Binarycse Blog

According to the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, India is one of leading countries featuring in malicious activities. India is placed at the 5th position just behind USA, China, Brazil and Germany. The report consists of around 100 pages, includes Executive Summary, and Highlights pages.

In India, Mumbai was found to indulge in largest malicious activity, which is just behind Delhi and Hyderabad. India was also found to serve 788 malicious bots (automated entity) per day during 2009, which resulted in 62,623 distinct bot-infected computers.

The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report releases its annual overview including the analysis of internet threat activity, malicious code, spams and phishing. In addition,it suggests preventive measures that you can implement for extra protection and security.

This time the report certainly takes to the conclusion that the emerging countries are a big victim. For example the report clearly clarifies the deep indulge in malicious activity of Brazil and India. The more developed countries like China seems to be much more aware regarding the Internet.

Targeted attacks like the “Aurora” incident, which led to conflict between Google and China stands on top as far as malicious activity is concerned. In addition, there were significant hacking attacks to retrieve personal information. The report claims that about 60% of exposed identities resulted due to hacking attacks. One of it included a single successful attack against a credit card processor.

Among the sites, Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader were the major victims of web attacks. There has been a sudden growth in PDF attacks from 11% of attacks in 2008 to 49% in 2009.
Symantec thus wants the highly affected nations to go for policies that are more serious on cyber security.

There’s a new way of stealing data from your PC. Hackers are using Adobe Acrobat file format — commonly called PDF files — to siphon off sensitive data from your PC to China.

Adobe files are considered very safe for viewing documents. So safe, that even credit card companies send their bills in this format and almost all banks use them to send online documents, statements and bills. It is this faith on Adobe files that hackers are trying to cash in on.

According to Websense Security Labs, a Zbot Trojan virus is spreading rapidly through emails and the security firm has already discovered about 2,200 such mails in India. Zbot (also known as Zeus) is an information stealing virus that remains hidden in a PC (Trojan) collecting confidential data from each infected computer.

The modus operandi for the virus is to trick users into opening a mail with a PDF file attached to it. Once a user clicks on the file, the PC gets infected and there is an outflow of sensitive information to the programmer of this virus somewhere in China.
The attacks come less than a week after other experts predicted that hackers would soon exploit the “/Launch” design flaw in PDF documents to install malware on unsuspecting users’ computers.

The just-spotted Zeus variant uses a malicious PDF file that embeds the attack code in the document, said Dan Hubbard, CTO of San Diego, Calif.-based security company Websense. When users open the rogue PDF, they’re asked to save a PDF file called “Royal_Mail_Delivery_Notice.pdf.” That file, however, is actually a Windows executable that when it runs, hijacks the PC.

Zeus is the first major botnet to exploit a PDF’s /Launch feature, which is, strictly speaking, not a security vulnerability but actually a by-design function of Adobe’s specification. Earlier this month, Belgium researcher Didier Stevens demonstrated how a multistage attack using /Launch could successfully exploit a fully-patched copy of Adobe Reader or Acrobat.
Although Reader and Acrobat display a warning when an executable inside a PDF file is launched, that’s not enough to stop users from launching the bogus document, said Websense’s Hubbard. “No one is blanket-blocking PDFs at the gateway,” he said. “There’s so much business value in PDFs, and they’re very pervasive.” In other words, people trust PDFs, he said — much more even than some other popular document formats, such as Microsoft Word.

Websense has tracked several thousand Zeus attacks using the embedded malware and /Launch function. “The attacks are still going on,” Hubbard said.

While the attack technique may be new, the behind-the-scenes malware and the gang that produces it is standard Zeus fare, Hubbard continued. Zeus is best known for planting identity theft code on victims’ PC to steal, for instance, online banking logon usernames and passwords. “The motives aren’t any different here,” said Hubbard.

Microsoft began shipping its long-awaited Visual Studio 2010 development toolset Monday, offering support for Windows 7, Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, and the latest releases of SharePoint Server and Windows Phone.The wave of new development technologies provides ISVs, channel partners and corporate developers with the ability to build applications that span desktops, mobile devices, the Web and cloud computing environments.

Microsoft also shipped .NET Framework 4 Monday and said Silverlight 4, a new version of the Web rich-application framework, will be released later this week.
The wave of new development technologies provides ISVs, channel partners and corporate developers with the ability to build applications that span desktops, mobile devices, the Web and cloud computing environments. With the launch of Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4 and Silverlight 4, developers around the world will find it much easier to build immersive applications that cross organizational boundaries, and enable their businesses to be successful, both today and in the future

The Apple iPad has gone on sale in the United States. Here are five must-have apps that iPad owners should download this weekend.Apple has created a version of its iWork productivity suite optimised for the large, touch-screen interface of the iPad. Users can download the three programs – Pages, the word processing tool; Numbers, the spreadsheet program; and Keynote, for presentations – at a cost of $9.99 each. All of the controls and functions have been tailored so they can be easily manipulated by hand, rather than the click of a mouse. Ideal for creating simple documents on the go, or making last minute changes before a big meeting.

Wolfram Periodic Table: Hailed by Stephen Fry as reason enough to splash out on an iPad, this wonderful app brings the Periodic Table of the Elements to glorious life. The app is packed with information, as you would expect from the people behind the Wolfram Alpha computational search engine, while the graphics and illustrations are beautiful.

Scrabble: This is the app that Scrabble fiends have been waiting for. It takes full advantage of the iPad’s vast 9.7in screen, and even uses a player’s iPhone or iPod touch as a “rack” for the Scrabble tiles, giving even more screen space to the virtual board itself. Players simply “flick” the tiles from their iPhone on to the iPad, et voila.
Marvel App: Your favourite comics and graphic novels look even better on the iPad’s pin-sharp screen than they do in a printed magazine. It uses a similar interface to Apple’s ebook software, iBooks, enabling users to flick through cover art, tap on a comic to pull up a synopsis, and download titles to read on the go.
Mixr: Music games and apps have always been popular on the iPhone and iPod touch, so the larger screen of the iPad should see them really coming in to their own. Mixr calls itself the ‘first ever professional DJ application’ for the iPad, allowing budding disc jockeys to mix and cross-fade tracks, add delays and auto filters, and do all of the scratching and cueing you’d get from a physical deck.