of internet freedom, network architecture and the economic potential of cyberspace

Cyber security remains one of the most dynamic fields within the technology industry. Because of the financial and political impact of cybercrime, attackers are continuously looking to innovate and outsmart security vendors and consulting companies. As a result, the IT community is perpetually engaged in a contest of strategy to combat new cyber threats. These are some of the top security threats we can expect to see developing over the next year, including top tips to combat these dangers.

Mainstream Australian media sites now regularly mention hacking incidents carried out by the hacktivist group 'Anonymous'. The group recently defaced several prominent Australian websites, and has now also claimed to have stolen user credentials and contact information from Pizza Hut Australia.

The answer to this question is simple: no. With the developments in social media and two-way communication channels such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, it has made social privacy somewhat non-existent.

The malware BKDR_ADDNEW, better known as 'DaRK DDoSseR' in the underground, is a tool that provides distributed denial of service (DDOS) capability combined with password stealing functionality. The tool costs $30 and has been available for several years.