Flame Virus Offers Bark to Stuxnet's Bite

The recently discovered virus known as Flame has revived the fears sparked by the now-infamous Stuxnet virus uncovered in 2010. Despite all the hoopla, however, the effects of the two viruses may end up being very different.

Some comparisons between the two “super viruses” are undoubtedly appropriate: Both seemed to be aimed at Iran and its neighbors; both had the fingerprints of Western governments; both could be spread to computers by removable devices; and both caught the media’s attention in a huge way.............

Still, by virtue of its apparent target in Iran; its potential links to governments; and its hold on the headlines, Flame will play a role in the policy debate over how to better secure the Internet and computer networks.

Stuxnet rocked the cybersecurity world for one very basic reason: The damage it did to Iranian nuclear facilities was the first relatively concrete example of a computer attack causing physical damage.........

If Stuxnet was a cyberwarrior, Flame is a cyberspy. From a technical standpoint, Flame may be unprecedentedly sophisticated, far-reaching, and even state-sponsored, but at this point cyberspies are not a game-changer....................

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Spyware targets dissidents in Syria, Iran

While dissidents in Iran and Syria risk their lives to struggle against their governments, a silent but possibly deadly battle is being waged in cyberspace.

University of Toronto’s spy-busting Citizen Lab has raised the alarm on a new tool that is used against opposition sympathizers who try to secretly bypass government censorship. The privacy-invading Trojan horse program can allow vital data from the victim’s computer to be stolen by political foes or criminals, with potentially dangerous consequences................

The Trojan horse is key-logging spyware installed in computers by hacked installation software for the Simurgh proxy tool — a program designed to allow access to blocked Internet sites, and popular with Iranians because it has a Farsi title............

It would give “persistent access to the victim’s computer,” as well as “data exfiltration” capabilities. It scoops basic details such as user names, and has key-logging capabilities that allow data on every window clicked and every keystroke entered to be sent to an unknown — possibly hostile — site.

The site that receives the spy data appears to be registered in Saudi Arabia, and some of the servers have been used in the United States.................

Iran itself has been targeted by a massive attack from a powerful computer virus known as “Flame.”
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Cyber crime fighters must focus on risk management, rather than prevention

Cyber security professionals should shift their focus from prevention to risk management, Royal Holloway Information Security Group's Dr Stephen Wolthusen told today's Westminster UK Cyber Security Strategy eForum......

The cyber security capabilities that can combat this are likely to be beyond the reach of organisatons, and is likely to stay this way. Because even if you have the budget, you don't have the people that can keep up with it.................

Risk management, is the way foreward. Though it may be painful to admit this, organisations should recognise "we are not going to get this right. Most of the time we're just plugging holes".................


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Under threat: Does India have no mechanism to fight cyber attack?

Does the Indian government have any authority that deals with cyber attacks? Maybe there is no such body/ department or maybe the government just doesn’t want to tell us. The fate of a right to information (RTI) application seeking clarity on this subject worryingly indicates that the government has no clue whatsoever as far as combating cyber espionage is concerned..............


The case in point is an RTI filed by Prof Arun Mehta, president of Bidirectional Access Promotion Society, a Delhi based NGO, seeking information on what the government had done about a massive cyber attack on Indian computers by the Chinese.............

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The next time we come under cyber attack, we will have no choice but to just sit and watch. At least the story of Mehta’s RTI applications does not indicate any other possibility.......

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2012 Threat Predictions: A Report by McAfee Labs

In the past few months we have witnessed enormous changes in cyber threats like mobile related threats, hacktivism, client-side exploitation, social-media exploitation, and targeted attacks.

