Published on December 20, 2009 by Karen Letain in News, Other
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/10/adobe-hackers-microsoft-technology-cio-network-software.html
Forbes recently compiled a list of the seven Most-Hacked software titles for 2009. They took a survey of security professionals from various companies including Verisign, TippingPoint, iDefense and Qualys. Based on this survey, Forbes found that the following were the most hacked software titles from 2009.
- Adobe Reader
- Internet Explorer
- Mozilla Firefox
- Adobe Flash
- Apple Quicktime
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft Windows
Even though Adobe has become a major focus for hackers, old targets such as Explorer and Firefox are still far from secure. Researchers also note that hackers are turning awary from bugs in operating systems to focus on applications. Partly because operating systems are more securely coded and are systematically patched more frequently than applications that run on them. Application patches are not implemented as frequently by users even after they are issued by a vendor.
For the new year, make sure you keep on top of your ptaches and make sure you are especially dilligent with patches released by your application vendors.
Have a safe and prosperous new year! Our best wishes to all of our clients and followers for the new year.
Published on June 25, 2009 by Karen Letain in News
I was digging through some blogs recently and happened upon an interesting post on the TechRepublic IT Security blog site tited: Spam: Previous record toppled. http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=1769
The opening line held my attention....Incredibly, out of every 10 e-mail messages sent nine contain spam and that’s a new record. Hard to actually believe it, isn't it? The article goes on to detail which countries it comes from and the time of day that spam email is most prevalent. It does mention that the number of e-mail messages containing virus code has decreased to one in 317 e-mail messages and the number of e-mail messages containing phishing content is leveling off at one in 279 e-mail messages.
The article goes on to state that there’s a significant amount of spam (40%) being sent out by smaller and relatively unknown botnets. Also the people controlling these botnets seem to prefer using stolen Web-based e-mail accounts like Gmail for sending spam. The writier identified that a possible explanation for this is that using stolen Gmail accounts allow botmasters to apply spear phishing and social-engineering techniques on the specifically targeted organizations or individuals. This usually increases the success rate. Using Web-based e-mail accounts also increases the likelihood of getting to the intended victim since most administrators don’t filter e-mail emanating from sources like Gmail.
