October 16, 2009
Update covering October 9 - October 15, 2009
Welcome to Tech Talk! In this edition, Tech Talk Editors Andy Zavoina and John Burnett write about a CD boot tip for Internet banking, mbanking reassurance, ATM skimming, and more.
Our selections from this week's tech news:
- A tip for safer online banking
- M-banking — No worries
- Another look at security training
- A not guilty plea in NJ
- Skim scam scum nabbed
- Planning systems integration
- AV scam holds files for ransom
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- Patch management strategies
- Another attack on Adobe apps
- The day the Internet disappeared
- Moving to Windows 7
- Sidekick's data woes
- Finding the right social network
- and on the lighter side...
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Get the details below.
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Payment Card Industry Data Security Policy Template
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On the lighter side ...
It is always good to check your facts before you issue ultimatums. This YouTube video shows one example of why.
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Safer online banking?
Washington Post Security Fix blogger Brian Krebs reports that one way to avoid cyber crime and to protect an online banking account is to not use Windows (what would your tech support say about this?) He suggests using a "Live CD" technique. Old-timers remember when computers booted not from a hard drive, but from a disk or other external sources. Live CD revives that idea, and any malware that can cause losses is completely avoided. Read more on the idea in The Washington Post, and a more in-depth description of Live CD here.
Relax while mobile banking
Checking an account balance by cell phone to avoid overdrafts, accessing a bank's website with a mobile browser, bill payment with a smartphone and more are discussed in a recent article, written from the consumer's perspective. Positive, informative articles like this will promote mobile banking. Read more in the Chicago Tribune.
Your best security is your employee
Speaking at the SC World Congress in New York, Dow Williamson, executive director of SCIPP International, a company that provides security training, emphasized that it isn't technology that causes most breaches, but employees. Taking the broad perspective this article emphasizes that employees don't need to be security experts. They simply need to be trained on what is right, and what looks wrong. Read more in SCMagazine.
Gonzalez pleads in NJ breach case
Albert Gonzalez is accused of masterminding dozens of data breaches, including those at Hannaford, Heartland and 7-Eleven. He recently pleaded not guilty to charges in New Jersey. With his money now seized by law enforcement, he is broke and was assigned a court appointed attorney the same day he was arraigned. There are still unnamed retailers who fell victim to breaches supposedly managed by Gonzalez. You can read more on this case and learn who two of the large unidentified retailers are, in the StorefrontBacktalk blog.
ATM skimmers arrested
$70,000 was taken by skimmers at a Citibank ATM location. While the machines were fitted with tampering-detection devices, the devices were not operational at the time. The police were alerted to the skimming by users. The thief was caught not while skimming, but when coming back to refit the machines and steal more. You can read more on this story at the dailybreeze.com.
Systems integration -- Murphy's Law
When it comes to merging different systems after a bank acquisition, we all know some things will go wrong, but what is acceptable, and what can and should be avoided? Munir Mandviwalla, founding chairman of Temple University’s MIS department, uses events such as recent problems at TD Bank and others as examples in his classes. He believes systems integration plans should be part of the merger approval process. Read more in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Add "ransomware" to your vocabulary
Ransomware has been around before, but now it's being deployed in a new way. Panda Security has alerted users about a new rogueware infection, and even has a video demonstration of the con in action. PC users get a warning that there is a virus on their machine. They can spend $79.95 on anti-virus software immediately to protect themselves. If they don't, the rogueware holds their files hostage and renders their computers virtually useless, except to order the worthless AV software. Read about it and view the video linked from this article in TechWorld.
Surviving Patch Tuesday
This Tuesday was a mega patch day at Microsoft with 39 security updates. Add Adobe's record of 29 fixes and it could have been strenuous for those in IT. There are ways of dealing with the IT administrative issues of patch application and reducing the monthly Patch Tuesday headache. Read the tips and tricks in CIO.
For details on what was in this week's massive download from Microsoft, look in another CIO article.
PDF bug exploits -- déjà vu all over again
For the fourth time this year an Adobe PDF bug is being exploited. An infected document is targeted at specific, often higher level, corporate executives. Once received and opened, a user's PC and the documents on it can be controlled by the hacker. Adobe promised a patch this week, with Microsoft's Patch Tuesday. Read more on the dangers in the ZDNet Blogs.
In all, Adobe provided its own basket of patches this week, fixing 29 bugs in all. These included the zero-day vulnerability, input validation errors, cross-site scripting problems, and more. InternetNews.com has these details.
Internet? What Internet?
The Internet disappeared in Sweden, at least for a few hours. We like to say that with computers, you can be one keystroke away from success. In this case, it was one keystroke away from failure, and a typo got them there. Period. Read the story in StorefrontBacktalk.
Can you upgrade to Windows 7?
When Microsoft released Vista, only 50 percent of the PCs in corporate America were capable of running it. Now it is estimated that nearly 90 percent can run Windows 7 and well over half can even use the advanced features in the new operating system. You can read more in Computerworld.
Ed Bott at ZDNet has been experimenting with Windows 7 over the past months on his home computer, an office machine and on six other desktops and four notebooks. You can read about his real world tests at ZDNet.
If you are considering migrating to Windows 7, here are seven tools to ease the process so you know what is compatible, what is not, how to transfer user settings, and more. NetworkWorld has the links.
Sidekick kicked
A "technical glitch" caused a lot of pain and suffering for users of T-Mobile Sidekick cell phones. The glitch erased contacts, calendar entries, photographs, and other personal information but there is hope now that much of the data lost can be recovered. Microsoft maintains that it wasn't Windows Mobile that was the problem, but it was technology used by a Microsoft subsidiary, Danger. You can read the Microsoft side of the story in PCWorld and find more details here. ZDNet has recent information on the hopes for data recovery, and some not very subtle suggestions about backup procedures.
If you use a smartphone, the Sidekick snafu is a reminder to follow the same three rules you should be following with your PCs — backup, backup, backup. NetworkWorld has more on this topic for all smartphone users.
Data loss isn't isolated to mobile devices either. Some users of Apple's Snow Leopard OS have reported a loss of personal information after their last upgrade. PCWorld has that story too, plus a follow-up blog posting, "Apple Slow to Promise Snow Leopard Fix."
Social networking demographics
Does social networking represent different classes of users? A recent CNN.com article explores how many users of social networking sites progress from site to site. If you are interested in focusing a marketing campaign through a social networking site, the article provides some insights on where your target audience may be. Click on CNN for the details.
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