Approved and Stronger Identity Theft Act Awaits Presidential Signature

The Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2008 has been approved by both houses of US legislature and now goes before thepresident to be signed into law. The bill clarifies what constitutesidentity and information theft and increases the penalties for thosefound guilty. The act does away with the minimum level of damagesrequired for charges to be filed against information thieves. Inaddition, victims of identity theft would have the right to sue theculprits for restitution.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2226560/identity-theft-bill-set

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Congress-Approves-Computer-Fraud-Bill/

Sarah Palin’s Unauthorized Email Access: An Update

On September 17, 2008, an email account used by US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was breached by a hacker. The contents of her emails, including private photos, were then posted online by someone called "anonymous," stating the aim was to "derail her campaign." The son of a prominent Tennessee politician, twenty-year-old college student David Kernell, has now had his apartment and computer searched by the FBI and he remains the only named suspect in the case.

Kernell (20) is the son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative from Memphis. The FBI and Secret Service launched a formal investigation on September 17 into the hacking of one of Palin’s Yahoo email accounts.

As more detailed information is released, I will share it with you all.

Profiled: Mwende Window Snyder a.k.a Window Snyder

From time to time, I will profile an individual making great strides in the information security world.

I have followed Ms Snyder’s career since reading her book in 2006 titled “Threat Modeling”.

Mwende Window Snyder goes by Window Snyder. She is the Chief Security something-or-other (that’s what she has on her business card - the official title is Chief Security Officer) at Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the popular Firefox browser.The daughter of a retired software engineer mom, Window co-founded a company that was sold to Symantec for US$49 million. She joined Mozilla last year. She is a rising star in geeky internet security circles. Here’s her full story on USA TODAY.

Information Security Definitions - Zero Day Attack (0 Zero Attack)

A zero-day attack or threat is a computer threat that tries to exploit unknown, undisclosed or unpatched computer application vulnerabilities. The term Zero Day is also used to describe unknown or Zero day viruses.

Zero-day exploits are released before the vendor patch is released to the public. Zero-day exploits generally circulate through the ranks of attackers until finally being released on public forums. The term derives from the age of the exploit. A zero-day exploit is usually unknown to the public and to the product vendor.

Behind Sarah Palin’s E-Mail Breach

From: SecurityOrb.com


Email security in one of the most overlooked issue end users often neglect when implementing security on their systems. This may be due to the complexity of what occurs from the time you login to your email account, write an email and send it off to its destination point. Did you know that when you send email messages, they do not go directly to recipient mailboxes? Internet Service Providers (ISPs) stores copies of all your email messages on its mail servers before it tries to deliver them.

Just recently, hackers broke into the Yahoo! Email account of The Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin. She used her Yahoo! Email for official business as Alaska's governor and the hackers posted some of her email content on the Internet. The FBI and Secret Service are investigating this matter. Industry best practices usually shy away from using free email services such as Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail to conduct sensitive, governmental and private company business. This is why Palin has taken criticism for using private email to conduct government business, which some critics feel it is a way to circumvent various public record laws.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) stated, an investigation will begin into the group who hacked into Sarah Palin’s email and posted messages on the internet. Intercept of private email communication - even of a public figure - is a federal offense. Not only can the original hackers be charged, but all those who posted the messages as well.

Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, issued this statement about reports that Sarah Palin's personal email has been hacked:
"This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."

SecurityOrb.com has posted seven (7) tips to aid users in conducting better email security practices:

1. Properly log out of your email program when you are done. Do not just exit out of the browser.
2. Clear cache, history and passwords when you are done, especially at public computers
3. Limit the amount of personal and financial information via email
4. Do not share your account with another user
5. Do not use simple and easy to guess passwords
6. Use encryption when necessary
7. Properly exit out of the browser when you have logged out of the email application.

Sarah Palin’s E-Mail Breach

Hackers broke into the Yahoo! email account that Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor and posted some content on the Internet. The FBI and Secret Service are investigating. Palin has taken criticism for using private email to conduct government business, which some critics charge is a way to circumvent public record laws.

Per a contact with the DOJ, an investigation will begin into the group who hacked into Sarah Palin’s email and posted messages on the internet. Intercept of private email communication - even of a public figure - is a federal offense. Not only can the original hackers be charged, but all those who posted the messages as well.

Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, issued this statement a few moments ago about reports that Sarah Palin's personal email has been hacked:
"This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."

10 ways to make Linux boot faster

I haven't had any issues with the way Linux boot up as compared to my Windows-based system, but I thought these basic steps are worth sharing. The article was taken from builder.au.

http://www.builderau.com.au/program/linux/soa/10-ways-to-make-Linux-boot-faster/0,339028299,339291984,00.htm

10 ways to make Linux boot faster

Linux rarely needs to be rebooted. But when it does, it's often slow to boot. Fortunately, there are ways to speed things up. Some of these methods are not terribly difficult (although some, unfortunately, are). Let's take a look.

#1: Disable unnecessary services

Depending upon the use of the machine, plenty of services won't be needed. Using Linux just for a desktop? Then you won't need sendmail, httpd, and many other services. If your server is only a Web server, you can shut off many services as well. To do this, you can go to the Administration menu and take a look at the Services entry. Just deselect all of the services you don't want to start.

#2: Disable unnecessary kernel modules

If your desktop is wired to the Ethernet, you don't need to have a wireless kernel module loaded. This task is a bit more difficult and will require a kernel recompilation, which is not the easiest task to undertake. To do this, you will need the kernel sources. Then, follow the standard steps for compiling a kernel. The difference is that you're going to go through your system and disable all of the modules you don't need.

