Error Fix: Trust Relationship is Broken

Here's a quick post on fixing a broken trust situation when the local administrator username and password is a known commodity.

On Windows 7:

1. Windows Explorer
2. Right click My Computer/This PC --> Properties
3. Change settings for Computer Name
4. Change button
5. Domain: Setting Now: DOMAIN.LOCAL
1. Change to DOMAIN (delete .Local)
2. Credential
6. Reboot

That process will fix things for Windows 7 unless PowerShell is up to date then for all others including it:

1. Log on with local admin user
2. Reset-ComputerMachinePassword -Credential DOMAIN\DomainAdmin
3. Log off
4. Log on with domain user account

That's it.

If you know any other methods, especially for situations where the local admin username and password is an unknown or all local admin accounts are disabled feel free to comment or ping!

Thanks for reading. :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.commodityclusters.com
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Some Thoughts on the Starwood/Marriott Reservations Database Breach

Note: This post will _not_ be a happy one.

First: The announcement page: Starwood Guest Reservation Database Security Incident Marriott International

That page is garbage, rubbish, and so much more. It exemplifies today's epidemic of spin instead of truth and responsibility for an error that harms others.

First:

"Marriott values our guests and understands the importance of protecting personal information."

That is a complete crock of male bovine excrement.

Especially when we look to the following:

"After receiving the internal security alert, we immediately engaged leading security experts to help us determine what occurred."

Okay, so just when did that security alert come in?

"On September 8, 2018, Marriott received an alert from an internal security tool regarding an attempt to access the Starwood guest reservation database."

Cool, so things look like they got caught really quick right? That seems to be the way this article is written right?

NOT:

"Marriott learned during the investigation that there had been unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014."

Let's rephrase all of the above shall we:

Marriott: We let unauthorized access to our reservation database happen for FOUR YEARS.

Yeah, "We at Marriott/Starwood really care about your data/PII." Really. All said with a smile.

***

In our case, the CC used for our various stays has expired very recently. So, we should be protected that way. And, to further protect things we use KeePass with unique passwords for any and all online resources with unique e-mail addresses set up for each of them (we're doing this more and more).

Suffice it to say, if the Marriott really cared about risk to our PII (Personally Identifiable Information) the reservations system would have been segmented with designated access and no Internet access. We've been applying our knowledge of network setup to segment our client's networks for years. Especially with PCI scans being somewhat generic and different depending on what org is running the scans.

Oh, and note that credit card information was stored in there too. How in the world did that pass muster with PCI scans?

LMHYWT (Let me help you with that) " … two components needed to decrypt payment card numbers and Marriott not able to rule out both were taken."

Tis a sad day indeed when spin and lawyer speak win out over a true "Mea Culpa" we really *insert expletive here* up.

This Marriott incident is a gross breach of trust and it is time companies be held liable for such.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Apple MacBook Pro: Upgrading OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 to El Capitan 10.11 with 2 Factor Authentication On

Wow, what an adventure.

We have a MacBook Pro 13" early 2009 laptop here in the shop that has been sitting idle for a while.

We installed a new SSD in the unit and bumped the RAM up to 8GB.

Then, on to installing a fresh copy of Snow Leopard 10.6 via the installer DVD.

We needed to use the Disk Utility in the installer to set up a partition prior to being allowed to install the OS.

Once in, we went through the updates process.

Then, on to upgrading OS X to El Capitan 10.11.

What a pain. Because we are on what is essentially an ancient OS version all of the apps were uncooperative due to the 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) that is enabled on our Apple ID.

Safari would not work with Apple's sites for authentication either due to SSL compatibility issues.

Searching meant using buckshot terms to try and figure out exactly what needed to be done to allow the upgrade to proceed in the App Store.

The long and short of it found here is to do the following:

1. Open Safari and navigate to this Apple Support page: How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan
2. Scroll down to Step 4 and click on the Get El Capitan link to bring up the App Store
3. Click the Get button in the store
4. On a trusted device such as an iPhone
1. Tap into Settings --> Your Name --> Password & Security
2. Tap on the Get Verification Code at the bottom of that page
5. On the MacBook Pro enter the Apple ID and the Password
1. YourAppleID@YourDomain.Com
2. YourAppleIDPassword123456
• 123456 = Verification Code

The verification code gets tagged on to the password at the end as above.

It's a monster weighing in at 6.21GB so a good fast connection should be used to download this one!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Security: RBC Royal Bank: Best laid plans of mice and men

We did some banking work with our bank, RBC Canada. In the process they sent us a few "Secure Document Access" requests that the agent provided the password for via a phone conversation.

