It’s war! Anti-cyber crime alliance formed to defeat hackers

A new global organisation that joins tech companies with police forces around the world - the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA) – has been formed against rising cyber crime in the aftermath of breaches at RSA, Sony and Citibank.

ICSPA brings together businesses, governments and law enforcement officers, and by investing in new training, an international exchange of expertise will create a powerful network to counter global cyber crime.

Member companies include Yodel, McAfee, Trend Micro, Cassidian, Core Security Technologies, Transactis and Shop Direct Group.

ICSPA plans to disrupt cyber criminals’ activities by providing law-enforcement agencies with more resources, tools and expertise in countries that face the greatest challenges, thus helping them to be more successful in their fights.

Cloud-based security software firm Trend Micro, which employs 200 people in Cork, is one of the founding members of the new organisation.

Anthony O’Mara, senior vice-president of Trend Micro EMEA, said: “The fight against cyber crime requires a sophisticated and co-ordinated effort from all those concerned, but it also requires organisations with exceptional expertise to really take the lead.

“Trend Micro is proud to be a founding member of the ICSPA and applauds the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP, Prime Minister David Cameron and the other organisations involved for their support for this important initiative.”

The impact of cyber crime

Research from Trend Micro indicates that businesses and individuals face a growing threat from cyber crime.

The dangers to enterprise have been amply illustrated this year alone, with intrusions into several major corporations, such as RSA, Sony, Citibank, the European Council and Epsilon, to name but few. These attacks often result in the theft of valuable intellectual property or customer databases.

Stolen personal information and financial details are offered for sale in a wide range of underground online forums. The more popular forums often have many thousands of members and also host advertisements for online shop fronts trading in stolen information. These forums operate on a similar basis as legitimate online auction sites where buyers and sellers give and receive feedback in order to establish “trust” before making a purchase.

Trend Micro's research demonstrates how cheaply cyber criminals sell the proceeds of their activities – and just how much money they can make out of it:

• US$800 buys a passport from an EU country
• US$500 buys a UK driving licence
• US$80-US$150 buys a credit card “dump” - data that can be written to the chip or magnetic strip
• 2 cents-15 cents buys a credit card blank
• US$180m in 12 months is what one gang made from peddling fake security software, designed to fool the victim into believing their PC is already infected

This latter scam is a particular growth area for cyber criminals. For the victim, it means they unwittingly give away their personal information and credit card details to purchase the bogus software, infect their computer and to make matters worse, pay for it. One such campaign analysed by Trend Micro diverted 300m visits to the malicious landing pages in just one month.

In welcoming the launch of the ICSPA, Cameron said: “Our government has already injected an additional £650m to help improve our national infrastructure and protect against cyber crime, but the very nature of this threat calls for more than a national response; it demands a truly global response and that is what the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance is all about.

“By forging new relationships between businesses, governments and law enforcement officers all over the world, by investing in new training, and by building an international exchange of expertise, the ICSPA is forming a network powerful enough and wide enough to face down cyber crime,” Cameron said.

Read More

Cyber crime on the rise

LUDHIANA: Unlawful acts on the Internet ' cyber crime ' is on the rise with increasing technology. Some time ago, a collegiate had visited the cops to register her complaint against an unknown online criminal, who had created a social networking profile on her name. The girl had reported to the police that her photographs were also uploaded to the fake profile.

The previous month, cops had received eight such complaints. Cyber crime cell in charge Bhupinder Singh said, ''It is mostly women who are targeted. Profiles of girls are created by fraudsters, for selfish motives.''

In another happening, an employee of the entertainment industry of Mumbai who is a Ludhiana resident, complained to cops that someone had made a fake social profile on his name with false credentials and through this profile, the criminal had duped a girl of Rs 20,000 by assuring her a job in some multi-national firm.

Read More

Woman arrested for duping US-based NRI over Internet

Hyderabad: City police today arrested a woman for allegedly cheating an NRI youth from United States of Rs. 14 lakh by promising to marry him.

Cyber-crime wing of Crime Investigation Department (CID) arrested Deepika Reddy alias Deepthi Vallapuri in this connection.

The youth had filed the complaint of cheating and impersonation against an unknown woman on June 20.

U Rammohan, SP, Cyber Crime, said that the complainant, a software engineer, came to know Reddy through a matrimonial website.

Her profile said she was a doctor. Subsequently, she befriended the complainant over the Internet and said she was ready to marry him.

Later, she started asking for money, saying it was meant for donating to charitable causes.

In all, he parted with Rs. 14.32 lakh, before realising that he was being taken for a ride.

