In what is being touted as the greatest cyber heist of all times, hackers last week breached the IT defenses of Britain's Best Western hotel's online booking system and accessed the identities of eight million customers.The stolen data included addresses, telephone numbers as well as credit card number details.
The 'masterstroke' could have been acheived by exploiting a variety of vulnerabilities experts say.Technologically, the loophole could have been in the firm's network, the operating system,or at the application level.However modern criminals exploit more than just technical vulnerabilities.
While an enterprise could have secured its network,the peripheral devices as well as user machines, it may not have an answer yet to 'bugs in the human hardware' -manipulating vulnerabilities of the human mind to gain confidential information,often called social engineering.
"If you receive an email from a familiar name with an attachment that says 'Happy Birthday',there is high probability that you would double click on it.Once you double click on
that you might get a download of viruses, or trojans such as Ransomware.
Ransomware is cyberspace's equivalent of abduction,where the Trojan encrypts or holds computer resources such as data or files in its control for a ransom.
Similarly, Avert Labs noticed many Web sites hosting 'Exploit files' after Benazir Bhutto's assassination.Here, hackers wanted to manipulate intrest in news: a search could have directed to Web site hosting malware.
Some main things that Avert Labs has noticed
1) A new wave of 'Fake Alerts'-a Trojan which displays fake alerts on machine being infected.It typically leads to a link for getting the machine disinfected,which results in more malware being installed.
2) MP3 infected virus -adds 'directive' to the music files and prevents media players from displaying codec and then downloads password stealers or other Trojans onto your computer.
3) Malware that users a current (OLYMPICS) or sensational subject line (nuclear war) to propagate, either through e-mails or using networks.
So What can we do!!!!!
1) Constantly update patches for operation systems and applications.
2) Get regular virus updates.
3) Be cautious while opening links/attachments that arrive in e-mails or IM
4) Be cautious while using USB sticks- when plugged to an infected computer, they can pass on viruses. So disable 'autoplay'.
5) Use backups.
