Subscribe in a readerScammers Asking For Donations
There are many emails being sent by scammers that makre reference to major news stories, such as the recent fires in California. The emails may contain a real logo (copied from an organisation’s website) and claim to be from some charity or social organisation. They also have a link allowing you to make donations.
In these scams the link provided to donate money is owned and operated by the scammer sending the emails.
So as always don’t trust unsolicited emails you receive that ask for money. The people behind these scams are up to date with popular news stories and try hard to cash in on major events.
A New Way To Spread Viruses Using Google
This technique to spread viruses was only just discovered, and it’s clever.
Firstly it’s based on the assumption that people trust Google (which is a fair assumption since Google has done a lot to maintain good ethics and to help users avoid malware). So when people see a link to a Google site they would naturally assume it must be safe to click on.
Now someone sends you spam and in the body of the email is a link to Google’s website. The link is a clever trick that takes you to a gambling site containing a virus. How does it work?
On Google’s search engine there is a button called “I Feel Lucky“. This has been a distinctive feature of Google for many years and when you click on it, instead of showing you a page of results, it takes you directly to the first website. Now someone wishing to spread a virus just has to come up with some search terms that places their website at the top of Google’s results. Then they paste the link that created that search, with an option to take you straight to the “I Feel Lucky” link.
In short, it’s using a little known feature in Google to take you to someone else’s website, and the rest is reusing the usual spam and virus techniques.
For now this has been observed in spam emails and we should expect it to appear in other places such as websites, forum links, Facebook etc.
The best defence against this is to use a good antivirus package, one that checks webpages as well as the traditional virus checks.
It’s also good to pay attention to links before you click on them. Look out for things related to online gambling or pornography as these are the most common websites used to distribute malware.
And Google will most probably improve their systems to filter out exploits such as this one.
Sony SonicStage CP Vulnerability
Version 4.3 of Sony’s SonicStage CP program has a vulnerability (flaw) that can be exploited for malicious intent. The exploit comes in the form of a playlist received from an external party (website, untrusted friend, etc).
So if you’re using a Sony digital music player and this program on your computer don’t open any playlists you didn’t create yourself, until Sony releases a patch to fix it. Details here.
Downloading Codecs
Should you download new codecs when a website tells you to?
What’s a codec anyway?
Your computer needs video codecs to play videos. And like everything else there are quite a few different codecs to choose from. Your computer came with a set of the most popular codecs so you can watch videos, both online and from DVDs.
There are some websites that encode their videos with unusual codecs then ask you to install a new codec to view it. In particular, some pornographic websites have been tricking people into downloading a new codec. Unfortunately in some cases the codec is a trojan that makes very dangerous changes to your computer (allowing attackers to redirect your web browser to wherever they want).
There’s been a reportof some websites tricking Mac users into installing a bad codec like the one mentioned above. In the past Macs have been considered more safe than Windows computers but as they become more popular they also become targets to malware such as this. This particular attack doesn’t work very well because it asks the user to carry out a number of steps. Over time attackers get more sophisticated so it’s best to learn about it as early as possible.
The lessons to be learnt here are:
- Don’t install anything a website tells you to, unless you completely trust the person or company operating it. Even then you need to be certain of what you’re downloading.
- No computer is safe from malicious attacks, no matter what the ads, salesmen or zealous enthusiasts say.
- Pornographic websites are well known to carry malicious content like viruses and trojans.
- Attackers are creative and always find new ways to distribute viruses
SMS Authentication for Credit Cards
A few banks have recently introduced SMS authentication for their credit cards. Basically they’ll send an SMS (text message) to your mobile phone (cell phone, or handphone) to confirm a transaction. You reply to the SMS to approve the transaction.
It’s a security model called “Two Factor Authentication“. This means you need to be in possession of two “things” for a transaction to be approved. If someone stole your credit card details and made a transaction, e.g. online, you would receive an SMS on your phone and you’d know it was fraudulent. In this case you wouldn’t reply to the SMS and the transaction would be halted. And if you’re making the purchase yourself you can approve your own transaction.
The idea sounds good at first. And of course it has its own set of problems. More interesting is the reasons why these banks have introduced this technology.
Problems:
- Only some transactions are protected using this method. It’s up to the banks but generally it seems that a large number of transactions will continue to function as before.
- For legitimate purchases it can be a nuisance
- It’s not a foolproof system
- As more people use the SMS option the costs to the bank will increase greatly and they would either end the service or pass on costs to their customers
Here’s an interesting comment published in this ZDNet article. Matthew Woodrow, Head of Information Security at Westpac, was quoted saying “It’s not to do with security at all… consumers have expectations of security levels while using their mobile phones to do their banking. So you’re not thinking about security at all, but you’re thinking about the product and what consumers want”. In other words a large bank’s security expert is admitting that SMS authentication is more about how customers “feel” about safety.
It seems to be a temporary fix to credit card fraud. Smart card technologies (chips embedded in the credit card) seem to be a better solution.
In summary security is often more about how it makes people “feel” rather than truly preventing crimes. It helps to see things for what they really are and not believe what you hear in ads.
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