As per 2012 Threat Predictions report by McAfee Labs,  more changes are expected in coming year in even the most established threat vectors as follow:

• Industrial threats will mature and segment
• Embedded hardware attacks will widen and deepen
• Hacktivism and Anonymous will reboot and evolve

• Virtual currency systems will experience broader and more frequent attacks
• This will be the “Year for (not “of”) Cyberwar”
• DNSSEC will drive new network threat vectors
• Traditional spam will go “legit,” while spearphishing will evolve into the targeted messaging attack

• Mobile botnets and rootkits will mature and converge

• Rogue certificates and rogue certificate authorities will undermine users’ confidence
• Advances in operating systems and security will drive next-generation botnets and rootkits

This report has also mentioned that "It’s time for extensive Penetration Testing and Emergency Response Planning that includes cyber components and networking with law enforcement at all levels."

2012 Threat Predictions report by McAfee Labs can be downloaded from here: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-threat-predictions-2012.pdf?eid=NAMWPGSCSC011

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Cyber Crime: A New Feature in Upcoming Disaster Management Conference

The upcoming World Disaster Management Conference, held in Toronto, will add a new theme to this year's program: cyber crime. Security experts are warning that the "cyberstorm" is coming and businesses and individuals alike need to be prepared...........

Cyber infiltrations came to the fore in 2011, but analysts are warning that the worst is yet to come. What's more is that the kind of automated attacks that siphon off information at random are being replaced by targeted attacks that seek out specific data and often as a form of cyber espionage............

The key message that the conference seeks to send to businesses is not only that cyber crime is on the rise and protection is needed, but also that suffering from some form of cyber attack is almost inevitable, and a key element missing from IT strategies is a post-attack management plan............

Smaller businesses are just as vulnerable and are in even greater need of post-attack strategies, because of the associated costs involved................

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Official Claims Iran Has Defeated 'Flame' Virus

A senior Iranian official claims Tehran has defeated a powerful computer virus that has unprecedented data-snatching capabilities and can eavesdrop on computer users.

Ali Hakim Javadi, who is Iran's deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, is quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying Wednesday that Iranian experts have already produced an anti-virus capable of identifying and removing "Flame" from computers..............


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Flame could be the most powerful virus ever

With cyber crime spreading across the globe, Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab, has just uncovered a massive cyber attack codenamed ‘Flame.’ The malicious program was detected as Worm.Win32.Flame and is believed to have been operational since 2010.........

On infecting a system, Flame begins with its set of complex operations, which is inclusive of sniffing the network traffic, taking screenshots, recording audio conversations, intercepting the keyboard, and even monitoring the display. The information is then sent to a network of command-and-control servers located in many different parts of the world.The first instance of the malware's activities was detected in Iran and the other countries affected by it are Israel, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt........

Flame is said to be the most advanced and complete attack-toolkits ever discovered. It has hit more than 600 targets ranging from individuals to businesses and government systems.............

Earlier we saw the Stuxnet computer virus that wreaked havoc on Iran's nuclear program and later the country detected the Duqu computer virus, which claimed to be based on Stuxnet. However, the new malware code is said to be 20 times larger than Stuxnet and the Flame package of modules is reportedly huge at 20 MB when completely deployed....................


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Muslim extremists using Facebook, Twitter to radicalise UK students

Islamic extremists are using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to radicalise British students and spread propaganda, according to a report.

The report pointed out that chilling videos of armed insurgents, accompanied by hate-filled speeches from leading al-Qaida figures, have been posted on websites linked to Islamic societies at several leading universities.............

The attempted radicalisation of students over the internet, predominantly via social media, is deeply concerning..........

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The Edge of Terrorism

Hackers recently attacked computer networks managing several major gas pipelines, although it is unclear how much damage they caused.

Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said the attacks "remind all of us that these threats are real and that we must take steps to protect our country from threats to critical infrastructure........."

The White House and other Senate Democrats argue the cybersecurity mandates are necessary to protect critical systems, but many Republicans say they would be an unnecessary burden on businesses..........

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Hackers raid Oz telecom site affecting 35,000

Sydney, May 24 (ANI): Australian telecommunications company Telstra has been hit by a "hacking attack" which has affected over 35,000 customers.
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It said information that may have been obtained "was limited to BigPond Games user names, the email address used to join the site and the encrypted GameArena and Games Shop passwords of up to 35,000 customers".


