Tag Archives: software
Today's Threats and Solutions for USB Storage Devices
USB products have been in market since 2000. The ever-growing nature of personal and business data, has led to exponential demand of USB flash drives and external hard disks. From ordinary people to large organizations, all rely on USB drives to keep, transfer and receive documents, pictures, videos and so on.
The main reason for popularity of these devices is that they are light, small and inexpensive. A few years ago, it was hard to believe that with a piece of hardware half the size of a bank card, one could hold thousands of documents and pictures right in their pocket. It is worth mentioning that a typical 8 GB USB flash drive has enough space to keep more than 15000 photos (500 KB average photo size). In response to this high demand market, manufacturers strive to produce devices with greater storage space, faster transfer rates and lower costs. For example, a 1 TB USB drive will be available during 2013.
USB flash drives use a common standard, which is supported by all modern operating systems, called USB mass storage. As a result, anyone can connect one of them to a Mac, copy some files, and conveniently connect it to a Windows based machine to access those files.
So, are we going to conclude that they have no disadvantages? Absolutely not. They have a lot to offer, but they all have one problem in common: they are dangerous!
Antivirus companies report than the AutoRun feature in Microsoft Windows is still among top ten threats. This feature helps programs that are meant to run automatically when a USB drive is connected to a PC, but obviously a malware can be easily executed by it. Most computer viruses copy themselves to removable USB disks, and sometimes, this is their main method of spreading. When a virus, or any other type of malware gets onto a USB disk, there is a high chance that other systems using that USB drive get infected too.
Moreover, USB drives, because of high capacity relative to their small size, are the first choice if someone wants to steal valuable or confidential data. Companies and businesses are at risk when employees can duplicate corporate documents on USB drives and take them outside the office. One study showed that the average cost of a data breach, can be as high as $2.5 million. And this is not only for companies. Every individual has private files, or even projects on their computer, with doors open to intruders.
There must exist some sort of solution to avoid these threats. In today’s software world, there are a few applications that can help everybody secure their USB ports. But not every software solution, is eligible to increase the security of your PCs at home and work. You should be looking for a software that solves above-mentioned problems, has excellent technical support, and gets updated regularly with new features. There are free solutions around, but they all lack some point or another. They are usually written for hobby, and not from a ‘professional’ viewpoint.
A wise option is USB Security Suite. It has everything you need to protect your PCs from USB-related threats. USB Security Suite automatically scans any USB disk attached to a computer to prevent viruses from spreading. It can also vaccinate your USB drives, so that they never get infected by other computers. If you need to know what activities (copy, rename, delete, etc.) happen on USB drives of your system, USB Security Suite can monitor and log them. Data theft protection made easy.
5 Website Security Issues You Should Be Aware Of?
Technology has become more advanced, and with it, hack attacks in the online world are increasing at an alarming rate.
Hackers use known vulnerabilities in third-party softwares to target your website and web server, and use it for their advantage.
The effect of this maybe just defacing of your website, stealing your confidential client data, or even worse, use your server resources to perform illegal activities.
There are some simple tips you can leverage to strengthen your website software and sleep with peace of mind.
- XSS or Cross Site Scripting
- SQL Injection
- DoS or Denial of Service Attack
- Weak Passwords
- Brute-force Attack
- Code Injection
- Unencrypted Protocol
- Debug Mode on Production Server
- Old Software Versions
- No Backup Plan
XSS occurs when a hacker embeds scripting code into a web form or url, and run malicious code to change your web visitor’s experience and steal passwords or other data.
XSS can also be persistent nature, where an attacker can manipulate a specific web page and show it as a login screen to users. The recent XSS comment hack on WordPress 4.2 is an example of such permanent loophole.
SQL injection occurs when a hacker uses a web form field or URL parameter to manipulate your database. Almost all web platforms have a database and generally open source CMS platforms maintain dynamic aspects of the website in database.
Denial of Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attacks are by far the most notorious kinds of attacks.
That is because, any level of hacker with a small investment can bombard a victim website, with millions of requests, and make them look like they are legit users.
This eventually crashes the web server, and makes the site offline, requiring manual intervention to bring it back online.
We should all use complex passwords, because the weakest link is all it takes to break the chain. It is imperative to use strong passwords for admin areas, but equally important for all users to protect the security of their accounts.
One account compromised can lead to another and that could lead to admin account hacked. It is recommended to have passwords with minimum 8 letters, digits and special characters to avoid quick password guesses.
These attacks are trial-n-error methods to guess your username and password. Weak passwords are prone to getting hacked easily.
Methods like temporary blocking of IP and accounts, and multi-factor authentication, help mitigating such attacks.