When the first one came in, it was a bit of a system shock.

RBC Royal Bank "Secure Message"

The highlight is ours. Huh?!?

Given the nature of today's phishing attacks a phone call was very quick to happen to our contact after receiving the above to verify its legitimacy.

We received a number of subsequent "secure" e-mails using the same method.

The encryption process we use, and our clients use, on the ExchangeDefender (xD) system is a link to an Internet property owned by xD with the appropriate SSL properties in place to assure the recipient that they are in the right place. That's after we indicate to the recipient in a prior e-mail of the upcoming process to obtain the encrypted content.

The RBC Royal Bank method is close to that but why the .HTM attachment requirement? That's just plain weird. :S

Sure enough, this is what was in an Inbox here this morning:

Phishing Message

It's a poorly crafted phish attempt at best.

E-mail Header

The trail is pretty clear as far as where it came from and the "how" looks to be fairly clear as well.

All it would have taken was a bit better in the way of timing on the phisher's part and a bit of distraction on our part and BOOM we could have been hooked. :(

RBC Royal Bank Canada needs to change their secure document transmission methodologies please.

And, Microsoft, please give us built-in DKIM abilities for on-premises Exchange instead of keeping that to online properties only. That's not polite in the least.*See Note Below

Outlook Header How-To

Outlook users, here's how to get the header information shown above:

1. Double click on the e-mail
2. Click the Message tab
3. Click the break-out button on the bottom right of the Tags category
• 
4. Click anywhere in the small information window
• 
5. Keyboard:  CTRL+A then CTRL+C
6. Click Close and close the e-mail
7. Paste the content into the destined app (we use Notepad)

After examining a few headers it gets pretty easy to identify the legit and illegitimate messages hitting our Inbox every day. While the process may be a bit time consuming, figuring out whether something is legit or not could be the difference between DELETE and an encryption event or Inbox/Contacts harvesting.

Happy Monday everyone and thanks for reading! :)

2018-09-10 EDIT: Oops, that Microsoft sentence should have been CUT along with the other sentences that were in a previous paragraph. Suffice it to say, we've been working on DMARC/DKIM requests and discovered that Microsoft seems to be holding DKIM off from on-premises Exchange. Thus, we need to go third party to get to use that business critical security feature. :(

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Client E-mail Warning for the Current Malware Campaigns

This went out this morning. The first place in any "security strategy" should be to train the human.

Folks,

I hope you had a great summer!

With anti-SPAM services getting better and better the malicious folks out there are getting a lot more subtle in their efforts plus we’re seeing an uptick of baddies in the Inbox.

Things to note in the message below:

1. The FROM domain @fmelaw.com does not match the domain in the link
2. After hovering the mouse over the Here link the URL listed contains a bunch of gibberish
3. Watch for language, spelling, and grammar errors as there tends to be a lot of them
4. Is the Subject and/or Sender legit? Call them first!
5. Do NOT open any Word documents and especially do NOT click Enable Macros if prompted!
6. Be cautious with any PDF attachments. If in doubt call the sender or forward to here with a question.

NOTE: We are seeing _a lot_ of compromised e-mail addresses and mailboxes as a result of users opening something or clicking on something they should not have.

One attack vector is via a Macro enabled Word document harvests both E-mail and Addresses to send out _replies_ to a legitimate e-mail thread/conversation. If the Word document gets clicked on and a prompt comes for enabling Macros the Word document is BAD. CLOSE Word and SHIFT+DELETE the e-mail!

If in doubt, don’t open or click on it! Do _not_ hesitate to call or forward the questionable content!

Thank you and have a wonderful day! :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service
Twitter: @MPECSInc

Enable 2FA (Two Factor Authentication) Everywhere It's Available!

Yes, it's a bit of an extra inconvenience.

But, that inconvenience may save the account and any data associated with it from being hijacked!

As an example, after logging into my Microsoft ID and heading into the Security section I can check and see if there is anything out of the ordinary.

And, low and behold what do I find? That I've attempted to log on from some interesting places!

2FA is enabled on this Microsoft ID and all others. Amazon, Blogger, Microsoft,and any other that offer 2FA has it enabled.

There's absolutely no way in this day and age that it should not be used.

Thanks for reading. :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service

Protecting Your Yahoo Account

So, apparently Yahoo has suffered yet another breach. A quick search of the news sites (Bing Search) would bring up more info.