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Transcript: Anonymous Operation India press conference

Anonymous Operation India, the hacker group apparantly behind recent attacks on a number of Indian websites in protest against the government and court orders to restrict access to certain websites had invited the media to join them on a Internet Relay Chat press conference on Friday.

The hacking group alleged that the media chose to ignore their operations.........

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Anonymous Operation India hackers plan peaceful protest on June 9

New Delhi: After launching attacks on a number of websites in protest against Internet censorship, hacker group Anonymous Operation India is planning a more traditional way of protest.

Anonymous India announced its plans in an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) press conference and also posted a YouTube video to promote the protest. In the press conference, Anonymous India claimed hacking into Reliance Communication's servers and accessed a list of URLs blocked by the ISP that also allegedly includes Facebook profiles of protesting Air India pilots.

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Hacking attempt on RBI website renders it inaccessible

The Reserve Bank today said there was an attempt to hack its website yesterday rendering it inaccessible for almost the entire day.

"It was a DNS (Domain Name System) attack where the hacker tried entering the website from a single Internet protocol address multiple times, jamming its bandwidth," an RBI spokesperson said.

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See what’s more dangerous than porn websites on Net

 WASHINGTON: Pornographic websites have ceased to be the 'most dangerous' places on web for picking up viruses.

The Internet Security Threat report for 2011, released by security Software Company Symantec ( SYMC) ranks pornographic sites at 9th as the riskiest to visit.

One of the most fascinating part of the report is in the review of malicious code trends, which lists the 10 most dangerous categories of Websites.

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New bot targeting Windows, Mac OS

Security experts at Kaspersky Lab noted that the first quarter of 2012 started with a bang after a quiet 2011, because botmasters failed to come up with anything new last year. But in the first three months of 2012, the experts noticed cybercriminals using a ‘fileless' bot to build a zombie-net; and rising targeted attacks against Mac Operating System.............

The criminals were targeting organisations that used both Windows and Mac platforms. These criminals use two Trojans — one for Mac and the other for Windows — to gain access to confidential records.

They were found loading the appropriate malware (based on the platform on which the targeted machine was in use at that time) and these Trojans were found getting commands from a single control centre.

Criminals were found using a loophole that worked in both Windows and Mac OS X environments to make the initial intrusion into the system..............

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Cybercrime costs companies an average of $214,000 per attack

Successful cybercrime attacks cost businesses an average of $214,000 per incident, according to a survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute on behalf of Check Point Software Technology..........

The survey of 2,618 C-level executives and IT security administrators in the US, UK, Germany, Hong Kong, and Brazil revealed that 65% of respondents who experienced targeted attacks said the hacker’s motivation was driven by financial fraud, followed by intent to disrupt business operations (45%) and stealing customer data (45%). Despite the surge in hacktivist attacks, only 5% of security attacks were estimated to have been driven by political or ideological agendas.....

There are people all along the eco-system that are making money from these attacks.........

Respondents reported SQL injections as the most serious security attacks experienced in the last two years, and around one-third of respondents said they experienced advanced persistent threats (35%), botnet infections (33%), and denial of service (DoS) attacks (32%)............

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US hacked sites of Al Qaeda

American intelligence agencies carried out a successful cyber attack on the websites of the terrorist group Al Qaeda in Yemen. On Wednesday said U.S. Secretary of State Clinton.

According to her, the security services managed to delete from the sites calls for the murder of Americans, as well as materials showing residents murdered by terrorists in Yemen.

This was the first time an American official at such a high level has admitted to such an operation.........

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Hackers hit Telstra site: 35,000 affected

Telstra has been hit by a "hacking attack" affecting 35,000 customers, just a week after one of its IT staff told a security conference the telco was reviewing how it secured and stored customer information.

