NoticeBored blog

Labels: Awareness, Malware

• Incident notification and specific response procedures covering these kinds of incident;
• Response procedures include 'damage limitation' using legal actions (e.g. those disclaimers and Non Disclosure Agreeand Public Relations (e.g. stock press releases ready to issue);
• "Learning the lessons" which means using incidents (particularly those suffered by the organization but also its peers and others in the public domain) as case studies and training materials;
• Disciplinary procedures taking account of incidents of this nature, typically using examples.

Labels: Awareness, Email, Malware, Office, Risk

Labels: incident, Malware

Labels: Malware

"A 35-year-old computer programer pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that he planted a computer virus designed to destroy all the data on 4,000 Fannie Mae computer servers the day he was fired from the company ..."

• Management oversight - bosses keeping an eye on what their staff are doing (not so easy to arrange if the boss is the trouble maker and other bosses are incompetent to oversee or are simply unaware!);
• Divisions of responsibility such that a lone cowboy cannot easily take advantage of his access (tricky again if he has system privileges and access to information, systems and processes that permit him to bypass or undermine standard access controls);
• Laws, regulations, policies, standards, procedures and guidelines, not just to influence potential logic bombers (who, by their very nature, are unlikely to respect the rules) but also to establish and mandate the supporting/compensating procedural, technical and physical security controls;
  
• Audits, whether periodic/planned/pre-notified or ad hoc/unannounced/surprise visits, plus management reviews and similar checkpoints, particularly when scoped and panned specifically to address this issue and performed by experts with prior experience in this area;
• Technology-related controls such as air-tight change and configuration management processes; scans for unauthorized or inappropriate source code, malware and hacker tools on production systems; logical access controls as a whole; trustworthy backups; network intrusion detection and content management systems etc.;
• Slick incident management processes to identify and respond rapidly and efficiently to potential incidents and thus limit the damage;
  
• Liabilities on those responsible, whether employees or third parties, that are legally defined and practically enforceable in employment or service contracts (an after-the-fact contingency or corrective control);
  
• Whistleblowers' hotline - a facility to encourage peers and co-workers (including managers and HR people dealing with clearly disgruntled staff) to report their concerns or suspicions in confidence for independent review;
• Security awareness, training and educational activities, for instance promoting the whistleblower's hotline and policies, and training those who oversee IT operations in the symptoms of insider attack to watch out for (e.g. when logic bombers develop and test their evil schemes prior to the Big One);
• Pre- and para-employment screening of employees in an attempt to locate and drop the bad apples, assuming that they can be identified as such (some believe that bad apples can be psychologically profiled but this practice is probably more art than science - merely being a social misfit or square-peg-in-a-round-hole is not in itself sufficient cause to track or sack somone, and such people can be extremely beneficial and creative if somewhat difficult to manage employees);
• Sensible termination procedures, designed to remove possible hitches from a leaver's last few days or weeks on site (e.g. arranging for an "understudy" to shadow a leaver, both to pick up important new skills and to watch out for inappropriate activities);
  
• Keeping employees gruntled, not disgruntled (!). Seriously, maintaining good employer-employee relations is a general baseline control against many forms of insider threat, and a particular challenge for management in an economic downturn. Procedural controls are particularly likely to suffer when people have other things on their mind than the organinization's best interests.
  

Labels: Awareness, Incidents, Insider, Malware

Labels: Email, Malware

Malware authors are constantly exploring different modes of infection, creating new payloads and inventing novel criminal activities. Some malware modifies its own code in order to try to escape detection by pattern-matching antivirus software, or picks up new component parts through the Internet as the infection progresses (Malware As A Service!). Read more about the malware scourge in this month’s awareness module and newsletter.

Labels: Awareness, Malware

Dear Microsoft Customer,

Please notice that Microsoft company has recently issued a Security Update for OS Microsoft Windows. The update applies to the following OS versions: Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millenium, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista.

Please notice, that present update applies to high-priority updates category. In order to help protect your computer against security threats and performance problems, we strongly recommend you to install this update.

Since public distribution of this Update through the official website http://www.microsoft.com would have result in efficient creation of a malicious software, we made a decision to issue an experimental private version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users.

As your computer is set to receive notifications when new updates are available, you have received this notice.