Read More

Resigned to cybercrime

SINGAPORE - According to the Global Malware Problem: Complacency Can Be Costly study commissioned by M86 Security, and conducted by Osterman Research, 49 per cent of responding companies acknowledged that security breaches occurred, but accepted them as a cost of business.

M86 Security is a provider of secure Web gateways as well as Web and email content security. Osterman Research is a United States-based research house focused on gathering information from IT decision makers and end users of information technology.

The study was done online in May 2011 and represents a cross-section of industries, with 92 per cent of respondents as decision makers and influencers in their organisations' IT departments.

The survey was conducted to assess how serious the malware concern was in today's state of global cybercrime.

The report shows that malware problems continue to rise, with 27 per cent of respondents stating that malware problems increased in the past 12 months.

"What's surprising is the degree of complacency (often driven by lack of budget or adequate information) these companies exhibit in light of the increase and complexity of the recent cyber attacks - even among those tasked with caring for data, which can include customer information and intellectual property, said president of Osterman research Michael Osterma.

"The pervasiveness of malware demonstrated in this study indicates a real need for businesses to educate themselves on the latest threats, in order to protect against serious security breaches," he added.

CEO of M86 Security John Vigouroux said: "Cybercrime as a 'business' has exploded," and added many organisations provide an "open door to cybercriminals on antiquated security technologies".

He also said a "majority of businesses felt they were better protected than other organisations whilst experiencing the same number of attacks as their peers".

Read More

No let-up in cyber crime as fraudsters spread their web of deceit

An IT firm in Gurgaon involved in developing the source code of an upcoming software worth millions has implemented new security measures to ensure protection against cyber-attacks. The internet and local networks are fortified, cyber consultants are hired, and the employees are frisked at the gate to check if they are carrying any USB disks. One morning, a senior employee, involved in the software work, walks through the gates listening to her iPod. She plugs the device in, goes through the main systems, downloads the software source code, and after encrypting it on her iPod, walks out calmly. She is never seen on the premises again.

This incident occured in 2010, and is one of the typical cases of cyber crime taking place in IT and BPO sectors in Gurgaon. The woman finally sold the data to a rival software company for a huge profit, said Anup Girdhar, a cyber crime expert, who is a consultant with several IT firms in the city.

Being a cyber criminal is all about being inventive, a step ahead of the times, and two steps ahead of the police. According to Girdhar, new forms of cyber crimes are invented frequently. The most common form is social engineering. And it is mostly committed by company employees, he said.

Each day Gurgaon sees 20-30 cases of cyber crime committed in the corporate sector. On the one hand, the police are updating their apparatus to fight cyber crime, but simultaneously, the cyber criminals are also becoming more cunning and are able to pull off such acts effectively, added Girdhar.

New forms of hacking mainly imply new means to crack the system and attain sensitive and valuable data. But the BPO owners of the city believe that the Gurgaon police lack even the basic skills to handle routine cyber-crime cases. They lack the seriousness needed to handle data theft cases, said Sanjay Kumar (name changed).

Kumar ran a BPO in Gurgaon till three years ago, when a cyber crime incident in the company made him approach the police. First, they wouldnt register the case, as they thought it wasnt a case of cyber crime, he said.

It took Kumar six months to get an FIR registered, and the investigation is still under way. I have moved my company to Bangalore. The Gurgaon police need to get their act together if they are serious about cracking these cases. The will is missing, he added.

Read More

2 nabbed for online fraud

HYDERABAD: The Cyber Crime Police, Cyberabad, arrested two persons, including a Nigerian national, Nebeolisa Olisaeloka Sunday alias Mike, 31 and an Indian student, Bharath Bhushan, 24, in Delhi for siphoning off Rs 1.82 lakh from a Hyderabad-based person's bank account, which occurred on May 13 at ICICI Bank, Madhapur.

The police seized net cash of $5,100, Rs 4,000 (Indian currency), MTS data card (9136966232), two laptops, a Rolex watch, four cellphones and other documents from their possession. The Cyber Crime Police, Cyberabad received a complaint from a private employee, N Venkata Raghu Vara Prasad, 32 stating that someone had hacked his bank account and siphoned off Rs 1,82,565. The culprits had debited the amount and transferred the same to eBay vide bill Nos 000225488530 and 00022548979 and purchased some articles.

After correspondence with the bank, he approached the Cyber Crime Police and lodged a complaint. Accordingly, police registered a case and began investigation.

