Michael Gracie

The “latest threat” to computer users is supposedly ransomware. For those just visiting, that [ransomware] is a piece of malware that infects your machine, encrypting files and asking you to pay up to get them unlocked.

The standard response is to keep your anti-virus/anti-spyware up to date, and then there is backing up your files. Huh?

I know this couple that lost four years worth of baby pictures when their hard drive crashed. They blamed the computer manufacturer - they called the machine a piece of shit and forced not only a fix, but a backup hard drive as well. All I could ask was where was that backup hard drive in the first place. In fact, there was no backup plan at all.

Yea, you can jump through all the hoops and spend tons of dough on protection against this latest threat. Or, you can buy a hundred bucks worth of multi-tasking security from CompUSA, and learn how to hit the restore button.

A new piece of adware has been created for Mac OS X. In theory, maybe, as a proof of concept, under all the right conditions, assuming it doesn’t get patched next Tuesday (oops, that’s Microsoft day), it might possibly be able to attack unspecified weaknesses in the UNIX-based operating system.

After all the false alarms, proofs gone haywire, (very) late breaking reports, everyone hedges their bets nowadays. It has a name, iAdware, so at least someone in marketing gets some kudos.

The boy who cried wolf is going to rear his ugly head against Apple, but I suspect the hackers will wait until Apple’s market share is a few points higher than Dell’s.
Read more »

Banks have been locking down their sites and warning customers about phishing, but ignoring the threat from their own employees.

Let’s see…I am a bank account rep who gets paid $30K a year out of high school. I do double-duty as a teller because the branch is consistently understaffed, and my boss is always yelling at me to move faster because the lines at the drive-through are so long - I hate this person. I see everybody’s account number and all the endorsements on the backs of checks. The copy machine is right around the corner, and the blank (new account) checks are in an unlocked drawer in the branch manager’s unlocked office. The branch manager takes three hour lunches because they are catching quickies with another teller behind their spouse’s back, and the magnetic account number reader is easily “thwartable” with a scissors and Scotch tape. I know everyone in IT because the reader is always broken, and they are the help desk.

“Catch Me If You Can” is by far my favorite movie.

I’d say there is no risk at all.

Venkat Balasubramani over at Spam Notes posted a nice summary of the recent 4th Circuit Court decision in the Mark Mumma anti-spam case.

In brief:

The court also rejected the underlying CAN-SPAM claims. The decision is important for one simple reason: anti-spam lawyers (and plaintiffs) often advance the exact arguments advanced by the plaintiff in this case. Lawyers on the other side know these arguments lack merit, but do not have any court decisions to back them up. As a result, a vicious settlement cycle results. This case probably represents the start of the tide turning in the other direction.

I questioned the whole Mark Mumma bit from the get go, and Mark came back. Mark hired a crack attorney. It didn’t seem to help matters.

Of course, none of what I said really made much difference - in general, the court rejected the plaintiff’s argument for alternate reasons (and ones that are surprisingly simple to understand). Read Venkat’s entire post - summary of the litigation is available as a PDF download as well.
Read more »

That is the question ZDNet asks.

Every security feature can be a selling point - it’s when hackers beat the crap out of them that someone tears up the purchase order.

A new study on the effectiveness of anti-phishing toolbars suggests they all suck. While you have to throw up the bullshit flag on the validity of tests sponsored by the developers themselves (like what seems the case in the Firefox/IE7 fight), you also have to look at the issue relatively.

Even the best of the bunch — Earthlink, Netcraft, Google, Cloudmark, and Explorer 7 — detected only 85% of fraudulent websites, a good but far from secure level of effectiveness. The rest scored under the 50% mark, with McAfee’s SiteAdvisor unable to spot any.

So throw out the McAfee deal - my Aunt Millie shouldn’t get a toolbar because the best only catch 85% of phishing sites? Is catching 85% worse than not having one installed, and leaving it 100% to chance?

I don’t think so.

Or, the hackers released a piss-poor trojan that is easily thwarted by anti-virus software. Or, the hackers were just testing the boundaries. Or, the spokespeople are taking cues from the US Government, and this whole mess was just an ‘anomaly’.
Read more »

Yea, it is for newbies, but have a look anyway.

Once you are running a TOR client from a coffee shop in the next town, disguised as Aunt Millie, using that 1999 Dell Latitude C series you found in the garage and painted pink and slapped an Apple sticker on the top of, you won’t be a newbie anymore.

You’ll just be paranoid.

Regarding that RFID passport safety thing, there is no need to wonder about the protection of your personal information. Those nifty passports have already been cracked.

I am starting a lead-lined wallet manufacturing company tomorrow.

SANS has named its top hacker targets for 2006, and surprisingly, Internet Explorer and other Windows components are on the list.

Also included, Mac OS X, including its Safari browser, the image input/output framework, wireless networking, and the ubiquitous “other.” Most of this stuff is either patched with significant speed, or was someone else’s fault to begin with (think wireless) - the real risk to OS X is that the resurgence of UNIX-like operating systems will prompt hackers to look for vulnerabilities that will pass over.

As for the Windows stuff, including IE, the Libraries, MS Office, the Services, and configuration issues…well their numbers are beyond the scope of this post (or my limited attention span, while typing from 10.4.8).