The hacking attack occurred on the servers of a third party company that runs Telstra BigPond's GameArena and Games Shop websites, the telco said in a statement this morning..............

These incidents highlight the importance of businesses ensuring that they maintain the most up to date security systems to ensure the protection of the personal information they hold about customers. Having appropriate levels of security is a requirement of the Privacy Act.................

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Cyber crime victims not pursue cases

The unwillingness of cyber crime victims to pursue cases is the major hurdle in the way of investigations and action against hackers and criminals in the country. This was stated by the President Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA) and former additional director general FIA Ammar Jaffery while speaking at the “Information Security Conference”..........

200 cases were reported for cyber crimes including hacking of website, tracing of emails, frauds through Internet and mobile phones during 2011. Most of the cyber crime victims do not report the incident of Internet misuse to investigators due to several reasons including fear of police, black mailing and personal secrets.Jaffery said that cyber crimes are on the rise, causing colossal damages to the victim companies and individuals in the country.............

Use of forensics science system can help a lot in effectively detecting and curbing cyber crimes...........

He underlined the need for creating awareness among the masses specially the users of Internet about the availability of legal means to try the hackers and misuser of cyber facilities..........

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Al Qaeda calls for 'Electronic Jihad' against US

In an indication that al Qaeda may turn to cyber-warfare against the US, a newly-revealed video urges the group’s followers to launch cyber attacks on Western targets.

US lawmakers have described the message as "alarming".

An al Qaeda operative, in the six-minute video, compares vulnerabilities in essential American computer networks to the flaws in aviation security before the September 11 attack........

The video further calls upon Muslims "with expertise in this domain to target the websites and information systems of big companies and government agencies."

This video is troubling as it urges al Qaeda adherents to launch a cyber attack on America. It's clear that al Qaeda is exploring all means to do harm and this is evidence that the critical infrastructure is a target.........


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Anonymous hacktivists dump 1.7GB load slurped from DoJ site

Anonymous-affiliated hackers dropped a 1.7GB torrent of data onto file-sharing networks on Monday after hacking into the US Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The leaked files purportedly include "internal emails" as as well as other files supposedly culled from other compromised databases at the BJS, the US government agency that collates statistics on crimes in the US.

The release was part of a newly initiated Anonymous operation, dubbed Monday Mail Mayhem, and accompanied by a YouTube statement explaining that the release was geared towards "ending corruption".............

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Spy agency seeks cyber-ops curriculum

The National Security Agency is trying to expand U.S. cyber expertise needed for secret intelligence operations against adversaries on computer networks through a new cyber-ops program at selected universities.

The cyber-ops curriculum is geared to providing the basic education for jobs in intelligence, military and law enforcement that are so secret they will only be revealed to some students and faculty, who need to pass security clearance requirements, during special summer seminars offered by NSA.

It is not easy to find the right people for cyber operations because the slice of the hacker community that would make a quality cyber operator inside the government is only a sliver..............

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Corporate Boards Still In the Dark About Cybersecurity

As the U.S. natural gas pipeline sector and the Department of Homeland Security square off against malicious cyber intrusions aimed at companies, along comes yet another study that highlights serious governance shortcomings of critical infrastructure companies when it comes to cybersecurity.

“The Governance of Enterprise Security: CyLab 2012 Report” [PDF], released last week offers the first side-by-side comparison of industries on governance practices and cybersecurity oversight. Compared against the financial, IT/telecom, and industrials sectors, energy/utilities companies fared the worst.

Of the critical infrastructure respondents, the energy/utilities sector had the poorest governance practices........ 

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New Skype malware threat reported: Poison Ivy

 Dancho Danchev reports an incident in which a friend pinged him at an odd hour on Skype "with a message pointing to what appeared to be a photo site with the message 'hahahahaha foto' and a link to hxxp://random_subdomain.photalbum.org."