Source:- Google.com

Read More

198 websites hacked, 90 pct of hackers locals

KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 (Bernama) -- Of the 198 Malaysian websites hacked recently, 90 percent of the hacking was done by locals, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said although some of them were able to damage some websites, they were unable to infiltrate the software.

Answering Datuk Md Sirat Abu's (BN-Bukit Katil) question during the question-and-answer session, Rais said the government would not let allow these unscrupulous individuals to continue their activities.

"The government remains cautious...individuals should not abuse their skills for hacking activities," he said.

Rais also said that the government was in the midst of improving Internet access, especially in rural areas, so that it was at par with developed Asian countries such as Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

He said the latest project implemented created a broadband network allowing Internet access for about 1,000 villages and farming areas.

"From that number, almost 400 villages were already provided the facility at existing speeds," he added.

Rais said the big project was expected to cover all targeted villages by year-end.
"We are also in the process of increasing the capacity and quality of the core network, or backbone known as backhaul, by creating more Internet traffic exchange centres nationwide," he said.

Read More

Cyber crime on the rise in port City

VISAKHAPATNAM: With ever increasing population of netizens in the city, the number of cyber crimes is also rising sharply, if the latest cases are anything to go by.

But, Visakhapatnam is yet to get exclusive cyber crime police station.

Visakhapatnam ranks second after Hyderabad in number of cyber crime cases under the IT Act with 100 cases reported in last 11 months.

The home department opened cyber crime cells in the city in August 2010. With a staff strength of only seven, the cells are woefully short of personnel to deal with rising number of cyber crimes.

Speaking to Express, Inspector of Cyber Crime Cell C Murali Naidu said cyber crime is quite different from conventional crimes.

“We deal with educated professionals, probably people who are experts in computers and software. They are intelligent, articulate and belong to good families.

Most importantly, they are well-versed with computer technology. So, to nab them we need to have technical and analytical skills of professionals,” said the Inspector.

Since its inception, the cyber crime cell in the city is mandated to tackle hi-tech crime cases. Out of around 100 complaints, they have cracked around 70 cases.

Naidu said cyber crime could lead to other thefts such as ATM fraud, online bank f raud, s ending malicious messages through mobile or Internet, blackmail or even morphing. People are ignorant about cyber crime and therefore, need to be educated, he added.

Akin to cyber crimes police stations launched in Hyderabad in August, 2010 and Cyberabad in November 2010, Visakhapatnam Police Commissionerate needs a cyber crime police station to tackle hi-tech crimes in the city.

A proposal has been sent to government in this regard, sources said.

Read More

Virgin Media warns users of trojan virus

SOCA detected the virus created to steal bank details

The SpyEye trojan virus, which is designed to steal online bank accounts information, has infected over 1,500 PCs of Internet service provider Virgin Media.

The malicious virus infections were detected by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which alerted Virgin Media. SOCA is investigating the matter.

Virgin Media has sent letters to its broadband customers which have instructions on how to remove the virus, which usually affects Microsoft Windows systems, and avoid escalation of security threats.

The SpyEye trojan virus was first detected in 2009.

SOCA cyber chief Lee Miles said he welcomed "steps taken within industry to utilise the information and resources provided by law enforcement and raise awareness of online safety".

A Virgin Media spokesman said the response of its customers about the infection had been "generally positive".

The company's executive director of broadband Jon James said, "Cybercrime is on the rise and the increasing sophistication of malware infections mean that all Internet users could be at risk with devastating effects."

Read More

Win 7 Security 2012 – The New Contagious Cyber Virus

What is most shocking about cyber crime is that hackers keep reinventing methods of malicious attacks. To support this statement we can have a look at one of the latest rogueware applications: Win 7 Security 2012. This is another program which is created to cleverly ensnare PC users.

This software claims to be an antivirus application but in fact has nothing in common with reliable anti-malware software. All the warnings and scan reports produced by Win 7 Security 2012 are displayed only to mislead victims into thinking there is some severe threat of losing their information.

In fact none of these alerts are true and they are shown only to delude you.

Win 7 Security 2012 works in such a way that it targets vulnerabilities in your PC system and uses them to crate an illusion of serious Trojan infection. It also displays a list of viruses that has to be removed but later it turns out that the only way to do that is to purchase the malware application. As it has been already figured out, this program is only a scam.

Hackers are working continuously on creating new computer infections and as a result of this an upswing in Web threats has been detected. To protect your personal information you have to be aware that rogue applications do not provide any security solution and can only harm your PC. For that reason you have not to trust such fake anti-malware applications and install only trustworthy antivirus programs.

Read More