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 Security Risks for Digital Media Designers|| part1
For thousands of designers nationwide, computers are the most important tool they need to do their jobs. In addition to design work, PCs are used for communication, for research, for managing financial accounts, for buying and selling, and countless other uses. The PC has become a critical component of everyday life.
However, as computer-related security incidents continue to increase, designers have become increasingly concerned about online safety - and with good reason. To protect themselves from becoming victims of a growing wave of Internet threats, computer users need to know how to avoid them.
To achieve this, designers must first understand the types of threats on today's digital horizon and then identify and follow simple best practices for protecting their confidential information and safeguarding their computers.
Financial Objective
In recent years, hackers launched malicious code in order to get attention, particularly from the technical community. But today's hackers are driven by financial motives. According to the most recent Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec Corp., a comprehensive, biannual review of global Internet threat activity, the financial sector received the highest ratio of severe Internet attacks of any other industry, including high tech, manufacturing, healthcare, power and energy, and more. The reason for the focus on the financial sector is clear: that's where the money is.
Evidence of this shift in motivation is as easy as looking at users' email inboxes. Most likely, in addition to the mounds of spam messages are phishing attempts. Phishing is an effort by a third party to solicit confidential information from an individual, often for illicit financial gain. Phishers often use spoofed email, malicious Web sites, or Trojan horses downloaded through the user's Web browser to trick users into disclosing sensitive information such as credit card numbers or online banking information.
Phishing is a big problem that's getting bigger. During the last six months of 2004, the number of phishing attacks increased steadily from week to week-from 193 new attacks during the first week to an average of 400 phishing attacks by the end of the period. Because spoofed email and Internet sites are becoming more and more sophisticated, phishing attacks are harder than ever to identify and defend against. |
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To protect against becoming victims of phishers, security experts recommend that in addition to following general best practices for computing, users should visit sites such as www.antiphishing.org in order to learn about the latest phishing scams. Security experts also suggest that users should never disclose any confidential personal or financial information if they have doubts about the authenticity of an email or Web site.
Nowhere to Go.
Information exposure threats can be present in almost any type of malicious code, including Trojan horses, worms, viruses, and back door server programs. Several worms and Trojan horses contain keystroke logging and back door functionality in addition to their other components. Such threats have continued to increase since June 2003, according to the Internet Security Threat Report. Over the last half of 2004, malicious code that exposed confidential information represented 54 percent of the top 50 malicious code samples received by Symantec-up from 44 percent in the first half of 2004 and 36 percent in the second half of 2003.
This increase is partially due to the increasing proliferation of bots, which expose all information on a compromised computer due to their remote access capabilities. Bots-short for "robots"-are programs that are covertly installed on a user's computer in order to allow an unauthorized user to control that computer remotely. Bots are designed to let an attacker create an entire network of compromised hosts, which can then be remotely controlled to conduct malicious activities collectively. Bots are a significant part of the trend of using malicious code for profit as spammers use the IP addresses of compromised home computers for relaying their messages.
Bots often employ multiple propagation mechanisms to compromise computers. Therefore, designers are advised to avoid using questionable peer-to-peer services, use strong password protection on shared network drives, and patch vulnerabilities in their operating systems and applications.
It is not surprising that client-side vulnerabilities are often implicated in information exposure breaches. Client-side vulnerabilities target the computer systems of individual users rather than servers of an organization. They target applications such as Web browsers, email clients, peer-to-peer networks, instant messaging clients, and media players. They are often, but not always, the result of logic errors or flaws in access-control systems and they are often easily exploitable, particularly in browsers.
In fact, Web browser vulnerabilities are also taking on a new twist as hackers are now not only looking to exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer but also in newer, alternative browsers such as Mozilla, Firefox, and Opera. After all, a compromised browser could mean a compromise in the security of all Web-based transactions. In the last half of 2004, Symantec documented 21 vulnerabilities affecting Mozilla and Firefox, 13 vulnerabilities impacting Microsoft Internet Explorer, and six reported in Opera.
To avoid browser-based threats, users should carefully research browser alternatives and evaluate their level of security before deploying them on the desktop. |
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