Sign in to Yahoo and change the account password as soon as possible.

Then, enable Second Sign-In Verification:

We suggest using SMS as the primary method for protecting the account as opposed to the security questions.

Under Account Info:

Once the mobile is confirmed make the following setting:

This at least will provide a layer of protection unless the verification system itself also gets compromised. But, if that's the case Yahoo would probably have bigger problems on their hands! :S

While you're at it please enable 2FA (2 Factor Authentication) on all Microsoft IDs and download the Authentication App to your mobile device and _use_ it!

Now that online service providers are starting to allow us to protect ourselves with additional security steps the onus is on us to use those features!

Philip Elder
Microsoft Cluster MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
Third Tier: Enterprise Solutions for Small Business

Some Mobile Phone Related Security Reading and Videos

This from Susan Bradley as far as what our mobile phone can say about us:

Now, take that the to the next level.

MVP Doug Spindler provided links to the following very informative videos.

• TED: Malte Spitz: Your phone company is watching (YouTube)

Malte went to the extent to sue the mobile phone carrier his phone was hooked up with to acquire the "Metadata" they held on him. His talk brings to light some aspects of what that data does for the NSA and other intelligence gathering agencies.

Doug also shared the following TED Playlist called The dark side of data (11 talks).

All of the talks are worth watching . . . and not for the faint of heart!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Blackhat 2013 – NSA General Alexander’s Keynote

The director of the NSA, General Alexander, gave a keynote address at the Blackhat conference.

• WordFence Blog: General Alexander’s Keynote Speech at Black Hat 2013

Mark Maunder gives a good overview of the speech along with his thoughts around it.

The blog post is a good read and a link to an audio recording of the speech is at the bottom of the post.

But in all seriousness, headlines seen lately that the latest leaks are hurting US based Cloud businesses should be expected. Not only that, but folks need to keep in mind that pretty much all countries have some sort of monitoring agency or agencies in place.

So, again the question is begged: Who owns the data and has access to it the moment it leaves the on-premises setup?

EDIT: Hat Tip: Susan Bradley

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Some Early Morning, Well Okay it's Early Here, Secure Browsing Related Reading

After posting about the Flash Cache clearing that we usually do via the online control panel we thought it would be a good idea to post some reading on safe browsing habits in general.

Security MVP Harry Waldron obliged a request for pointers with the following blog posts:

• Best Practices - Internet Safety for 2008 - Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)
• This is an excellent list of ways to protect ourselves both while browsing but also at our PC/Laptop level.
• This one is well worth the read.
• FBI Warning - Safety tips to avoid Scams and Internet Fraud - Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)
• Another excellent list of tips on protecting one's self from being scammed.
• Twitter - Best practices for using it safely - Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)
• The key elements for Twitter safety.
• Facebook - Best Practices in double locking account privacy - Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)
• Securing a Facebook profile.
• Security Protection – Harry Waldron (CS) – Blog Search Results for "Practices"
• Lots of good posts to delve into.

The following are pointers for Microsoft properties:

• Microsoft – Best Practices for Enterprise Security - Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)
• A check list for security audit
• Microsoft Security - Best Practices Home Page - Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)

The following article has some excellent tips on social networking:

• Zeltser Blog: 11 Security Tips for Online Social Networking
• This is an _excellent_ resource and reference for us and for our clients.

Have a great long weekend for those of us celebrating Canada Day Weekend and have a great Independence Day celebration/break next week to our US readers!

Thanks for reading. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Monday Morning Monitor Cloth Reading: PRISM and it’s Cloud Implications

Yeah, the coffee may end up out there and not because we have a great moment to laugh about.

Most of us have seen bits and pieces of the news about the United States Government’s program called PRISM.

• Bing News Search: PRISM

This article on Computer World is an excellent read on PRISM and the big Cloud vendor’s statements that they were oblivious.

• COMPUTERWORD: Why PRISM kills the cloud (link courtesy of Jeff Middleton)

Jonny Evans is bang on with his assessment on the big Cloud vendor’s denials place them in a very awkward position. Perhaps a better response would have been to wait things out a bit and then come clean with customers about government’s access to customer data.

We’ve all known about the possibility of governments accessing data with Cloud vendors being able to remain silent with their customers about that access.

The news about PRISM puts this reality in our faces and gives everyone a moment to have Cause for Pause.

For flat file data storage this situation presents an excellent opportunity for vendors of flat file encryption services that work on that data before it gets pushed up to the Cloud.

However, for things like hosted e-mail where raw content is sitting on the Cloud Vendor’s systems we know of no way to protect that data at all short of keeping in on-premises.

