Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Your Facebook Profile Stalkers exposed? No, it’s a rogue application spreading virally

Published by pratyushkp on July 23rd, 2011 - in Social, Technology

Messages are spreading rapidly on Facebook claiming to reveal a way to find out who has been secretly viewing your profile.

Here are a couple of examples:

Brilliant!! Now u can see all your profile stalkers! --> [LINK]

and

WOW!! I can't believe that you can see whose viewing your profile. I've just seen my top 10 profile peekers and I'm shocked on whose Viewing my Profile. You can also see whose viewing your FACEBOOK PROFILE HERE: [LINK]

Clicking on the links takes you to a splash screen for a rogue application, and you are fooled by the promise of discovering who has been viewing your Facebook profile to give permission for a third-party application to access your account.

Want to see who views your Facebook profile?

This is amazing!

Now you can see who is viewing your profile and find out how many profile views you got. Just use our application and press button below and then Allow to analyze your Facebook profile!

Obviously you shouldn’t grant permission on the following screen for the application to access your Facebook profile, but an alarming number of users appear to have no qualms about exposing their confidential information and degrading their security in this way.

The problem is that this isn’t a legitimate application request. A rogue application wants access to your account so it can spread the messages and its link even further, spreading the campaign virally across the social network. The goal? To earn money by driving traffic to an online survey.

Notice that the survey presents itself in a convincing Facebook style, which may trick some users into believing that it is legitimate.

If you’ve been affected by this scam, you should clean up your account before any further damage is done.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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Tags: , Confidentiality, , , , Splash screen, , View,
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A direct message from Twitter Administration. Can you tell if it’s legitimate or not?

Published by pratyushkp on July 23rd, 2011 - in Social, Technology

For a long time we’ve seen spammers, phishers and malware authors concealing their advertising pitches, scams and malicious payloads by pretending to be a message from a social network, whether it claims to originate from Facebook, Twitter or even MySpace.

Here’s one of the latest we caught today, claiming to come from Twitter.

Twitter-er!

You have 2 direct message from Twitter Administration
[LINK]

The Twitter Administration

The link, of course, doesn’t go where it claims to go. You’ll only find out where that link is really going if you click on it, or hover your mouse over the link.

So, what do you think it’s going to be? Phish, malware or link to a spam website?

It’s clearly up to no good (does Twitter ever sign its messages “The Twitter Administration”?), but what’s the purpose of it.

It’s not much of a game I’m afraid, as you simply can’t tell just by viewing the screenshot I took.

You’ll have to take my word for it that if you click on the link you are taken to a webpage selling pharmaceutical drugs such as Viagra and Cialis. Yes, this is another campaign backed by a Canadian Pharmacy affiliate.

As long as you don’t actually buy any of the drugs on offer, this is probably the least harmful option. I’d prefer to visit an online store than have my Twitter password phished, or my computer infected with a Trojan horse. Just as long as I don’t hand over my credit card details or risk my personal health by taking medications without the thumbs-up from my doctor.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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Tags: , , , , Pharmaceutical drug, , , , ,
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Mikko Hypponen: We Could Lose It All If We Don’t Fight Cybercrime

Published by pratyushkp on July 20th, 2011 - in Social, Technology
Mikko Hypponen P1010586

Image by gohsuket via Flickr

Amidst the increasingly prevalent hacking attacks that are occurring around the globe, will we ever be able to enjoy a “safe” Internet?

Mikko Hypponen, a computer security expert, argues that new security measures that improve coordination between international law enforcement groups are needed to limit the spread of online criminal activity–or else.

“I’ve spent my life defending the net, and I do feel that if we don’t fight online crime, then we are running the risk of losing it all,” said Hypponen during his presentation at TEDGlobal, while displaying logos Facebook, Twitter, Google and other online services.

For example, Stuxnet, a computer virus that targets Siemens software systems, caught the attention of international security experts in 2010 when it was used to sabotage a nuclear reactor in Iran. With more and more critical infrastructure systems reliant on computers, from power grids to financial institutions, cybercrime has become not only a very lucrative profession, but also a major threat to individuals, companies and governments. Recognizing the increasing threat posed by cyber attacks, the White House recently outlined a global cybersecurity plan that, according to the White House, outlined “how we can come together to preserve the character of cyberspace and reduce the threats we face.”

“Everything is being run by computers…We have become very reliant on the Internet, on basic things like electricity, on computers working, and this really is something that creates completely new problems for us,” Hyponnen warned. “We must have some way of continuing to work, even if computers fail…It’s very basic stuff actually, thinking about continuity, thinking about backups, thinking about the things that actually matter.”

Hyponnen suggested that one solution would involve improving coordination between global law enforcement agencies. The White House’s cybersecurity plan also emphasized “extending collaboration” with foreign parties when it comes to investigating and prosecuting cybercrime. Other proposals for protecting critical infrastructure from online attacks have focused on establishing a separate “.secure” domain.

“We need more global, international law enforcement work to find online criminal gangs, who are making millions off their attacks,” said Hypponen during the conclusion of his talk. “Even more importantly, we have to find the people with the skills, but without the opportunities; and, give them the opportunities to use their skills for good.”

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Related articles
  • Stuxnet Mutants All Over The Web (twistedeconotwist.wordpress.com)
  • Fighting viruses, defending the net: Mikko Hypponen on TED.com (ted.com)
  • Choose your cyber weapon (theage.com.au)
  • LulzSec Steals, Shares Logins in Latest Hack (pcworld.com)
  • Hackers plant fake news to discredit security researchers (theregister.co.uk)
  • Hacker crims plant fake news to discredit security researchers (go.theregister.com)
Tags: Computer security, , Crime, , Flickr, , Law enforcement agency, Mikko Hypponen, Siemens, Stuxnet, TEDGlobal 2009, , ,
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G.Co: Google Has a New URL Shortener

Published by pratyushkp on July 19th, 2011 - in Social, Technology
Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

Google has unveiled g.co, a new URL shortener that will link only to Google products and websites.

The search giant already owns goo.gl, a URL shortener it launched in 2009. Unlike g.co, the goo.gl URL shortener can be used for any link on the web via the Google Toolbar.

“We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts,” Google VP of Consumer Marketing Gary Briggs stated on the company’s blog. “That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.”

The tech titan, which has been using the goo.gl URL shortener for its products until now, clearly wants to limit the confusion about where its goo.gl links lead to. Separating Google products from goo.gl should go a long way to solving that problem.

Google isn’t the only company to use .co as its official URL shortener. Twitter obtained t.co last year to improve how links are shared and secured on its platform.

Source :- http://mashable.com

Related articles
  • G.Co: Google Has a New URL Shortener (mashable.com)
  • Google Launches G.Co, Url Shortener For Internal Pages (ghacks.net)
  • Google Introduces an Official URL Shortener for Google Pages Only [In Brief] (lifehacker.com)
  • Google acquires G.co for URL shortening its own services (geek.com)
  • g.co, the official URL shortcut for Google websites (googleblog.blogspot.com)
  • Google’s New Official Google Only Short URL: g.co (searchengineland.com)
Tags: G.Co, goo.gl, , , , , , URL shortener,
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