Several prominent multinational banks suffered website and online banking service disruptions over the previous two weeks as the result of focused and highly sophisticated cyber attacks. Apparently led by Middle-Eastern “Hackivists” groups in response to the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video controversy, researchers have indicated that unlike attacks seen in previous years, this series of attacks were well planned, highly organized and of sufficient force to have even taken down hardened and secure telecom companies who are well-versed in handling the Denial of Service attacks that are typically experienced. In these most recent attacks, the hacktivists used zombified user PC’s as well as thousands of compromised webservers to shut down bank websites for hours, and sometimes days at a time.
What this means for you:
Zombified PC’s are no good to their handlers if they are detected and sanitized before they can be “rented” out, and as such, the most effective malware infection is often one that exists quietly on your technology until it is called into service. Obviously, this could result in your computers or servers, previously well-behaved and performing normally, suddenly acting up and running slowly, usually at the most inconvenient time for you and your business. Always make sure your anti-malware software is installed, updated and working properly.
Keep in mind that it’s even possible for website engines to become compromised and used as a zombie. Unless you tend to your site regularly, it’s possible for it to become compromised without you even noticing – that is until a customer visits your website, notices something wrong, and takes the time to report it to you instead of moving on to something else. Not sure if your computers or servers are secure? Give C2 a call and let us put your mind (and business) at ease!
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Either stop what you are doing and read this article from PC World, or mark it for later and keep reading this story, because this may be the most important thing you do this month.
Easily searchable personal information available on the web plus easy-to-guess passwords can lead to identity theft. Not worried about that? You should be. It’s a problem that won’t be going away anytime soon, and it won’t just affect your personal life – it can impact your business as well. Keep in mind that being targeted by a hacker versus getting infected by malware are two very different levels of danger. A direct hacking attempt is focused and presents a very clear threat to you, your loved ones and your business.
What this means for you:
Google yourself. Try various combinations of your name (including former names if appropriate). Now try your family members. Look for data that you might consider sensitive: age, birthdate, address, names of financial institutions, work or home addresses, and most importantly look for anything that you’ve used as a password. Don’t freak out! Google doesn’t know you that your dog’s name is your favorite password, but a clever hacker might figure it out just by guessing.
If you’ve sufficiently worried yourself, here’s what you need to do to harden your personal security profile:
- Use longer passwords (8 or more characters) that are not easily guessable. That means you need to stop using your Mom’s birthday, your cat’s name, etc. Mix it up with numbers and punctuation. Hackers can crack a 5-digit/letter password in a single hour just by brute force. If you want to be really safe, use a Passphrase.
- Don’t use the same password/passphrase on your important accounts, like Banks, email, data encryption, etc.
- Search your email (especially if it’s cloud-based like Gmail or Hotmail) for any emails that contain passwords, delete those emails immediately. Delete any emails that list account/login names for important accounts. Do this even if the information is no longer valid – hackers can use the info to make better guesses about active account names and passwords.
- Check your privacy settings for any social networking accounts you use (or have used in the past). If you don’t understand how they work, learn how they work or remove your account if you can’t/won’t take the time. This includes Facebook, G Plus, Pinterest, Yelp, etc. Anywhere you’ve typed in personal information about yourself may be a potential leak you didn’t know you needed to plug.
In the end, if you are able to make yourself even incrementally harder to hack than someone else, hackers are more likely to move on to easier targets. Obviously, if you need help hardening your personal or business security profile, don’t hesitate to give us a call!
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Numerous sources are reporting that web services provider GoDaddy.com is currently suffering from a severe, widespread outage of its DNS and webhosting services, crippling thousands of its customers’ websites. GoDaddy’s website and phone support are also unavailable. Though GoDaddy is not commenting on the reason for the outage, responsibility for the outage is being claimed by hacker “Own3r” who is allegedly the Security Leader of the infamous hacktivist group “Anonymous“.
#tangodown godaddy.com by @anonymousown3r
— Anonymous Own3r (@AnonymousOwn3r) September 10, 2012
What this means to you:
GoDaddy is one of the world’s largest domain registrars, and by default, also one of the largest DNS providers as well. The easiest way to explain DNS is to liken it to a directory that matches the domain name (e.g. “c2techs.net”) with that website’s actual IP address (eg. “76.89.143.130”). Whenever you type a domain name into your browser, you are actually reaching out to that domain’s “name server” (hence “DNS”) so that your browser knows where to find the webserver that serves pages for that particular domain name.
Even if your site isn’t hosted by GoDaddy, if the above attack has taken GoDaddy’s DNS servers offline, your site is still unreachable unless the browser (or the human behind it) knows the IP address of your domain name and uses that instead.
What can you do about it:
While their service is down, not a whole lot. Once they come back online, you can transfer any GoDaddy services to any number of other providers. I use Hover.com and have been very happy with their simple and low-key approach. If you’ve registered domains with GoDaddy, then you are more than capable of handling the transfer process, especially if you start the transfer from Hover.com, but there are a few gotchas here and there that may complicate the process. Website transfers are a bit more complex, and unless you are an accomplished website administrator, I’d suggest you contact us for help. C2 Technology provides a full complement of web services including domain registration, website design and hosting.