A recent article on Forbes talks about a Lieutenant Colonel of the Army purchasing Apple Macintosh computers to decrease their risk of exploitation. Primarily in response to the recent security breach of the Pentagon back in June as well as a few other incidents. It is widely discussed that Macintosh computers are more secure than Windows & Linux based computers because fewer vulnerabilities exist for the Mac platform.

What I never hear talked about in these discussions is the alarming fact that Macintosh had five and a half more vulnerabilities per month on average than Windows throughout the year 2007. You can see the details and the numbers in a recent ZDNet article. It is quite common to see Macintosh users without any active Malware (Anti-Virus, Worm, Trojan, Spyware) protection.

Back in April 3Com held a short lived contest that resulted in compromising a fully patched Macintosh laptop for a prize of $10,000 and the MacBook.

Author: Christopher

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• Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.q
• Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.ay
• Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.aa
• Worm.Win32.Feebs.gen
• Email-Worm.Win32.Mydoom.l
• Exploit.Win32.PDF-URI.k
• Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.t
• Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.gt
• Email-Worm.Win32.Nyxem.e
• Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.c
• Email-Worm.Win32.NetSky.x
• Email-Worm.Win32.Scano.gen
• Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.t
• Virus.Win32.Virut.a
• Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.u
• Email-Worm.Win32.LovGate.w
• Net-Worm.Win32.Mytob.dam
• Exploit.Win32.IMG-WMF.y
• Trojan-Spy.HTML.Paylap.bg

Data from Kaspersky Lab

Author: Christopher

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“Dave gets into work after a good night’s sleep. A few hellos later, he is at his workstation. He is the top finance guy and recently got a high speed computer that he uses to conduct various high value financial transactions every day. He also holds critical and confidential information about company’s financial position on his computer. He is generally quite energetic and is known to be very efficient. But today, he seems dull and has missed his status report deadline, which is very unlike him. Missing a deadline annoys him and he appears unusually temperamental and over-stressed today. He screams at his computer. As the day progresses, similar behavior is observed across the office. Some people are even popping pills to beat their headaches.”

This is a typical scenario at an office that is hit by a computer virus which has not been detected yet. And that shows that computer viruses infect humans too (in a way)….Just check what happens next…

“Dave tries to open a couple of files on his computer. But he cannot access them. His computer is too slow. It’s been 7 hours since he got into office and no work has been done yet. IT department has been informed but nothing has been found wrong. There are no back-ups for his file either”

No backups, low detection rate and slow response to virus outbreak. This is a complete lapse of information security and protection.

“The losses are mounting by the minute and it sends a shiver down your spine. You regret the compromise you made in selecting a proper information security solution “

Lesson Learned: ‘Treating Information security as a secondary thing can cost you your business’

Author: Christopher

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According to a recent study by Mcafee and NCSA 92% of Americans believe they are protected with Anti-Virus with definitions that have been updated within the last week.   But according to the paper, only 51% had current definitions within the last week.  They also found 36% had a disabled firewall and 45% didn’t have anti-spyware installed, and finally only 12% of Americans had anti-phishing software installed.  Anti-Spam protection came in around 21% of the users sampled.  Overall they mention less than one in four Americans are fully protected against viruses and malware.  Of the people sampled, 87% of them store important personal data like financial information, health records, resumes, and personal emails on these computers.  Yet 88% of those sampled go online for their their bank, stock trading, or personal medical information.

Author: Christopher

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It is estimated that 75% of enterprises will be infected this year with malware targeted to invade traditional defenses according to Gartner Group. 80% of enterprises have deployed some form of URL filtering, less than 15% have deployed some form of deep packet inspection. Tailor-made Trojans are being developed to penetrate YOUR organization; how are you protected against these threats?

Author: Christopher

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In a recent test, major anti-virus products were put into a lab environment and tested to see if they can be hacked using different exploits and even hardware.

Many threats today have focused on disabling anti-virus and security systems such as software firewalls. What good is running the latest and great anti-virus program when it is disabled.

This brings us to the winner of the test, our personal favorite; Kaspersky who brought in the Gold Self Protection Award successfully defending against 32 out of 33 malicious attempts to disable or other hinder the anti-virus product. Below are the top three results:

1) Kaspersky Internet Security 7

2) VBA Anti-Virus 3.11

Symantec Internet Security 2007

F-Secure Internet Security

3) ZoneAlarm Internet Security 7

Trend Micro PC-Cillin

Author: Christopher

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