EDIT 2013-06-10: My fellow SMBKitchen author Susan Bradley has called me on my exclusion of the possibility of encrypted data hosted in Cloud based Exchange servers.

I do apologise for missing the fact that there _are_ vendors out there that can do just that.

CipherCloud is one such vendor that Susan mentioned.

So, off to their site we go and start a chat session to find out how much this service would cost us:

Holy Sugar Smacks!

Okay, so there are vendors out there that do this but at this time they are not very SMB friendly. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Royal Bank of Canada Business VISA – Electronic Statements Available with Live Balances . . . Finally

One of our alternate financial institution’s credit cards has had online statements and live available credit balance for years.

It’s good to see that the Royal Bank of Canada has just enabled electronic statements for our business VISA card.

So, instead of having to run all 12 month’s worth of VISA statements through the ScanSnap 1400 to create PDF documents we can download them straight out of the bank’s online portal.

We are most certainly glad to see that the bank is catching up with the smaller institutions that have had these features for a few years now. :)

Now, to figure out how to stop all of the RBC statement/billing notifications that come to our e-mail address.

They should be off by default. Folks need to take a bit of initiative with online banking so that the Phishing folks don’t have a leg to stand on.

And one more thing, it’s a good idea to subscribe to a credit bureau’s quarterly credit report along with the ability to be notified any time a credit search hit has been done against one’s credit profile. It’s one of the ways we can protect ourselves against identity theft.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Microsoft/Live ID in Windows 8 Actually Says, "Your password has expired. It's time to choose a new one."

This is a nice change:

Instead of this:

And a, "There is a problem with your Microsoft account".

Windows Messenger says that there is a problem with the connection.

We have all of our Microsoft/Live ID accounts set to expire their passwords after 72 days. It is an option available when changing the password.

So, at least the Microsoft account integration in Windows 8 _tells_ us what the problem is and how to fix it.

Now to figure out _what_ characters are allowed. :S

It's not allowing spaces. Special characters are okay but spaces are not. Oh well.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Mat Honan's Hack Odyssey

This is nothing short of a long read but worth every moment:

• Wired: How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking

Hackers used a bunch of tricks to gain full control of Mat's accounts. From there they remote wiped his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone via iCloud.

Ultimately, their goal was his Twitter account which they did indeed manage to gain control of.

Please do read this article. It is food for thought.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Global Payments Inc. Breached: How Many Credit Card Numbers (says 1.5 Million) This Time?

NOTE: This is a _very_ opinionated post.

When are our government representatives going to stand up for us when it comes to data breaches that impact our day to day lives?!?

We can’t seem to embed the Bloomberg video at the following URL:

• Global Payments Removed From Card-Processing List

It is a good discussion of the unknown status around the hacking of payment processor Global Payments Inc.

We had our issues around the breach of Heartland Payment Systems (blog Breach category) given the way the whole thing played out. We were directly impacted by that particular breach.

Whether or not we are impacted by this current breach has yet to be seen but rest assured that we will be watching our CC online statements daily, as we regularly do anyway, for any fraudulent activities!

It is time to have legislation in place that does not allow breaches like this to fly under the radar or remain undisclosed as is the case here for _weeks_ after the breach. Our governments need to step up to protect their constituents.

It is _NOT_ up to the CEO of Global Payments Inc. to weigh things out with regards to breach disclosure.

Good on VISA for pulling their support of Global Payments Inc. Now, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and others need to follow suit.

It is time for the credit card industry to start outright punishing payment processors for not having proper security elements in place to protect our credit card information.

Multi-Tier type authentication like AuthAnvil is not that expensive to implement. Training folks up and beyond the lowest common denominator is also a good step. That’s the cost of doing business in today’s hostile online environment.

And, no, there is NO excuse for a payment processor to not have our data protected using the best possible methods. Period.

Just ask the people that lose their life to trying to recover their identity, credit, and any other aspect of getting things straightened out after their credit card(s) and/or identity have been stolen.

• Krebs On Security: MasterCard, VISA Warn of Processor Breach
• Original story broke here.
• Wall Street Journal: Card Processor: Hackers Stole Account Numbers
• Reuters: Global Payments stands by view of card breach
• The Register: Visa dumps Global Payments after it flashed 1.5m US card numbers: Processing firm: This was our first intrusion...

Original Hat Tip: Susan Bradley

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Online Banking “Security”

We are a bit puzzled at why our online banking services are not as secure, at least in our opinion, as we think they should be.

