This Land, Cortibah

occupyallstreets:

Apple Tries To Take Down Domain After The Website Discovers Thousands Of Infected Macs

Whether out of pique or by mistake, Apple has reportedly targeted the anti-virus vendor which earlier this month discovered and publicized evidence that the Flashback Trojan had infected tens of thousands of Macs.

Dr. Web reported last week that analysis of a recent Java flaw exploited by the Flashback Trojan revealed that more than 550,000 Macs were affected in the U.S. and abroad. Now the Moscow-based software security firm says it has learned that Apple has asked Russian Web registrar Reggi.ru to shut down a Doctor Web-owned Internet domain, according to Forbes.

Apple apparently asked Reggi.ru to shut down a domain that it pegged as a botnet command-and-control server supposedly being used to control Flashback-infected Macs, Dr. Web chief executive Boris Sharov told Forbes. The only problem—the domain was actually a “sinkhole,” a spoofed botnet command center being used by Dr. Web to gather data about Flashback-compromised machines (like the number of infected Macs the firm published earlier in the month).

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People, this is why regardless of OS, version, specs or economic situation, you should make every effort to secure your PC.

Even Linux picks up viruses. You may not see any effect, but your machine can still spread the virus.

Just because you’re a non-Windows user doesn’t mean you can get away with no anti-virus or firewalls. There may be very few non-Windows or cross-platform viruses in the wild, but the few that there are - like this one - are extremely nasty.

(via anarcho-queer)

staypozitive:

Everyone needs to watch this - especially women. Reblog this video please. I swear you’ll cover your webcam after watching is - or better yet, just throw away your laptop. 

Basic webcam security isn’t that hard. Put a piece of opaque tape (duct tape or insulation tape) over it when you’re not using it, or if it’s a USB one just disconnect it when you’re not using it.

(I should not have to tell people to get proper anti-virus and firewall programs, should I?)

(via scparris)

famthegeek:

All Dreamhost customers should read this post immediately and change all related passwords (including WordPress ones).

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Reblogging, also, people, don’t just change your Dreamhost password, change ALL of them. You can use this strong password generator to set new ones.

(A lot of people use the same passwords for everything, change all of them. Just to be safe.)

(via anonymissexpress)

How to Use Skype Safely

anonymissexpress:

Did you know that a recently discovered security flaw in Skype makes your location and file-downloading activity accessible to parties unknown? This flaw has brought home the point that no Web-accessible software or service can be truly secure. The very nature of software relies on a seemingly countless number of variables to be in perfect alignment for all expectations to be met. Security is one of the biggest concerns for software engineers, and also one of their biggest challenges.

Not only does Skype’s internal system need to be secure, but the connection between the server and the client, the client itself, and the operating system that the client depends on to run. A change to any one of these factors can throw off security measures and expose new exploitable flaws that may (or may not) be discovered by people with malicious intent.

In the case of this flaw discovered by a team from New York University, the risk is to a user’s location and peer-to-peer file sharing activity. From there, a clever investigator can build a profile that expands to the user’s Facebook account and other public information. All they really need to know is your IP address, and this flaw allows them to grab it without even alerting you.

Read more on LockerGnome

Reblogging because this is sort of not good and scary. And a lot of people I know use Skype.