See How Social Engineering Duped a Security-aware Organization

That’s recent news from IDG News Service, which states that some penetration testers faked their social identity over a network to break-in through government agency; the one having strong cyber security defenses.

So, some security experts tried to penetrate with the defenses of a U.S. government agency. Faking as an attractive young woman, the security experts tend to show the levels of effective social engineering attacks now-a-days.

Said attack was a part of some penetration test performed in 2012. The results to this penetration test were released by the cyber-defense specialist, Aamir Lakhani. Aamir Lakhani represented the test results at the RSA Europe security conference held in Amsterdam.

The team handling this penetration test claimed Emily Williams (the faked identity) was a 28-year-old; MIT graduate with 10 years experience. The social profiles over Facebook and Linkedin were maintained to set her identity with as much real information as possible. To make it more realistic, an image of a real woman was used over these social profiles.

The test went successful when this fake identity over social profiles started receiving skill endorsements on Linkedin and friend lists on Facebook. However, Lakhani and his team wanted to see how far the social media deception could be taken.

Well, as time went on men working for the targeted agency offered to help Emily Williams, get started faster in her alleged new job within the organization by going around the usual channels to provide her with a work laptop and network access. The level of access she got in this way was higher than what she would have normally received through the proper channels if she had really been a new hire, Lakhani said.

Windows 8.1 Would Be Capable of Protecting Systems against Pass the Hash Attacks

It’s of great efforts that lead to successful blocks for Pass the Hash attacks on the new Windows OS, i.e. Windows 8.1 . Microsoft has blocked the most critical cyber-attacks for this new version of Operating System.

Microsoft states, “Pass the hash is one of the most popular types of credential theft and rescue attacks”. These cyber attacks are mainly known for their efficient ability of filtering networks in a matter of minutes, making havocs along the way.

With the release of Windows 8.1 on past October 1, Microsoft ensured an enhanced level of security improvements in the OS. They said, some major security improvements are added to block hackers from further use of these attacks.

This recent release has gone a step ahead with the evolution of cyber security. Following few steps would surely enhance your password practices, listed below:-

1. Maintain administrator accounts separately with care.
2. Lock down Domain Administrator passwords at a shared place where system administrator can easily access them whenever needed.
3. Change domain Administrator passwords after each use.

So stay protected and be safe from pass the hash attacks with Windows 8.1 . Still facing issues? Call our tech experts at +1-888-703-9488

Some Handy Tips for Enhancing Cyber Security of Small Businesses

Starting a business of your own? A smaller one!! But want some effective guidance over how to deal with cyber threats at business level, and protect your business from being a caught victim? Then read on some useful tips listed below:-

• Use Small Biz Cyber Planner: - Small Biz Cyber Planner is an effective product by FCC, for small business owners. It’s useful in establishing an effective cyber security plan for small scaled businesses. The tool asks for several levels of security you want to add in your security plan; once you complete that the work is done. The tool itself creates a cyber-security strategy for business and delivers that in a PDF document.
•  Assign some security rules towards employee end:- Establish some simple rules of behavior, describing how and what to be shared online. And a clear address through penalties for respective violence to cyber security policies would work enough.
•  Purchase good antivirus software and keep it updated with latest virus definitions. That would shield your systems against cyber threats.
• Guide your employees about cyber threats now-a-days, that are spreading vigorously via several social media sites. It may lead towards safe social networking habits and protect your network from those cyber threats.
• Maintain regular upgrades and update installations of installed software’s on your systems. Software vendors provide various updates to their software’s which in turn improves the software performance and ability to track down any threats in future. Therefore, up-to-date software would protect you from cyber threats.
• Always maintain a backup of necessary information & entire business data.
• Protect your systems from being accessed by unauthorized individuals. A perfect customization would protect you from un-authenticated access of your systems.
• If you own a wi-fi network for your business, always make sure it’s not traceable. Customize it to secure and hidden, so that your router doesn’t broadcasts the SSID to others.

Make a Sneak Peak Over These Useful Tips and Enhance Your Cyber Security..

