Category: IT Security

The Information Commissioner’s Office has urged organisations to review their policies on how personal data is handled, after the Nursing and Midwifery Council was issued a £150,000 civil monetary penalty for breaching the Data Protection Act.

The council arranged for the DVDs, which contained confidential video files relating to alleged offences by a nurse as well information about two vulnerable children, to be couriered to a hearing in October 2011. Upon arrival it was found that the package didn’t contain the DVDs.

The council lost three DVDs related to a nurse’s misconduct hearing, which contained confidential personal information and evidence from two vulnerable children. An ICO investigation found the information was not encrypted. The DVDs are yet to be found.

David Smith, Deputy Commissioner and Director of Data Protection, said:

“It would be nice to think that data breaches of this type are rare, but we’re seeing incidents of personal data being mishandled again and again.
While many organisations are aware of the need to keep sensitive paper records secure, they forget that personal data comes in many forms, including audio and video images, all of which must be adequately protected.”

Further details about today’s case can be found on the ICO’s civil monetary penalty notice page.

There is currently a massive increase in complaints from Skype users in relation to viruses. The newest and the one that seems to be infecting a lot of users at the moment is one that sends a message  to the users with the text:

lol is this your new profile pic?

The users are asked to then click a link and are taken to a downloadable .ZIP file which will infect your computer.

Skype advise that all users update their Skype application and make sure they have up to date anti virus running at all times. More importantly, we advise users to be cautious. When you see links from friends, always be careful and check that they are genuine.

Emails that claim to be “Urgent” are highly likely to contain malware as attachments a new report reveals. FireEye released a report (view it here) that details a list of top words used in phishing emails (those are emails that pertain to be from various legitimate sources with the intent of infecting the machine or conning the user to give out important information).

The attackers mainly use zip files to hide their malware, ultimately aimed at gaining access to valuable corporate and intellectual data. It appears very few corporate establishments block these kinds of executables, which FireEye’s research confirms.

The report also shows a decrease in the use of ZIP files from last year (2011), a decrease in the use of standalone EXE executables, but an increase in PDF files. Adobe Reader, FoxIT Reader and other widely available PDF readers come with the ability to enable a Safe Reading Mode, which in theory, should prevent malicious code within PDF files from executing. In Adobe, Edit -> Preferences -> JavaScript  -> uncheck Enable Acrobat JavaScript checkbox to do this today.

 

Now, .ZIP files represent the vast majority, 76.91%, of advanced malicious files. The complexity of
these attachments, which can contain many distinct files and file types, coupled with a lack of
user awareness of the danger of these file extensions, has made them a highly effective means for
distributing malware and effectively exploiting systems.
PDFs also pose a significant threat. These file types are ubiquitous and familiar to just about every
computer user. Further, many users are unaware of the fact that malware can be distributed through
PDF files, and malware embedded in these file types is proving to be difficult for conventional defenses
to detect. For all these reasons, PDFs provide cybercriminals with a very effective means of attack.

http://www.fireeye.com/resources/pdfs/fireeye-top-spear-phishing-words.pdf

Hackers have managed to install malware on to brand new factory built and sealed PCs. This brings a whole new meaning to the old term “All Your PCs are belong to us!”

Microsoft is warning that cybercriminal gangs have managed to get the Nitol bug and other dangerous malware software installed to one in five laptops and PCs checked by their investigators. To avoid any confusion, it should be noted that reputable vendors such as Dell, HP etc. are not affected by this.

The malware installed could give the criminals control of the computers, allowing them to watch every tap of the keyboard to steal personal information including your name, address, details of any holidays and credit card information – whether it’s going down an encrypted channel or not.

“We found malware capable of remotely turning on an infected computer’s microphone and video camera, potentially giving a criminal eyes and ears into a vicitm’s home or place of business,” reported Microsoft investigator Richard Dormingues Boscovich.

The Nitol bug has the potential for the most damage as it tries to link the PC to a botnet which criminals can use for hacking attacks, deliberately crashing servers or performing illegal activities under the IP Address of an unknowing user.

Microsoft discovered the bugs in laptop and desktop PCs purchased in cities around China. Four of the computers were infected with malware despite being new and factory sealed.

Investigations led them to a domain name which is alleged to have been involved in cybercrime since 2008. Microsoft have been granted permission to take over the domain name and close down the botnet.

“Cybercriminals have made it clear that anyone with a computer could become an unwitting mule for malware,” said Mr Boscovich.

So if you’re planning a trip to China then be safe and purchase your computer back home before travelling, and even then give it a good anti virus scan!

Article by Iain

A Hertfordshire police website has been hacked, leading to the publication of what appear to be login details and passwords for dozens of officers and part of the police force’s website has been taken down as a “precaution” while investigations continue. Hertfordshire Police said information stored on an externally hosted database had been published on the internet.

The information which includes phone numbers and IP addresses, relates to a number of officers in Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

The Police force said in a statement:

“Hertfordshire Constabulary is currently investigating following the publication on the internet of information stored on a database linked to the public Safer Neighbourhoods pages of the external Constabulary website.