The best way to find out what kernel modules currently install and run on your system is to install Bootchart. Not only will this give you a good list of modules, it will illustrate for you what is happening during your system boot. You can also issue the command chkconfig -- list | grep 3:on to find out what services are running. Once you know what loading modules you don't need, you can remove them during a kernel recompilation. While you're at it, compile the kernel to exactly match your architecture.

#3: Use a lightweight window manager instead of GNOME or KDE

I plug smaller footprint window managers for a reason -- they drastically reduce graphical boot time. Instead of having to wait that extra 30 to 60 seconds for GNOME or KDE to boot up, why not wait two to 10 seconds for Enlightenment or XFCE to boot up? Not only will they save you boot time, they will save your memory and the headache of dealing with bloatware.

#4: Use a text-based log-in instead of a graphical log-in

Most of my Linux machines boot to run level 3 instead of run level 5. This will halt at the text-based log-in, where I only have to log in and issue startx to start my desktop of choice. The graphical log-ins do two things: increase load times and create headaches trying to recover from an X windows fubar.

#5: Use a lighter-weight distribution

Instead of loading the heavyweight Fedora, why not try a Gentoo, Arch, or Puppy Linux? The boot times for these smaller distributions are far faster than the more bloated Fedora (and even Ubuntu). Of the larger distributions, OpenSuSE claims to boot the fastest, but I have not personally tested this. Between the latest Fedora and Ubuntu, Ubuntu blows Fedora's boot times away (and that is out of the box).

#6: Use an OpenBIOS

If you're savvy enough to upgrade your PC's firmware, you might consider migrating to an open source BIOS. One caveat to using open firmware is that it allows Linux to actually initialise the hardware as it boots (instead of relying on the BIOS). On top of that, many open BIOSes can be configured to meet your machine's specific needs. If you don't go the open BIOS route, you can at least configure your BIOS to not search for a floppy drive that's not there or to boot directly to the first hard drive (instead of the CD drive first).

#7: Avoid dhcp

If you are working on a home network (or a small business network) where address lease isn't a problem, go with static IP addresses. This will keep your machine from having to call out to a dhcp server to get an IP address. If you take this approach, make sure you configure your /etc/resolve.conf to reflect your DNS server addresses as well.

#8: If you can spare it, get rid of hotplug

Hotplug is the system that allows you to plug in new devices and use them immediately. If you know your server won't need this system, delete it. This will cut down on boot time. On many systems, hotplugging consumes much of the boot time. Removing hotplug will vary depending upon the distribution you use. NOTE: udev has, for the most part, replaced hotplug. But if you're running an older distribution, this does apply.

#9: If you are REALLY daring, you could give initng a try

The initng system serves as a replacement for the sysvinit system and promises to drastically decrease boot times in UNIX-like operating systems. If you would like to see the initng system in action, you can give the Pingwinek livecd a try.

#10: Use a hack with Debian

If you're using Debian, there is a simple hack you can use to switch your start-up scripts to run in parallel. If you look at the /etc/init.d/rc script, you will see: CONCURRENCY=none around line 24. Change this line to CONCURRENCY=shell and you should see a reduction in boot times.

That's about it. Of course there are always more and better hacks out there. But the above should mostly cover everything. The good news is that you're most likely already running Linux, so the burden of boot times is generally eased by the infrequency of reboots.

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Security

A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a handheld computer that allows users to store data, make phone calls as well as conduct web browsing, multimedia viewing and access to various wired and wireless networks.

User fascination and dependency with PDAs have recently put private personal and corporate data in jeopardy. The storage of the names and addresses of corporate customers on PDAs is now common. Passwords, bank account numbers and pictures are also very common data found on users PDAs.

Security practices on these devices are lagging due to the lack of physical security practices, lock codes, passwords, encryption usage and education.

Security for your PDA will only work if you the mobile professional take the proper steps to ensure the security of your PDA and its contents.

All companies should create and enforce PDA Security policies and make sure that they are enforced. Failure to do so will result in grave lost to the individual and company.

For more information on effective PDA security policies and practices, logon to:
www.securityorb.com

Computer Malware and Preventive Recommendations

Computer Malware and Preventive Recommendations

It’s often what we don’t know can hurt us the most…

That is the case when it comes to the effects of malware such as computer viruses, worms and Trojans.

Botnets are one of the fastest growing and the most dangerous threat on the Internet today. “Bot” stands for robot, which is a piece of software with some intelligence to perform a task and the “net” stands for network which is the collection of these individual bots under one controlling person called a bot herder.

The interesting thing is not all bots are bad, for example, intelligent software agents used in Microsoft Word or the ones used by search engine sites like Google are here to help the end user, whereas bots such as the Storm and Kragen botnet collection are here to disrupt end user activities.

The bots are small executable files that are very easy to spread. They can be spread through spam, music files located on file sharing systems, various Microsoft vulnerabilities that are not patched and host on a web site that pushes it to visitors in a technique call “drive-by download” (Very nasty and stealthy).

The thing that makes these bots so dangerous is their exponential growth factor. As more systems are infected, they also begin to scan to look for vulnerable system. Since additional computer systems use their recourses to recruit other systems, the growth can be enormous in a short period of time.

My recommendations are:
* Use a Mac OS X based system or even a Linux-based system if possible, if not

1. Make sure you have security controls in place (eg. Firewall, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware and IDS)
2. Make user they are licensed and updated regularly
3. Make sure you run them frequently or have them run at a time your computer will be on
4. Do not download free miscellaneous software from the Internet (eg. Screensavers and games)
5. Do not open attachments if you do not know from whom it is from or what the attachment is.
6. Just be smart

For more information on botnets, their effects and detailed recommendation to prevent and remove malware, check out http://www.securityorb.com/