WatchGuard announces Top Threats to education

November 4, 2009 · Filed Under Software News · Comment 

Education-related Threats Expected to Rise – According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 25 percent of all cyber-security breaches involve schools, and although a majority of educators believe that their campus networks are more secure now than last year, WatchGuard predicts that significant breaches, vulnerabilities and threats will continue to plague schools and universities. WatchGuard deems the following to be the leading network, application and data threats to education:

– Malware & Spyware - As students and faculty utilize the Web for education as well as entertainment purposes, many unwittingly expose themselves to drive-by downloads, or corrupted websites, which injects malicious forms of software on their computers. Once infected, they risk becoming victims of identity theft or loss of personal information via spyware and keyloggers.
– Viruses – Today, e-mail remains to be one of the primary vectors for delivering viruses. Unfortunately, a recent survey showed that 27 percent of users fail to keep their antivirus signatures up to date.  With viruses taking on innovative polymorphic properties, antivirus signatures alone may not be enough to stop the next wave of new viruses to come.
– Botnets – It has been estimated that 15 to 20 percent of all school and university computers connected to the Internet may be part of a botnet. As part of a botnet, school and university systems may be used in a variety of unknown exploits, including spam delivery, denial of service attacks, click-fraud, identity theft and more.
– Phishing – Phishing scams continue to get more sophisticated and selective, with students being specifically targeted. A recent report states that phishing attacks via social networks achieve a success rate of over 70 percent, which indicates that a majority of students are vulnerable to phishing scams.
– Hacking - In a recent survey of education IT professionals, 23 percent ranked student hackers as one of their greatest threats to their network security. Whether the hacks are designed to alter grades or for more sinister purposes, student hackers continue to push the envelope for network and data protection.
– Access Control – Usage of mobile devices and wireless access continues to plague network administrators. Concerns of thwarting unauthorized user access to education IT resources is top of mind with many administrators. As use of mobile devices escalates, schools will face
increasing challenges in managing authorized network access.
– Social Networks – The number one threat to school and university networks is social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace.  Unfortunately, social networks act as an ideal platform to launch a myriad of attacks against students and faculty, including spam, viruses, malware, phishing and more. Adding to this, socially engineered attacks are often extremely successful due to the “trusted” environment that social networks create.

– Because of the sensitive nature of student and faculty information, such as social security numbers, credit card information, and other personal identifying data at risk, WatchGuard recommends that schools and universities review their security controls and IT policies regularly to ensure they have the most effective, up-to-date security solutions in place.

Source: WatchGuard Technologies

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McAfee and Phoenix Technologies to deliver a secured computing cloud for PC Notebook & Netbook users

August 28, 2009 · Filed Under Internet Software, Security Software, Software News · Comment 

Viruses, malicious attacks, malware and spyware meet new gatekeeper with combined technologies delivering unrivaled online and platform protection for consumers

McAfee, Inc., the world’s largest dedicated security technology company, and Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the leader in PC 3.0(TM) products, services and embedded technologies, announced their partnership to develop a product for HyperSpace(TM) — Phoenix’s groundbreaking instant-on computing environment for notebooks and netbooks. By combining technologies, McAfee and Phoenix plan to provide computer users revolutionary new levels of protection from viruses and targeted attacks as well as online malware and spyware intrusions.

HyperSpace, a Moblin-compliant, instant-on computing environment features applications that are certified by Phoenix to ensure the integrity of the computing environment. Contents of the hard drive remain walled off from the internet and are therefore protected. By teaming with McAfee, HyperSpace is achieving new levels of consumer internet security protection.

The explosion in Web 2.0 applications, including social networking sites with cloud-based applications and functionality, has created new vehicles for launching malicious attacks, according to McAfee’s “2009 Threat Predictions.” Including McAfee’s technology into HyperSpace means computer users will have additional protection from online threats.

“McAfee’s superior technology complements the device-level protection provided by HyperSpace by blocking attacks targeting the browser or network access,” said Brent Remai, vice president of consumer marketing at McAfee. “With the online threatscape constantly shifting, and computer users moving more and more of their activities and documents onto cloud-based systems, the combination of HyperSpace and McAfee represents a powerful security option available for computer users.”

“Security plays a key role in our PC 3.0(TM) strategy of providing software and services that make computing devices more user-friendly,” said Woody Hobbs, President and CEO of Phoenix Technologies. “Protection from malicious software and other forms of attack enhances the user experience. By itself, HyperSpace provides a secure computing environment for users to surf the Web, access applications and sensitive data and conduct financial and other transactions. Layering in McAfee’s best-in-class security technology provides additional tiers of vault-like protection for computer users that are unmatched in the industry.”

HyperSpace is designed to deliver significantly faster boot times, continuous, smart internet connectivity, extended battery life and new levels of security protection while online. With HyperSpace, users can begin searching the Web, send and receive email, use other Web-based applications and work in important productivity applications within seconds of turning on their computing device. Users also enjoy the benefits of up to two hours of extra battery life on their HyperSpace-enabled laptops and all-day computing on their netbooks and smartbooks. The HyperSpace platform also provides a unique computing environment that PC designers, software developers and content providers can utilize to create always-available, instant-on applications that bring new convenience, connectivity, uptime and security to users.

