The loss of life and destruction of property wrought by Hurricane Katrina has
been utterly devastating. Unfortunately, now there is another after-effect to
worry about, says the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA): online
criminals are already taking advantage of generous individuals who are
looking to donate online to disaster relief efforts.
The FBI is currently investigating hundreds of Web sites posing as online
charities to lure in potential donors and obtain their financial information.
In addition, there are reports of phony e-mails from fake charities being
used to spread worms and viruses.
In an effort to help prevent online exploitation of Hurricane Katrina and
help ensure that donations get to the people in need, the NCSA – a
not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization – offers the following tips to
help consumers avoid becoming a victim of an on... (more)
Web Security Journal: There's been a flurry of discussion this week among
Internet and Web standards heavy-hitters around WebSocket, the new
communications protocol supported in Chrome 4 and Safari 5. What was the main
issue? Is there some kind of fundamental security vulnerability with the
WebSocket (WS) protocol?
John Fallows: When surfing the Web, our browsers may communicate with Web
servers via HTTP proxies that deliver many benefits, such as providing
previously cached Web content more efficiently than repeatedly contacting the
target server. These proxies may be either ex... (more)
It may not be certain any longer whether or not Google will complete an IPO
this year, but it now looks certain to be entering the free e-mail market.
Offering better anti-spam software than Yahoo Mail and Hotmail and other
rivals, and throwing in 1GB of storage, Google is aiming - once the preview
has been tweaked - to launch "Gmail" later this year.
"Unlike other free webmail services, Gmail is built on the idea that users
should never have to file or delete a message, or struggle to find an email
they've sent or received," Larry Page, Google co-founder and president, told
the Fi... (more)
Google confirmed yesterday that it experienced "slowness" for a short period
of time because of the MyDoom virus.
Google users experienced problems whether their own computer was infected or
not. This is because the virus struck at the Google's own servers,
potentially slowing it down for non-infected computers using it by bombarding
the search engine with requests until its servers couldn't cope.
The attack was directed at Lycos, Altavista, and Yahoo too. In Google's case,
the attack received most publicity since it coincided with the company's
long-awaited announcement on the va... (more)
Google's new Gmail service has been outfitted with a number of security
features designed to thwart phishing con artists. Its new anti-phishing
security measures are designed to alert users of suspected e-mail scams. The
anti-phishing security feature disables hypertext links inside e-mails.
Phishing scams typically involve redirecting users onto fraudulent sites once
they have been lured by a cleverly disguised e-mail from a familiar company
or service provider.
Gmail has also provided a prominent "Report Spam" button to its users. Any
messages reported as spam get sent to a sep... (more)
SYS-CON's Security News desk trawls the world of security for news of software, hardware, products, and services that seems likely to be of interest to infosec professionals and summarizes them for easy assimilation by busy IT managers and staff.
Scott Sellers
Anthony Franco
Daniel Morris
Wayne Walls
Niki Acosta
Jereme Hancock
Oren Michels
Marvin Wheeler
Douglas Kim
Ken Guiberson