Websites with file upload capability, or sites missing proper client and server side form validation, can be dangerous.
The risk is that any file uploaded, could contain a script which can be leveraged as root-kit ie. administrator access to your website.
Lack of form validation on simple form fields could lead to malicious code being inserted into the database, and could cause undesirable results in your website.
An unencrypted channel allows man-in-middle attack to steal information from your users.
It preferred to use security certificate SSL, whenever passing personal information between the website and web server or database.
Some developers may accidentally enable debug mode on the live production server, which dumps extensive error logs to the browser.
Thus a hacker can obtain valuable information about the softwares used by the webserver and target his attack much better. Its crucial to hide as much internal information about server to minimize and delay the attacks.
It may seem obvious, but ensuring you keep all software up to date is vital in keeping your site secure. This applies to both the server operating system and any software you may be running on your website such as a CMS or forum.
When website security holes are found in software, hackers are quick to abuse them.
No matter how much vigilant you are, attackers can find new loopholes to doom your website. So besides prevention, you should also have a backup-restore plan.
Just in case your site is compromised, you should have a team which can quickly restore the last known backup, and avoid reputation and sales loss.
Coversine provides a simple affordable solution to all these problems. Your own security professional who will maintain your site’s uptime, performance and security, all-in-one for as low as $10 per month.
The subscription takes care of performance checks, and regular updates to softwares and apps as well.
5 Website Security Issues You Should Be Aware Of?
Technology has become more advanced, and with it, hack attacks in the online world are increasing at an alarming rate.
Hackers use known vulnerabilities in third-party softwares to target your website and web server, and use it for their advantage.
The effect of this maybe just defacing of your website, stealing your confidential client data, or even worse, use your server resources to perform illegal activities.
There are some simple tips you can leverage to strengthen your website software and sleep with peace of mind.
- XSS or Cross Site Scripting
- SQL Injection
- DoS or Denial of Service Attack
- Weak Passwords
- Brute-force Attack
- Code Injection
- Unencrypted Protocol
- Debug Mode on Production Server
- Old Software Versions
- No Backup Plan
XSS occurs when a hacker embeds scripting code into a web form or url, and run malicious code to change your web visitor’s experience and steal passwords or other data.
XSS can also be persistent nature, where an attacker can manipulate a specific web page and show it as a login screen to users. The recent XSS comment hack on WordPress 4.2 is an example of such permanent loophole.
SQL injection occurs when a hacker uses a web form field or URL parameter to manipulate your database. Almost all web platforms have a database and generally open source CMS platforms maintain dynamic aspects of the website in database.
Denial of Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attacks are by far the most notorious kinds of attacks.
That is because, any level of hacker with a small investment can bombard a victim website, with millions of requests, and make them look like they are legit users.
This eventually crashes the web server, and makes the site offline, requiring manual intervention to bring it back online.
We should all use complex passwords, because the weakest link is all it takes to break the chain. It is imperative to use strong passwords for admin areas, but equally important for all users to protect the security of their accounts.
One account compromised can lead to another and that could lead to admin account hacked. It is recommended to have passwords with minimum 8 letters, digits and special characters to avoid quick password guesses.
These attacks are trial-n-error methods to guess your username and password. Weak passwords are prone to getting hacked easily.
Methods like temporary blocking of IP and accounts, and multi-factor authentication, help mitigating such attacks.
Websites with file upload capability, or sites missing proper client and server side form validation, can be dangerous.
The risk is that any file uploaded, could contain a script which can be leveraged as root-kit ie. administrator access to your website.
Lack of form validation on simple form fields could lead to malicious code being inserted into the database, and could cause undesirable results in your website.
An unencrypted channel allows man-in-middle attack to steal information from your users.
It preferred to use security certificate SSL, whenever passing personal information between the website and web server or database.
Some developers may accidentally enable debug mode on the live production server, which dumps extensive error logs to the browser.
Thus a hacker can obtain valuable information about the softwares used by the webserver and target his attack much better. Its crucial to hide as much internal information about server to minimize and delay the attacks.
It may seem obvious, but ensuring you keep all software up to date is vital in keeping your site secure. This applies to both the server operating system and any software you may be running on your website such as a CMS or forum.
When website security holes are found in software, hackers are quick to abuse them.
No matter how much vigilant you are, attackers can find new loopholes to doom your website. So besides prevention, you should also have a backup-restore plan.
Just in case your site is compromised, you should have a team which can quickly restore the last known backup, and avoid reputation and sales loss.
Coversine provides a simple affordable solution to all these problems. Your own security professional who will maintain your site’s uptime, performance and security, all-in-one for as low as $10 per month.
The subscription takes care of performance checks, and regular updates to softwares and apps as well.