Source: Phoenix Technologies Ltd.

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52 percent of new viruses last only 24 hours, according to PandaLabs

August 13, 2009 · Filed Under Security Software, Software News · Comment 

Approximately half of the 37,000 new viruses, worms, Trojans and other security threats that appear each day are short-lived – The amount of catalogued malware throughout Company’s history totals 30 million individual samples through July 2009

Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, announced that PandaLabs, the company’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware, has discovered that 52 percent of new viruses last only 24 hours. Each day, PandaLabs receives nearly 37,000 samples of new viruses, worms, Trojans and other types of Internet threats. Of these, PandaLabs found that approximately 52 percent of them (19,240 on average) spread and try to infect users for just 24 hours. After that timeframe, they become inactive and harmless as they are replaced by other, new variants that join the list of new specimens in circulation.

The reason for this lies in hackers’ motivation to profit financially from malware and the goal of ensuring their creations go unnoticed by users and security solution vendors. Just 24 hours after hackers put any strain of malware into circulation, they will modify its code so that malware can continue to spread without being detected by security companies.

This explains the significant increase in the number of new threats detected by PandaLabs. In 2008, PandaLabs recorded a total of 18 million malware samples the company had received in its 20 year history. Since last year, the number of malware has increased dramatically to 30 million through July 31, 2009.

“This is a never-ending race which, unfortunately, the hackers are still winning. We have to wait until we get hold of the malware they have created to be able to analyze, classify and combat it,” said Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs. “In this race, vendors that work with traditional, manual analysis techniques are too slow to vaccinate clients, as the distribution and infection span is very short. Panda’s Collective Intelligence offers almost real-time protection, significantly reducing the risk window.”

Source: Panda Security

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Is the Economic Slowdown Affecting Hacking Behaviour?

May 27, 2009 · Filed Under Internet Software, Security Software, Software News · Comment 

VASCO aXsGUARD(TM) Gatekeeper survey reveals major Internet threats in the first quarter of 2009

VASCO Data Security International, Inc., a leading software security company specializing in authentication products, announces the results of its aXsGUARD(TM) Gatekeeper Internet Threat Survey. VASCO surveyed 700 small and medium sized enterprises with 5 to 250 internet users, revealing malicious activity during the first quarter of 2009. aXsGUARD Gatekeeper is an authentication and internet security appliance, making use of VASCO’s core authentication technology.

The results of the first quarter 2009 are weighed against the first quarter of 2008 and the major trends reveal to be:

  • Viruses, viruses and more viruses, including a steady increase in “money hunting” fraud tools such as Trojans and phishing
  • Amount of spam is stable however more advanced techniques are in place to block spam
  • More employees are surfing, however more surfing behaviour policies are in place

During the first quarter of 2009 we see more active viruses than in the first quarter of 2008. The number of active viruses has more than tripled. When we look at different types of viruses we see that these have almost tripled. We see a steady increase in phishing and Banking Trojans, whereas more standard type viruses like Netsky and Bagle remain constant. We could conclude that hackers are immune against the current economic slowdown and are even more focused on password theft and account hacking to steal money from innocent computer users.

Spam is still on the rise; however it is more accurately blocked through the use of new spam blocking techniques being used by aXsGUARD. We see that through the use of grey listing in the new aXsGUARD software, the total amount of spam e-mails drop with 40 million spam e-mails per month. The use of blacklisted e-mail addressed and IP-addresses of known spammers results in a drop of another 10%. And finally of the remaining e-mail, another 50% is stopped through the use of content scanning in Q1 2009, compared to 28 % in Q1 2008. The use of combined anti-spam techniques results in over 93% of unwanted e-mail being stopped before it reaches the end-user in Q1 2008 and 89% in Q1 2009.

More and more employees are surfing. We see an increase in surfing behaviour of 32%. The number of blocked websites has almost doubled, whereas the visit to standard blacklisted websites remains stable. With the steady increase of blocked sites, we can conclude that more and more companies have policies in place. These policies regulate accepted and not accepted surfing behaviour, for instance the visit to e-commerce and social network sites during working hours.

aXsGUARD Gatekeeper is an authentication appliance which is suited for SMEs. It offers two-factor authentication and a number of optional modules providing a total security solution for network connectivity. The aXsGUARD modules consist of authentication, application firewall, firewall with DMZ and Intrusion prevention, content scanning with anti-spam and anti-virus, Trend Micro anti-virus and anti-spyware, remote connection and SSL-VPN and mail server. SME’s are typically looking for budget friendly total security solutions. aXsGUARD Gatekeeper provides an answer to the specific need of the SME by adding additional security functionality to the authentication appliance.

According to Jan Valcke, President and COO at VASCO Data Security: “Surveys such as our aXsGUARD Gatekeeper survey are necessary to demonstrate the vulnerability of companies on the Internet. Surveys as these clearly indicate that all companies, including SMEs, are vulnerable for Internet fraud. We cannot stress more the importance of being vigilant.”

Source: VASCO Data Security International, Inc.

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