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CeBIT 2012: Social media is a tool for cyber criminals

Social media is the latest tool in the arsenal of cyber criminals, with groups using social networking websites such as Twitter to “manipulate the masses” into thinking a certain way, according to Kaspersky Labs’ co-founder and chief executive, Eugene Kaspersky..............

It is very easy to manipulate people and if the wrong people have the right strategy, this will be a very serious issue for governments...........

Hacktivist group Anonymous casts a long shadow over Twitter with multiple accounts and chapters representing different countries publicising the group’s activities such as its protest against the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA).

Turning to cyber warfare, Kaspersky said that supervisory control and data acquistion (SCADA) attacks were more likely to happen in the future because so many critical networks, such as power grids, were connected to the internet............

Finally, Kaspersky discussed privacy--or the lack of it. “There is no privacy in this world. When you travel you pay with credit cards, [and] if you use cable TV, there is too much information collected about you. There is a huge risk because so much private information is collected from everyone. If the wrong person or the wrong organisation has access to that data, it is not only a problem for you but for governments..............”

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Cybercrime: we need to wake up to the risk

The launch of the UK Government Cyber Security Strategy last year marked a positive move towards cyber defence for British businesses.

However, a BAE Systems Detica report this week revealed that organisations are still nervous about the escalating cyber threat. The increase in attacks this year has not gone unnoticed...............

According to a report from the NCC Group this week shows that, despite common perceptions, 2.4 per cent of global cyber attacks now originate in the UK, making it the seventh biggest source of online attacks in the world. It’s not too surprising that cyber crime is common in the UK. It's one of the most online, connected and educated societies in the world, so it makes sense that it would house a lot of cyber criminals.........

Cyber attacks are growing in both complexity and frequency, but it’s not just external hackers that warrant the board’s attention. A breach in security can stem from a number of perpetrators. All large organisations contain large volumes of valuable data that, if not properly controlled, may be available to unsolicited eyes. Protecting business data against external invaders is essential; however this investment is wasted when a member of staff may be betraying the otherwise watertight defences...............

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Russian Mafia Organizes Russian Cybercrime Market, Doubles in Size

Group-IB, a leading Russian cybercrime investigation and computer forensics company and LETA Group subsidiary, today announced a 28-page report on the Russian cybercrime market in 2011.........

The report outlines the main risks associated with various types of hacker activities, analyzes the main trends in the development of the Russian cybercrime market, estimates the shares and the financial performance of the Russian segment of the global cybercrime market, and forecasts market trends for this year.

A summary infographic is available at http://group-ib.com/images/media/Group-IB_Cybercrime_Inforgraph_ENG.jpg and the report itself is available at http://group-ib.com/images/media/Group-IB_Report_2011_ENG.pdf.

Key Trends in 2011:

• Russian Cybercrime Doubles: The global cybercrime market was more than $12.5 billion in 2011.  The global Russian speaking component of that market was more than $4 billion; and the Russian national cybercrime market was $2.3 billion, essentially doubling last year’s number of $1.2 billion.

• Mafia Professionalizes Russian Cybercrime: Traditional crime syndicates are beginning to organize the previously disorganized Russian cybercrime market. In addition, these crime syndicates are beginning to work more closely together, sharing compromised data, botnets, and cashing schemes.

• Online Fraud and Spam Account for More than Half of Russian Cybercrime: In 2011, the largest type of Russian cybercrime was online fraud at $942 million; followed by spam at $830 million; cybercrime to cybercrime, or C2C (including services for anonymization and sale of traffic, exploits, malware, and loaders) at $230 million; and DDoS at $130 million...........

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Moves to fight cyber crime hailed

The Scottish Government is developing an action plan for boosting cyber security, with Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing to be responsible for it. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill told delegates at the eCrime Scotland summit in Edinburgh it was vital to tackle the problem. Cyber crime is said to cost businesses in Scotland an estimated £5 billion a year..............

Cyber crime seriously harms businesses and individuals and it is vital we do all we can to tackle the threat of viruses, hacking attacks, fraud and other information security breaches..............