Are you often worried about your Cyber safety or get threatened by your child’s social presence? Don’t worry these handy tips would improve your security:-

• Always use a strong password combination for your Online Accounts. A blend of upper & lower case letters, with some characters & symbols; will create a magic.
• Don’t trust blind on every online hoax. Always take time to verify whether or not the content is safe and reliable enough.
• Never share personal information online. At least not when you don’t know the source page well.
• Think twice before sharing or sending something to your known ones. Always spread genuine information, fake hoaxes may spoil relations.
• Never post any illegal or inappropriate content online.
• Set your social profiles to limited sharing. If it’s much more personal either don’t share t at all or set it to private.
• Don’t indulge too much with unknowns on social profiles, you never know the identity you are dealing with is a fake one, or who knows it even exists sometimes?
• Customize your settings over social profiles, so that your friends would have to ask for permissions before tagging or sharing content about you.
• Never click on those embedded links pasted in any of your e-mails. A safer step could be just typing them yourselves on the browser and then visiting the page.

The Chief of Kaspersky Clarification on Flame Virus

Even after the revelation of the Flame virus, the network security establishments continues to flail about in high alert.  On this, Vitaly Kamlyuk from Kaspersky gave various details with the entire history of the Flame malware. The complete research about Flame was recently talked about in public by Kaspersky. It was first detected in the year 2010 however, it was not revealed by the company at that time due to the lack of details.  As per the information provided by Kamlyuk, the detection of Flame was completely a matter of chance for Kaspersky Labs as the lab came across it by accident.
The investigation in the field was taken out by Kaspersky on the order of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union which had asked the labs to do a thorough investigation about the infection which was spoiling hard drives in almost all the Middle East nations. As it was a completely different kind of infection so, Kaspersky was recommended to deeply investigate about all the aspects of the matter.
This formed the base for the discovery of Flame however, the fact can’t be denied that it came out to be much more complex and surprising than ever expected by the researchers.
Kamlyuk has repeated many a times that Flame is too much complex and intricate as a piece of malware. The analysis of this malware is still not complete as its 20MB package is under analysis as the secrets of this malware are rolling out very slowly.
The Flame has been compared to the Stuxnet  which was used in the attack which had completely destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities last year. The weight of Stuxnet used during the attack was just a few hundred kilobytes. Till the present investigations on this malware, it has been revealed that it’s very sophisticated software. Due to its level of sophistication, Kaspersky thinks that it may have been built by some government scientists but still there is no idea of the government which may be involved in this.
The complicated part of the investigation has been to find out where all the huge data goes which is gathered by Flame from the infected systems. Though many control servers have been found but all the domains associated with them are registered with fake identities which further toughen the investigation process.
Flame can steal hard drive contents, screenshots as well as keystrokes.Not only this, it can suck in more data using the system microphone and Bluetooth radio. Â
Kamlyuk calls the large volume of stolen data the limiting factor for Flame. It’s also believed by the investigators that Flame deletes itself from the system after fully exploiting them which makes the detection more difficult.
Flame is considered to be a dangerous cyberwar element which has been floating since the year 2010 and affecting the systems. If the use of Stuxnet marked the beginning of intense cyberwar, Fame is considered to be an advanced malware with worse motive. The worst part is that much more dangerous cyber weapons are expected in the coming year which really frightens the cyber world.
This article written by Devesh Rai behalf of Sunrise PC Support, Sunrise PC Support is Online Technical Support Company which provides the Tech Services like Online Technical Support for Dell, Online Technical Support for Avast

