Tech Alert Briefing for 6/1/2007

June 1, 2007
Update covering May 25 - May 31, 2007

Welcome to Tech Talk! In this week's edition of Tech Talk, BOL Guru Jeff Patterson writes about a HUGE increase in phishing websites.


Jeff Patterson,
BOL GURUYou'll also learn about:

• A dangerous trend in malware attacks on businesses;
• Risks posed by common browser plug-ins;
• A study on management of electronic records;
• Apple's recent QuickTime update;
• Mozilla's security fixes;
• A reminder to secure data in mobile devices; and
• US-CERT's latest list of security vulnerabilities.

Get the details below.

SecureWorks invites you to a free, live Webcast on June 7th.

Firewalls are an important part of your network security; however, sophisticated attacks bypass these measures. In this Webcast, we willcover the best practices for responding to these new attacks. Register today to learnhow to keep your network protected!
Huge Increase in Phishing Sites
The number of phishing websites rose 166% in April.The number of unique identified phishing sites was 55,643, up from March's count of 20,871.CSOOnline reports that cyber criminals are publishing more sites in order to overwhelm phishing filters.

Better Business Bureau Email? Beware!
Hackers are exploiting businesses' fear of lawsuits in the latest attempt to spread malware into the enterprise.In the latest scam, an email purportedly from the Better Business Bureau states a customer lodged a complaint and offers an attached Word file with instructions on how to respond.Embedded in the Word file is a key-logging Trojan.Find out more at CSOOnline.

Plug-in Updates Pose Malware Risk
Is your Firefox plug-in opening the door for malware to invade your system?According to Security Fix, it could be.Publicly available exploits have been published that show how the update mechanism in many popular plug-ins can be compromised and malware downloaded onto your system.

Who Manages your eRecords?
How well are you managing your electronic records?According to a recent study by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), twenty percent of large companies don't have a department responsible for managing electronic records.Read more in Wall Street & Technology.

QuickTime Java Risk Perks Up Apple Security
Apple released a security update to address multiple vulnerabilities in QuickTime.Both vulnerabilities are related to how Java is implemented in the popular media player.More information is available from US-CERT.

Mozilla Updates -- Upgrade Urged
Mozilla released updates for Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey.US-CERT has additional details.InformationWeek reports that this will be the last update for Firefox 1.5.If you are still using this version of Firefox, you need to start planning an upgrade to Firefox 2.

Mobile Systems Increase ID Theft Risk
Wall Street & Technology reports that more than half of all identity theft-related data breaches are the result of stolen laptops or storage devices.Are you protecting the data on your mobile systems?

68 Gaps Make Recent US-CERT List
The US-CERT Vulnerability Summary for the Week of May 21, 2007,lists thirty-six High, three Medium and twenty-nine Low severity vulnerabilities. Flaws were announced in Apache Tomcat, Cisco's IOS, Microsoft's Internet Information Server, and HP's Tru64 Unix.


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