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Beware, FB chat addicts: New virus can infect your computer!

New Delhi: A new virus is spreading across computers through the popular Facebook chat sevice.
Identified as 'Steckt.Evi', the virus enters a computer when a user clicks a harmless-looking link seemingly sent by a Facebook friend on her pop-up chat window.



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Cyber weapons conventions needed

WORLD governments need a cyber weapons convention like those for chemical and nuclear arms, computer security expert Eugene Kaspersky warned...........

Cyber warfare had bumped cyber crime from the top of his list of the most pressing security issues facing internet regulators. Cyber weapons now posed as grave a physical threat to the world's infrastructure and industrial complexes as conventional weaponry, and were much cheaper to produce.

Mr Kaspersky was referring to the development of malicious software specifically designed to damage industrial control software. The most famous of recent examples was Stuxnet, which destroyed an Iranian nuclear facility.

Cyber weapons can damage a physical object as badly as a traditional weapon........

Stuxnet was ingeniously designed to damage the Iranian plant's Siemens-built industrial control systems and software for its centrifuges and render it inoperable.

The most dangerous and most critical issue is cyber weapons, cyber sabotage and cyber terrorism........

Cyber weaponry needed comparatively little funding to develop, and office space and internet connections were often enough. They only need their engineer's knowledge, their inside information about the target and that's it........

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Cyberincidents have become a serious threat

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Maximus Johnity Ongkili says cyberincidents have become a serious threat to socio-economic development and national security.

From only 2,123 incidents in 2008, complaints received by CyberSecurity Malaysia had risen to 8,090 in 2010 and 15,218 last year..................

The internet and information technology have become a double-edged sword, offering development opportunities as well as opportunities to commit crime.........

Taking cloud computing as an example, he said although the future looked bright for most Asian economies as it was already in the process of fully embracing cloud computing, the security issues were not well addressed to allow more companies to confidently move to cloud computing.

This security concern was hindering the increase in business agility and cost reductions for organisations...........

Only 60 out of 400 organisations identified as the country's Critical National Infrastructure (CNII) were ISO/IEC 270001 Information Security Management System (ISMS) certified.

The figure was far from satisfactory and the main pullback for organisations to be compliant was their apathy and "never mind" attitude.

ISMS is an internationally recognised standard for information management which is equivalent to the quality management standard of ISO...............

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1 800 attacks a minute, says Kaspersky

Users browsing the Internet face an average of 108 035 cyber-attacks per hour – or 1 800 a minute. In total, cybercriminals used 4,073-million domains to launch web attacks in 2011.

These statistics were generated using Kaspersky Lab’s KSN cloud threat monitoring system based on last year’s results.

The Internet is the main entry point for malware on any computer. And increasingly it is entertainment sites, rather than “adult” resources, which carry the greatest risks of potential infection..............

Cybercriminals actively use different kinds of legitimate sites to distribute their ‘creations’. To do this they set up pages on social networks to lure their victims, distribute spam in personal messages and actively comment on popular videos and similar postings, including links to malware in their messages.............


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Share of spam email traffic rises by 2.2% in April

US is the second biggest distributor of junk mail in the month. The share of spam in email traffic was up by 2.2% in April compared to 77.2% averaged in March, according to findings from Kaspersky Lab's latest report on spammer activity.............

In April, some major changes were identified in the geographical distribution of spam sources, with the most evident one being an increase in spam originating in the US that saw it jump 18 places, as the second biggest distributor of junk mail in the month. The share of spam emanating in email traffic from China also increased by 5% and the country is now ranked fifth among the world's top sources of spam.

Furthermore, phishing attacks will likely focus more on social networking sites, and possibly online games -- as summer vacation is upon us, students on break from school will be more active online............

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Indian hackers deface Multan government website

The Multan district government website was defaced by Indian hackers on Sunday. The hackers had erased all official data on the website and posted anti-Pakistan and anti-government slogans on the homepage.