Find the Intel's Desktop Board with New Features

Everybody knows about the famous company Intel, as one of the world’s most famous chip manufacturers. Intel has invented many successful series of processors. Intel keeps on inventing and designing newer and better processors that could meet the requirement of current system. Most of the companies supply their computer systems that are powered by the processor made by Intel Corporation. Intel has launched a wide range of microprocessors. Pentium series, core series, Celeron series and many more processor series were launched by the Intel. Intel also proved to be a good desktop board designer. The board designed by the Intel offers many advantages to its users. Intel has recently launched a brand new mother board DZ77RE-75K for desktop.
Like always Intel has made a surprising invention that will definitely bring a big change in the computer world. Intel is the first company that have introduced a motherboard that supports both the latest technologies together i.e. Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. The board has quality to support the core –K processors. The board is so designed that it will support all the Intel processors that use LGA 1155 socket that means those processors that are based on sandy bridge and ivy bridge chipsets.
Ivy Bridge Processors is the latest launch of the Intel which is added with features for gamers and media enthusiasts. Intel has designed this processor with a unique 3-D structure that features the chips to work faster and to process the information quickly. This is also an energy efficient design because of which the chips will work at lesser power. With these qualities people can now easily create and edit and watch high definition videos and pictures with high resolution. It provides faster, easier and safe web surfing. The user can play mainstream games very quickly. Thus it adds up to the overall graphic capabilities to the computer system.
The interesting fact about the board is that it is made to support all the existing thunderbolt based storage devices. It also allows hot plug-in for these devices. It means you just need to attach your device to the board and it will be ready to use even when the computer is running, without any driver installation. This is one of the major advantages of the board because the thunderbolt storage devices need to be installed when the computer is not in running state or need to restart the computer for its recognition.
This article written by Devesh Rai behalf of Sunrise PC Support, Sunrise PC Support is Online Technical Support Company which provides the Tech Services like Online Technical Support for avast , Online Technical Support for Dell

Dell Introduced about the Hexacore i7 CPUs in Studio XPS 9100 PC Line Up

The price tag of $949.99 does seem intriguing to most of the people especially when that is what you need to pay in order to buy a Dell Studio XPS 9100. Though the Dell stable is a very renowned one with many popular computers in it, they always try and compete with the best to get the customer what they want in a reasonable price. The hexacore Mac pro was a new addition to Apple computers line up and Dell, not to be the one to wait behind, came up with the Studio XPS 9100 desktop range that have been embedded with the Core i7 processors from Intel.
Intel for all these years has been providing top class microprocessors that has powered and groomed a whole new generation of PCs. It was all the more ominous that Dell updated its Studio XPS 9100 line up with the hexacore i7 processors, on the expected lines with Apple. The basic line up consists of i7-920 combined with 3 GB DDR3 memory along with a cool NVIDIA Geforce 512 MB Graphics to improve your experience. Moreover, Dell provides processor upgrades for the line up with Core i7-960 for $470 or a spiraling $1000 for i7-980X which is even better among the lot. This superb machine can get a system upgrade of 24 GB DDR3 memory on a extra cost of $1100, to top that  you will have a choice for Radeon graphics card upto HD 5970 2GB for an extra sum of $580. The standard storage size will be 750GB but here too, you can go upto 2 Terra Bytes of separate drives and get add-on of array settings of RAID 0/1.
The basic hardware also consists of DVD or Blu-ray rewritable drive, HDMI, eSATA, USB 2.0 (though USB 3.0 could have been there but it’s missing) and S/PDIF, 19-in-1 card reader and Gigabit Ethernet. You can also have a Wi-Fi adaptor attached which is optional. All this is covered by a stylish tower case. These spectacular machines come preloaded with the Home, Professional or Ultimate 64 bit version of Windows 7 operating system. The updated Studio XPS 9100s from Dell are a user’s delight as they have so many various state of the art features along with super speed microprocessors to beef up your programs working. The best part is you can always get it upgraded as the customization features are endless on the Dell Studio XPS 9100 line up. Though all these upgrades are worth a serious amount of money but you can have the experience of updated super fast and suave computer. The Studio XPS 9100 machines from Dell are available for you to order.
Shortcomings are really hard to find in the Dell Studio XPS 9100 line up except the absence of USB 3.0 which again is not part of many desktops in this league of PCs. After knowing all about this if you are really serious about replacing your present PC then visit Dell’s website.
This article written by Devesh Rai behalf of Sunrise PC Support, Sunrise PC Support is Online Tech Support Company which provides the Tech Services like Online Technical Support for avast , Online Technical Support for Dell