In order to start the update, please follow the step-by-step instruction:
1. Run the file, that you have received along with this message.
2. Carefully follow all the instructions you see on the screen.

If nothing changes after you have run the file, probably in the settings of your OS you have an indication to run all the updates at a background routine. In that case, at this point the upgrade of your OS will be finished.

We apologize for any inconvenience this back order may be causing you.


Thank you,

Steve Lipner
Director of Security Assurance
Microsoft Corp.

Labels: Malware, Social engineering

Labels: Ethics, Hacking, Malware

Labels: Audit, Malware

Labels: Audit, Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Hacking, Malware

single spyware infection on a work computer can impact the productivity of the typical small business employee for two-and-a-half days, according to research commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).

A survey of employees at businesses with 10 to 200 computer users found that more than one in four computer users reported having their productivity impacted by a spyware infection during the past six months. Of these, more than one-third reported multiple spyware inflections.

Labels: Malware

Labels: Hacking, Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Accountability, Awareness, Bugs, Change, Compliance, Incidents, Insider, Malware, Office, Risk

Labels: Awareness, Bugs, Change, Integrity, Malware

Click here for a full size screenshot

Labels: Email, ID theft, Malware

Labels: Email, Malware

Labels: Awareness, Email, Malware

"Hackers stole information from the U.S. Department of Transportation and several U.S. companies by seducing employees with fake job-listings on advertisements and e-mail, a computer security firm said."

Labels: Hacking, Incidents, Malware, Risk

Labels: Fraud, Hacking, ID theft, Incidents, Malware, Network, Risk

Labels: Bugs, Malware, Network

Labels: Awareness, Malware

Labels: Malware

Over the course of the past two years, information technology has seen
some amazing advances. Unfortunately, malware authors are keeping pace
with the industry. This webcast will reveal what's really going on "out
there" - from sophisticated phishing "worms" to a disturbing increase
in Trojans, extensive bot networks and new polymorphic viruses. Methods
of distribution are changing, too. For example, new Web technologies
are making it easier than ever to disseminate malware. So what can we
do? The webcast will also cover methods of detection and prevention,
including behavioral analysis and site reputation.

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Awareness, Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware, Network

Labels: Awareness, Malware

Labels: Accountability, Incidents, Insider, Malware, Risk

Labels: Awareness, Governance, Hacking, Insider, Malware

Labels: Accountability, Hacking, Incidents, Insider, Law, Malware

Labels: Email, Malware, Social engineering

Labels: Development, Email, Incidents, Malware, Social engineering

Labels: Malware, Mobile, Network

Mail server report.

Our firewall determined the e-mails containing worm copies are being sent from your computer.

Nowadays it happens from many computers, because this is a new virus type (Network Worms).


Using the new bug in the Windows, these viruses infect the computer unnoticeably.
After the penetrating into the computer the virus harvests all the e-mail addresses and sends the copies of itself to these e-mail
addresses

Please install updates for worm elimination and your computer restoring.

Best regards,
Customers support service

Labels: Awareness, Bugs, Email, Malware, Network

Labels: Email, Malware

Labels: Malware, Mobile

Labels: Malware

Labels: Awareness, Malware, Social engineering

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Labels: Awareness, Email, Malware

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Labels: Hacking, Malware

Labels: Malware, Network

Labels: Malware

Labels: Authentication, Email, ID theft, Malware

Labels: Authentication, Email, ID theft, Malware, Social engineering

Labels: Malware

Labels: ID theft, Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Infosec, Malware

Labels: Hacking, Malware

Labels: Hacking, Infosec, Malware

Labels: Awareness, Hacking, Malware

Labels: Email, Malware

Labels: Email, Malware

Labels: Email, Malware

Labels: Confidentiality, Malware, Privacy, Secrecy, Trade secrets

Labels: Malware, Risk

Labels: Malware, Secrecy

Labels: Malware, Mobile, Secrecy

Labels: Incidents, Malware

Labels: Awareness, Malware, Physical

Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

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Labels: Fraud, Malware, Network

Labels: Malware, Risk

Labels: Email, Fraud, Malware

Labels: Awareness, Malware

Labels: Malware, Network

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Labels: Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Awareness, Malware

Labels: Malware

Labels: Email, Malware