Information Technology

Security Awareness Training updated

2010-02-28T20:22:00Z

The Security Awareness Badge is awarded to anyone that reviews the material and passes the test.

It is required for Officers, OS members and any Administrators of servers.

The post has been updated to clean up some link.

See it here: http://taw.net/forums/p/7232/19176.aspx#19176

Update your Acrobat Reader

2008-02-09T21:40:00Z

There is a vulnerability in Acrobat Reader. You need to update to 8.1.2 or higher to eliminate the vulnerability.

More info.

Gamers Beware

2007-12-11T06:39:00Z

Like all Internet users, we have to defend against all the riff raff out there. There are also attacks aimed specifically at Gamers.

Here is alook at some recent incidents involving malware targetted at gamers. Back in April, there was a fake Teamspeak patch loaded on the Teamspeak website. It looks like hackers compromised the Teamspeak web site. Then, they uploaded a fake patch with malware. Lastly, they sent an email to everyone with a forum account on the Teamspeak web site to download the fake patch.

More info: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2634

There have been a couple of attacks aimed specifically at WoW users.

“The reason for this, according to the BBC, is that player accounts with WoW are seen as a valuable target for cybercriminals, “

More info: http://www.viruslist.com/en/news?id=208274064

“Online games have long been targeted by malware, mainly due to the thriving virtual economy underlying them.”

More info: http://blog.trendmicro.com/world-of-warcraft-fan-site-compromised/

Another interesting case is a recent vulnerability in the Quicktime player. If a users views a specially crafted movie, their machine can be compromised. This vulnerability was leveraged for an attack on the Second Life game. In the game if you get close to another user's property, they can have it set to play a quicktime video. If they upload a specially crafted video, any users that gets close to their property gets compromised.

To avoid getting compromised, be sure and do all the standard recommendations. Use a firewall, keep OS up to date, run antivirus with updated signatures. You also need to keep other applications updated such as media players and document viewers.

Most importantly, keep your antenna up and be suspicious. If something looks fishy, proceed with caution. Try to verify patches etc with a second source. Keep in mind that “trusted” sites could be compromised and be hosting malware.

For TAW members, you can review the material for the Security Awareness badge and pass the test to earn the badge.

Kidagoat

2007-11-29T19:36:00Z

Kidagoat has been moved up to the RA position and is now the rank of Captain

VMware for more security

2007-11-23T08:14:00Z

The idea is this. Do high risk activities on a VMmachine. If it gets infected, revert or delete and start over.

VMware has a couple of free products.

VMware Player is the easiest one. You can run pre-made VMmachines like the Browser Appliance.

VMware Server is also free. You need to register to get license keys. It has some additional functionality above the Player. For example, you can create one snapshot for each VM. I recommended VMware Server. It is free and has more capability.

After you install VMware, the next thing you need is a virtual machine. You can create one or use a pre made appliance like the Browser Appliance.

If you are browing to some web sites you don't trust. You can start up the Browser Appliance and surf from there. This is a linux based Virtual Machine (VM) with Firefox.

Worried about bookmarks? You can use del.ico.us to have centrally managed bookmarks from all the computers you use (real and virutal). With delicious, you can create a bookmark on your PC and then use it from your Browser Appliance.

Do you have some software you are installing and your not sure if you trust it? Install it on a VM first and make sure it doesn't do anything mailicious. If you want to run XP on a VM, you need a separate license for it.