Category: SANS Internet Storm

Link shortening and the new wave malware on Twitter

Paul

I’ve been reading what Sans Internet storm has to say about twitter and how that can bring malware to Twitter. Sans argues that there is no reliable way to determine the information someone says, and that is where I am wanting to talk about the way people are creating what I call Link baiting or Blind links. You ever click on a link in twitter to find it it wasn’t what you thought it was?

[ad]I also thought of what Sopho’s blog about today where someone hijacked 2.2 Million redirect Urls using Cli.gs services to shorten links. I was reading through the Cli.gs blog about the incident and it came from Canada but I don’t think the user of the website who had all that traffic was involved in any way shape or form to the hacking of Cli.gs website. I personally think this was done to prove a point and it is a very good point.

That in the future there will be someone to redirect links to a malware site and it won’t be pretty. Think about it any shorten url service like Tinyurl or others who could have their links all be directed to a website. that is a big number and it worries me. Let us go through the numbers a little bit and see. 98.2% of people go to Tinyurl.com and don’t preview the url first. Half of the clicks in Bit.ly are coming from the US, which means we are more at risk of clicking on a link that could be a virus or malware.

Now I know people don’t have time to check out all the links or forget to check before they click. So I have a few plugins that might help with this.   LongUrl Pluggin  Can use 72 different web services including Bit.ly, Tinyurl, Cli.gs, and a bunch more.  This is a good little plugin to help prevent yourself from clicking those links that you are unsure of.    I would also recommend getting a [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Free Anti-virus and Free Firewall[/intlink] to better protect yoru system.  I wouldn’t use Internet Explorer it seems that is more easier to infect with malware than Firefox.  [intlink id=”3668″ type=”post”]Firefox still has to worry[/intlink] but not as much.

Electric Company fear Mongering gone wrong!!

Paul

I saw this talking going on at Arstechnica and SANS Interenet are Talking about the Elecric Company Fear mongering. Here’s what Ars Says:

It sounds like something straight out of Hollywood. Current and former US security officials have reported that foreign nations have penetrated the cybersecurity barriers surrounding the US electrical grid, water system, and even financial networks. Although no known attempts have been made to activate the booby traps said black hats left behind, such sleeper cells could activate suddenly during a war or crisis, plunging the nation into a disaster only Bruce Willis and that Mac dude could avert.

[Via Arstechnica]

[ad#cricket-right-ez]This was posted today with people asking the question Is the Electric company have a viruses or have a worm? I don’t know but these fears are coming from the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON — Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

[Via Wall Street Journal]

Now let’s talk about this, This is being a talked about on a friends Podcast, The Caffination Podcast. This is where I have figure we should talk about this. I think Sans Internet Storm says it better than I could:

One email stated that The power systems we have in place today are ran by Knobs and Switches. Mostly built int he 70’s and 80’s, these power stations are mostly ran by manual intervention. The power stations that _have_ been stood up since then, a couple of Nuclear Power stations, are federally regulated to not have any connections to anything, let alone the Internet.

Since this particular email comes from a very trusted source, I am inclinded to believe this person. Is it possible that there ARE computers in power stations that are connected to the Internet? Yes, I am quite sure there are. However, is it possible that the computer or computers (if there are any) that actually CONTROL the power are connected to the internet, I tend to not believe that.

[Via Sans Internet Storm]

I agree with what Sans is saying but I don’t think there is anything to worry about, for the fact that I think that the computers that control electricity are not hard wired to be online. This is meaning that if someone virus or worm gets on those computers there is no way these viruses or worms could talk back to command and control. This is my Theory and I don’t work from the electric but I do think this is the most plausible way they are preventing this type of attack. The First Tier, just like tech support, is for Corporate and technicians to talk to eat other over the intranet. The 2nd Tier, this is the important computers that would control Electric process. I don’t know this for sure but I think the 2nd tier would be used to isolate the computers from being accessed externally. Like I said before I don’t work for the electric company and this is all theory on how the electric has this set up!! So you can take it with a grain of salt or come up with your own ideas.