We just finished configuring a new online account at Scotiabank that is based here in Canada.

This is their suggested online password recommendation:

And, one we have finished our sign-up process we see:

But, Scotiabank, if security is important then why are we not allowed to use a pass phrase _with_ special characters?

Not only that, why are the number fields already populated in the online sign-in page?

The “Online Security Guarantee” is kind of cute. :)

“We will fully reimburse you . . . provided that you have met your security responsibilities.”

Okay, so we click the Safe Computing Practices link to find out what our responsibilities are and:

We pretty much follow all of the above with the exception of number 2. We have encountered enough problems with Trusteer’s Rapport Security Software (one example we have blogged) that we will not be trusting any of our systems to their software.

Now, one plus on Scotiabank’s side is that their online portal’s password request actually _is_ case sensitive. We work with other banks that do not pay attention to case in the password field.

Conclusion

Now, obviously the above critique is based on _our_ experience working in I.T. and all of the good, bad, and ugly that we encounter in the way of security situations.

The reality is that the banks have a business decision to make when it comes to reaching the average user.

Thus, in the end we have a good understanding of the _why_ the banks are closer to the lowest common denominator when it comes to online “security”.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Some Awesome Security MVP Reading For Monday’s Coffee Break: Mobile Security Risks

Security MVP Harry Waldron has some great blog posts linking to various information on mobile device security or the lack thereof:

• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Android banking malware increases in wild
• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Mobile Malware - Increased Attacks during 2011
• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Android Malware - Design Strategies using Staged Attacks with User permissions
• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Android - Malware turns phone into a proxy relay device

Okay, so maybe these will be good for this afternoon’s coffee break! :)

Man, how the time has flown by this morning!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Via Phone: Hi, We are the National Internet Service and You are Sending Our Systems a Virus!

One of our client’s users had the presence of mind to pause for a moment when they were called at home this morning and heard the line:

Hi, we are the National Internet Service and your computer is sending our systems a virus! Please sit down at your computer and . . .

They interrupted the speaker and told them that they would be calling their IT support folks ASAP and hung up.

When things like this happen it is important to get in touch with the authorities that handle fraud cases such as this:

• In Canada: Phone Busters

Contact for the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre:

It's not always easy to spot a scam, and new ones are invented every day.

If you suspect that you may be a target of fraud, or if you have already sent funds, don't be embarrassed - you're not alone.

If you want to report a fraud, or if you need more information, contact The Canadian Anti- Fraud Centre:

Toll Free: 1-888-495-8501

Toll Free Fax: 1-888-654-9426
Email: info@antifraudcentre.ca

To report economic crime on-line please click here

One can only imagine how one can be fooled into providing all sorts of information to a caller like this.

A pearl of wisdom from my Dad: Never volunteer _anything_ in the way of information. Be specific, to the point, and KISS.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

An Interesting Read – Keylogger Found On Factory Original Samsung Laptops

Remember the Sony Rootkit fiasco not so long ago?

In the following two part article on the Network World Web site, it looks as though Samsung is placing a clandestine product on their laptops that logs keystrokes:

1. NetworkWorld: Samsung installs keylogger on its laptop computers: Part 1 – Discovery
2. NetworkWorld: Samsung responds to installation of keylogger on its laptop computers (Part 2)

To quote Part 2:

“The supervisor who spoke with me was not sure how this software ended up in the new laptop thus put me on hold. He confirmed that yes, Samsung did knowingly put this software on the laptop to, as he put it, ‘monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used.’"

It is really awesome that we have folks out there that are watching our backs! 8-O

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Mobile Security–Best Practices by F-Secure

As more and more of our users are incorporating some form of mobile device whether Apple, BlackBerry, Android or other the need to be aware of our client’s security vulnerabilities through those becomes all the more acute.

• F-Secure Blog: Mobile Security Tips

The tips are as follows:

1. Keep your system updated
2. Install a security application in your phone
3. Watch where you click and land
4. Refrain from doing transactions on a public network
5. Install or obtain applications from trusted source
6. Make it a habit to check each applications' data access on your phone

The final point is one of interest since many users do not realize that the applications running on their handheld devices are indeed phoning home with the device’s unique ID and GPS data.

• Wired: Epicenter: Apple, App Makers Sued Over User-Tracking

As always, it is very important to read the Terms & Conditions for any supposedly “free” or even paid services and/or products from _any_ online or on-premise vendor.

• F-Secure Hat Tip: Harry Waldron.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer