Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Malware

Malware is the biggest threat to Cyber Security especially in th E-Commerce World, because Malware can steal your credentials / password and steal your money from Banks and Credit cards without your knowledge.

According to Wikipedia:-
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming (code, scripts, active content, and other software) designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, gain unauthorized access to system resources, and other abusive behavior.
The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.
Software is considered to be malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features.
Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, scareware, crimeware, most rootkits, and other malicious and unwanted software or program. In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant

Malware is planted on your computer through internet by cyber-criminals and it sends secret information from your computer to them. Once the malware is there on your computer, when you do an internet transaction using your credit card or bank account, all the informations like user-id, password, account number etc are sent to the cyber-criminal.

Lesson is: Do not use your computer through which you do internet transactions,  for Chatting with unknown people or visiting dangerous un-secure sites.

Do You Want to Email Spoof?


E-mail spoofing is e-mail activity in which the sender address and other parts of the e-mail header are altered to appear as though the e-mail originated from a different source to impersonate and forge emails.

Though it can be legitimate, it is usually fraudulent. Because the purpose is so often malicious, "spoof" (an expression whose base meaning is innocent parody) is a poor term for this activity, which can confuse newcomers so that more accountable organizations such as government departments and banks tend to avoid the usage, preferring more explicit descriptors such as "fraudulent" or "phishing"

It is commonly used in spam and phishing e-mails to hide the origin of the e-mail message. By changing certain properties of the e-mail, such as the From, Return-Path and Reply-To fields (which can be found in the message header), ill-intentioned users can make the e-mail appear to be from someone other than the actual sender. The result is that, although the e-mail appears to come from the address indicated in the From field, it actually comes from another source.

Occasionally if the spam requires a reply from the recipient,  the source of the spam e-mail is indicated in the Reply-To field; if this is the case and the initial e-mail is replied to, the delivery will be sent to the address specified in the Reply-To field, which could be the spammer's address. However, most spam emails (especially malicious ones with a Trojan /virus payload, or those advertising a web site) forge this address too, and replying to it will be to  an innocent third party.

It is much more difficult to spoof or hide the IP or Internet Protocol address. The IP address is a 32 or 128 bit numerical label assigned to each device participating in a network and originates through the network provider making it more difficult to spoof or hide. Although this kind of verification is difficult for individual users, companies can use this technology as well as others such as cryptographic signatures (e.g., PGP "Pretty Good Privacy" or other encryption technologies) to exchange authenticated email messages. Authenticated email provides a mechanism for ensuring that messages are from whom they appear to be, as well as ensuring that the message has not been altered in transit.

Now do you want to send a spam email?!!!

There are Websites allowing that!

See the site: http://anonymizer.com

WARNING: Mind that any Legal Consequence will be yours and not mine!!!