Indian national songs, supposedly sung at a concert, were being played as background music on the website.

The website, www.multan.gov.pk, is the Multan government’s official website and contains important data vis a vis the district.

A group named ‘Indishell’ claimed hacking the website, with its name prominently mentioned on the homepage, along with a message saying ‘We have an EYE on you’, that is strategically placed under cat eyes with pupils donned as the Indian flag.

The website had information including maps, buildings, history, culture of Multan along with a list of ongoing developmental projects in the district.....................

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Remember Stuxnet? Why the US is still vulnerable to cyber attacks

Years after the world's scariest computer virus attack, not much has changed


Last week, the Department of Homeland Security revealed a rash of cyber attacks on natural gas pipeline companies. Just as with previous cyber attacks on infrastructure, there was no known physical damage. But security experts worry it may only be a matter of time.


Efforts to protect pipelines and other critical systems have been halting despite broad agreement that they're vulnerable to viruses like Stuxnet —  the mysterious worm that caused havoc to Iran's nuclear program two years ago.


The Frankenstein-like virus infected a type of industrial controller that is ubiquitous — used around the world on everything from pipelines to the electric grid.


Experts say manufacturers haven't fixed security flaws in these essential but obscure devices........

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U.S. mulls blocking China Mobile license

Concerned about cyber security and possible spying, U.S. officials are considering denying China Mobile’s license for providing international information service in the United States.

Officials from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department’s national security division are concerned that the license would allow China Mobile to build physical infrastructure in the American territory, as well as to monitor and route Internet traffic. This would pose a potential threat to government information and the intellectual properties of American companies, according to an unidentified source.

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‘Digital forensics required to combat rise in ME cyber crime’

AccessData Group, the pioneer of digital investigations and litigation support, is set to generate regional awareness about digital forensics and incident response technologies through its participation in a key cyber security conference that was held in Dubai late last week.........

Companies in the region are beginning to realise that there is a need for holistic cyber security. The malware attacks plaguing the region are growing not only in volume but also in sophistication.

Merely having a firewall or basic security system in place is no longer sufficient. Both government and private enterprises need to address this by developing a security strategy that includes digital forensics and incident response...........

It was also discussed about the rise of targeted high-tech and e-Crime, which will include the increase in malware attacks being seen around the world, including the Middle East, and the risks they pose to Critical National Infrastructure...........

There is also requirement of dynamic malware analysis tools and visualisation solutions to detect, investigate, remediate and prevent such attacks........

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Cybercrime will cost Scottish businesses £31 billion this year

THIS YEAR the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (Oscia) projected that cybercrime alone will cost Scottish businesses and consumers well in excess of £31 billion. In an attempt to address cybercrime and to safeguard economic well-being across the country, the first e-crime Scotland Summit will be held next week on Tuesday.

As larger businesses find the finances to increasingly step up their game to identify and respond to the threat of cyber crime, small to medium sized enterprises are at risk of falling behind, which in turn puts them and their customers at greater exposure to e-crime. Many of these businesses may be put off by the cost, time, and specialist expertise needed to ensure good IT and network security. But the reality is, as next week’s event will show, there are easy steps to protect against e-crime.........

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UK firms confess cyber crime fears

The recent run of high-profile cyber attacks on private and public sector firms has left many UK companies living in fear that the same could happen to them.


This is the view put forward by IT security firm Detica in its annual Cyber Security Monitor report.....

According to the report, 85 per cent of respondents expect to see a marked rise in the number of cyber attacks that take place this year. When asked who would be the most likely candidate to stage an attack against their IT systems, 73 per cent said criminal groups or professional fraudsters. In the 2011 report, this figure was 58 per cent.........

The theft of intellectual property and competitive bid information during a cyber attack was the biggest source of concern for IT decision makers in the technology sector...........

Meanwhile, firms in the financial services market are more concerned about loss of customer data, reputational damage and interruptions of service for customers......

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