E-Biz sites hit with targeted attacks, extortion threats
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IT security vendors and analysts reported an increase in the number of cyberattacks being targeted at specific companies doing business online. An ongoing denial-of-service attack against payment processor Authorize.Net is a prime example.
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Your credit card information is coming under more frequent attack on the Internet than ever before. A study by Symantec Corp. says electronic commerce has become the favourite target of computer hackers.
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The latest information on phishing indicates that fraudsters are increasingly using malicious software to direct users to their deceptive sites.The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) said in a new report Thursday that it saw a sharp rise in November in malware that directs users to DNS (Domain Name System) servers controlled by&#160;phishers.DNS servers play a crucial role in locating Web sites. The servers translate a domain name into an IP (Internet protocol) address, enabling a Web site to be located and accessed through a browser.Often, the phishers will set up their own DNS server that works fine most of the time but can redirect to their own malicious site.Tainting a person&#39;s DNS settings is particularly dangerous since the user probably won&#39;t notice the redirection, the APWG said.&quot;The fraudulent server replies with &#39;good&#39; answers for most domains, however, when they want to direct you to a fraudulent one, they simply modify their name server responses,&quot; the report said.Phishers are also employing malware that modifies an internal PC file called the hosts, which is used to match domain names of Web sites with IP addresses.When a person visits a Web site, the browser checks the hosts to see if it has an IP address for a particular domain name. If the hosts file is corrupted or hijacked, the browser can be directed to fetch a different Web page than the one the user intended to go to.Both attacks -- also known as pharming -- are dangerous, since a user may be typing in the correct URL (uniform resource locator) but be directed to the phishing site.The APWG reported that the overall number of unique phishing sites declined in November, but 178 different brands were targeted, a record number. By comparison, 120 brands were used in phishing attacks in October. The highest previous total was in April 2007, when 174 brands were targeted.More Middle Eastern and European financial services companies were spoofed in phishing schemes, APWG said. The financial services industry is the most targeted for fraud, comprising 93.8 percent of all phishing attacks.&#160;
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Latest worm poses a risk to many Web sites using the PHP scripting language.
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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), and  Visa International have banded together in an attempt to combat phishing attacks.
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(InfoWorld) - The good guys are taking a hit in the ongoing online war between the thugs who profit from phishing and malware, and those who work to stop them. For two weeks, Web sitesÂ such asÂ CastleCops.com, which offers help to those hit by malware and actively works to shut down malicious Web sites, have been under attack. In what's known as a DDoS (distributed denial of service), black hats are flooding CastleCops with a barrage of garbage data in an attempt to overwhelm the site and knock it offline. "It's the folks who are out there in the trenches getting hit," says Paul Laudanski, who founded CastleCops five and a half years ago Attack spreadsWhen the attack onÂ CastleCops.comÂ began on Aug. 29, Laudanski says, the site went down for a few hours as he scrambled to apply countermeasures. His site came back up, but the attack soon spread to other helpful sites such as 419eater.com, fraudwatchers.org, scam.com, scamfraudalert.com, and scamwarners.com. Most of these sites are currently unresponsive. When the hosting provider for another site, aa491.org, dropped the site because the attack became too much for the provider, CastleCops gave aa419.org a home. CastleCops went down again under the combined attack, but is back up again. The sites are all being hit byÂ botnets,Â corralled networks of malware-infected computers that can be issued commands by a central controller, or botherder. Botnets are most often used to send money-making spam, but they can also launch DoS attacks where each infected PC sends a steady stream of traffic at a victim site. CastleCops is shouldering the brunt of 20,000 bots as of today, and more than 1,000 additional bots join the fray each day. Mystery motiveLaundanski says he and others who work at these sites, many of which are not-for-profit, are still unsure about the attack's rationale. And he's likewise uncertain about whether it's one group or many behind it all. He's been able to gather some details, but doesn't want to share them while the threat continues and let his attackers know what he's been able to find out. But Paul Sop, CTO of Prolexic, a company that defends clients against DDoS attacks, says "the prevailing street theory is that these guys are having an effect." Their advice is helping malware or phishing victims, and their investigations are helping to shut down criminal operations."So the botnet guys are targeting them," he says. Security sites, including CastleCops, have been targeted in the past, but attacks are on the rise, Sop says. In the past five months, he says, there has been an increased focus on attacking organizations on the front lines who try to fight back against the crooks. Strengthened resolveBut according to Laudanski, who has started aÂ new online forumÂ documenting the ongoing battles, the attacks may backfire. "The criminals are in it for the money," he says. "It's a huge business for them. [But] we're in it for the feeling that we get being on the side of right." So this assault shows that "these sites are definitely doing something right," he says, "because we've got the attention of these scammers. It gives us greater resolve." PC WorldÂ is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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After a drop off earlier this fall, more fraudulent Web sites are popping up.
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User-generated Web content is becoming a target for hackers and cross-site scripting attacks on Web sites can lead to malware taking over the browsers of machines that use the sites.
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Servers that managed global internet traffic have been subjected to a concerted attack by hackers.
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typically e-mailed as enticements to bogus sites that endanger users&#39; systems and expose their personal information -- is limited in scope
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(InfoWorld) - Hackers are trying to play on business' fear of legal action from customers to trick them into downloading a harmful program distributed through e-mail. The e-mails purport to come from the Better Business Bureau, an organization that monitors and arbitrates disputes between consumers and businesses in the U.S. and Canada. The e-mails assert that a customer lodged a complaint against the recipient's business, according to a warning on the Web site of Websense, a security vendor. The e-mails contain aÂ Microsoft WordÂ attachmentÂ with the text of the supposed complaint and instructions for how to respond. But embedded in that document is a keylogging program that captures data on the victim's computer and then uploads it to a server in Malaysia. The keylogger is purposely mislabeled with a ".pdf" extension -- Portable Document Format -- another widely used document format, to make it look harmless, said Henry Gonzalez, Websense's senior security researcher. The trick is another variation of so-called "social engineering" methods used by hackers, which entice users to unknowingly install harmful programs on their computers. A Better Business Bureau branch warned of a similar kind of attack in February. At that time, the e-mails contained hyperlinks to malicious Web sites. Some kinds of malicious software can be installed on a user's computer merely by viewing a site engineered to exploit a vulnerability within a Web browser. The latest attack, using the Word document as the delivery vehicle for the malicious software, is a tactic hackers are increasingly employing. Â ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Federal officials are trying to prosecute operators of Web sites that recruit terrorists.
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Every type of hacking software, including Trojans and step-by-step tutorials on how to effectively hack Web sites are now entered auction house eBay, and they are getting more difficult ot police.
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InfoWorld - Hackers are trying to play on business&#39; fear of legal action from customers to trick them into downloading a harmful program distributed through e-mail.
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Scammers are using fake electronic greetings to lure recipients to malicious sites.
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Online extortion is quietly affecting thousands of businesses, for a very simple reason: it works. The big question then becomes, how will you and your company decide to respond?
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By Annys Shin  The Better Business Bureau network was the target of a "spoofing" scam last week in which thousands of businesses in the United States and Canada received e-mails encouraging them to download what is thought to be a computer virus.