“As a precaution these pages have been temporarily disabled whilst the circumstances as to how this information was obtained is investigated.

“There is absolutely no suggestion that any personal data relating to officers or members of the public has been, or could have been compromised.

“Nevertheless matters of IT security are extremely important to the Constabulary and an investigation is already under way.”

A laptop containing the personal information and bank account details of thousands of people and businesses has been stolen from Glasgow City Council.

The local authority is now contacting 37,835 affected customers, including suppliers and people receiving winter fuel payments and care grants.

Strathclyde Police and the Information Commissioner have been informed about the theft, which took place last month.

The laptop was password-protected but not encrypted.

It was one of two laptops stolen during a break-in at the council offices in Cochrane Street some time between Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 May.

The local authority said the full extent of the data loss did not become apparent until last Wednesday.

The information on the laptop relates to 17,692 companies and 20,143 individuals.

It includes names and addresses and, in the case of 16,451 customers, bank account details.

A full internal audit is being carried out.

A council spokesman said: “We are in the process of writing to the people affected by this theft to alert them to the data loss and offer them advice about what steps they might need to take.

“We’ve also provided them with a phone number they can use to contact us if they have any questions.

“We are sorry that this has happened and apologise for the inconvenience it has caused. Anyone with any information on the theft should contact Strathclyde Police.”

He added: “Customers should remember that no one from the council would ever call at their home or telephone them to ask for personal information, such as banking details.

“A bank will never ask for a customer’s PIN or for a whole security number or password.”

A Scottish charity – based in Glasgow – breached the Data Protection Act after two unencrypted memory sticks and papers containing the personal details of up to 101 individuals were stolen from an employee’s home.

The information included peoples’ names, addresses and dates of birth, as well as a limited amount of data relating to the individuals’ health. The charity – Enable Scotland (Leading the Way) – promptly reported the incident to the ICO in November 2011 and informed those individuals affected.

The ICO’s investigation found that the information should have been deleted from the memory sticks once it had been uploaded onto the charity’s server. The charity had no specific guidance for home workers on keeping personal data secure, and portable media devices used to store sensitive personal information were not routinely encrypted.

Ken Macdonald, Assistant Commissioner for Scotland said:

“Organisations that use memory sticks to store personal information must make sure the devices are properly protected. Encrypting the data means that the information will remain safe even if the device is later lost or stolen. It is also important that employers provide home workers with guidance on how to keep any personal data taken outside of the office secure, as this is potentially when the information is most vulnerable.

“We are pleased that Enable Scotland has taken action to keep people’s information safe, however this incident should act as a warning to all charities that they must ensure that personal information is handled correctly.”

Peter Scott, Chief Executive of Enable Scotland, has now signed an undertaking, committing the charity to improving its compliance with the Data Protection Act. This includes making sure laptops used to store sensitive personal data are encrypted. Hard copy files will only be removed from the office when absolutely necessary and will contain the minimum amount of personal data required. Guidance will also be provided to home workers, to ensure that any personal data taken outside of the office is kept secure.

Edinburgh IT Support company, Consider IT, has recently learned that security software publisher Symantec has confirmed it was recently the victim of a cyber attack, resulting in the theft and disclosure of product source code. Via its website, the company affirmed Anonymous’ claims, citing a source code heist dating back to 2006. The post goes on to suggest that users running Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton SystemWorks, Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0, or Symantec AntiVirus 10.2 apply the latest maintenance patches.

Earlier this month, the online-collective Anonymous stated, via Twitter, that it possessed portions of the code in question and planned to release it in support of a class-action lawsuit filed by consumers – the suit claims Symantec employed scare tactics to encourage users to purchase its wares. If you have the company’s pcAnywhere solution deployed, Symantec suggests only using it for “business critical purposes,” as this software is “at increased risk.” Those looking to stay up-to-date on the breach and what Symantec is doing to ameliorate its effects can get the blow-by-blow from the source link below.

The security vendor said at the time that because the code is old, customers running Norton products today should not be in any increased danger of cyberattacks. However, the company admitted that users of pcAnywhere, which has not changed as much as the Norton products over the past few years, might face an increased risk because of the leak.

A patch for pcAnywhere 12.5 was released on Tuesday in order to address two security vulnerabilities that could lead to arbitrary code execution or privilege escalation. The flaws were reported privately to Symantec by security researchers Tal Seltzer and Edward Torkington.

Lewis Peckover, who set up a little web tool that displays all the “HTTP header information” sent to sites by web browsers, highlighted yesterday that O2 include your mobile phone number whenever you visit a website whilst running over the 3G network.

Users of the social news site, Reddit.com, confirm this problem also happens with Tesco Mobile.

For O2 and Tesco customers browsing on a 3G connection, these headers also include their personal telephone number in an x-up-calling-line-id line. Enterprising website owners can easily keep a copy of the HTTP header information sent over by visiting browsers and tie it to IP addresses and logins, if applicable.

O2 commented on their Twitter feed:

@lewispeckover Hi Lewis. The mobile number in the HTML is linked to how the site determines that your browsing from a mobile device #O2Guru  (https://twitter.com/#!/O2/status/161872584634408960)