Hi,
Take the following HTML:
[html]
[body onload="document.getElementById('a').innerHTML = '[input type=\'text\'/]';"]
[div id="a"][/div]
[input type="text"/]
[/body]
[/html]
(of course replace "[" with "<" and "]" with ">")
Open that in Firefox. Write something in the first input and press F5... see what happens... the value you just entered is now in the second input!
Add as many inputs and the shifting still occurs on all of them...
There has been a couple of malware attacks that have tried to use the news coverage of the death of Michael Jackson as the lure to get people infected.
The malware is a file called Michael-www.google.com.exe. This file was distributed through a site called photos-google.com, photo-msn.org, facebook-photo.net and orkut-images.com. Do not visit these sites.
When executed, Michael-www.google.com.exe drops files called reptile.exe and winudp.exe. These are IRC bots with backdoor capability. The file also shows a fake error message "Picture can not be displayed.".
The virus is detected as Trojan.Win32.Buzus.bjyo by major antiviruses.A recent news article from CNN shows that the city of Bozeman, Montana, USA, has been pressured into removing an item in its background-check waiver form requesting all applicants for to disclose their account names and passwords for social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Youtube.
Now, who in the right mind would do that really give up their log-in details? I bet they provide fake ones or just ignored the request...
My advice if you ever encounter this: this is privacy invasion. Do not disclose them in any way to anyone. Just reply if being asked "my personal life has nothing to do with my professional one and my private credentials are my own and they do not make subject of your concern".
It is common for employers to read applicants blogs before an interview (this happened to me also), but they usually inform you about that. This statement was addressed to me recently and it was quite pertinent: "I have read your blog located at lusuthegost.blogspot.com and saw this remark of yours ... Can you detail this for me?". That one is normal and expected especially since I have included the blog address in my CV. If you wonder why did I ever do that is because my posts are related to security, Windows and programming and it shows some community activity which counts to some extend for a job application.
It's time to go back to blogging, this time with a interesting topic for non-advanced users. You may ask why I link applications with security. The answer to this is simple: any application can be exploited by hackers to gain control over your computer and/or steal you confidential information. Did I said "any"? Yes, any, read on.
How do they do it?
Any application has (the technically called) buffers and stacks as part of they normal operation. If the developers of that application forget to add a test or two, the attacker can use that information and overflow them causing the content to "spill out" over the original application code. When this happens, the original code is overwritten by the malicious code and... voila!
Now... don't get paranoid and consider every application as a threat. Usually they are secured and regularly updated. Hackers tend to attack popular applications such as WinAmp, iTunes etc. because it makes sense to attack an application that is used by several million users than to attack an application that is only used by one thousand users.
However, be suspicious about your online programs (chats, browsers, file sharing etc.) and security ones (antiviruses, anti-spyware etc.) and make sure they are up-to-date always. If you wonder why I say to be suspicious about your security programs then keep in mind this: if they are not up-to-date they may not see a new threat and, worse, they can be exploited big time.
What can you do to stay protected?
Update your applications to their latest versions. Some of them provide mechanisms to automatically check for updates so leave that option active. If there is no such option in your program just remember now and then to visit the vendor site and check manually for a new version.
Alternatively, use a tool such as F-Secure Health Check (http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/onlineservices/fshc/front.html) that provides an automated verification method. I am not affiliated in any way with them, this is not a commercial. F-Secure is a company that provides security products such as anti-viruses and it is well respected and deserves credit for their free tools.
Should I be worried?
Not really, but keep in mind those ideas and think twice before disabling automatic updates to any application and operating system... Make a habit of updating applications to the latest versions and read for yourself some security news blogs to be up-to-date with current major threats.
One of the biggest problems today is to surf the Internet safely. Contrary to some may think, Internet surfing is not safe unless you personally take care of some things.
Why it is unsafe? Because you can access by mistake a site that has malicious intents and that use vulnerabilities in your browser to install on your computer some viruses or spyware, to crash your system completely or to steal your credit card information or other personal data.
So you need to make it safe...
There is the myth that Internet Explorer is not as safe as Firefox. Unfortunately this is exactly backwards (but things are improving). Opera is in fact the fastest and the most secure Internet browser. Don't take my word on it (as some my say that I am a Microsoft fan...), take what experts are saying. A good article, with quality and reliable sources is http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyths.html
Another thing is to be very, very, careful when entering your credentials (passwords, credit card details etc.) in forms on various sites. Please double check the site and its intent before proceeding. There are lots of legitimate sites that for example process your credit cards in order to sell you something online, and this is good. But there are even more sites that pretend to sell you something (like man potency pills, "original" software or quality watch replicas at incredible low prices) but in fact they simply steal your information so they can empty your account. No legitimate site will ask your credit card pin code! If you encounter such site leave immediately!
Also some banks offer online banking services where you have to authenticate with either a security device (one time code generators), with security certificates or with one time scratch codes. The later are not so secure as some sites may trick you in providing the next 10 codes in order to "verify your identity". Big mistake to provide those!
Do you have any other tips? Please feel free to comment and share with everyone!
Posts
All Comments
