Denial of Service attack (DoS)

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack prevents users from accessing a computer or website.

In a DoS attack, a hacker attempts to overload or shut down a computer, so that
legitimate users can no longer access it. Typical DoS attacks target web servers
and aim to make websites unavailable. No data is stolen or compromised, but the
interruption to the service can be costly for a company.

The most common type of DoS attack involves sending more traffic to a computer than
it can handle. Rudimentary methods include sending outsized data packets or sending
email attachments with names that are longer than permitted by the mail programs.[sintuhack]

An attack can also exploit the way that a “session” of communications is established
when a user first contacts the computer. If the hacker sends many requests for a
connection rapidly and then fails to respond to the reply, the bogus requests are left in
a buffer for a while. Genuine users’ requests cannot be processed, so that they can’t
contact the computer.[sintuhack]

Another method is to send an “IP ping” message (message requiring a response from
other computers) that appears to come from the victim’s computer. The message goes
out to a large number of computers, which all try to respond. The victim is flooded with
replies and the computer can no longer handle genuine traffic.[sintuhack]

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack uses numerous computers to launch the attack. Typically, hackers use a virus or Trojan to open a “back door” on other people’s
computers and take control of them. These “zombie” computers can be used to launch
a coordinated denial-of-service attack.[sintuhack]

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Top Ten Credit Card Safety/SECURITY Tips

There are hundreds of credit cards scams that enable the wrong people to gain your account and identity information. Identity theft is a major problem and can be avoided using these ten simple safety techniques for credit card use.

1. Watch where you shop. It is important to be aware of store policies when it comes to credit card use. How is your information protected? Are the systems used to process payment information secure?

2. Shred all information received from the credit card company. With the high instances of identity theft occurring throughout the country it is essential to take measures to avoid allowing others to view personal information.

3. When shopping online, ensure that only safe and secured websites are used for the purchases of gifts and other items. A locked padlock should be seen in the internet browser to ensure the maximum safety measures are being taken.

4. Use automated banking machines at the bank over machines located at convenience stores and within malls. Using these bank machines reduces the risk of identity theft from information being scanned as the card is swiped through the banking machine.

5. Report a card lost or stolen immediately after the card has been discovered lost or the information has been stolen. The credit card company can immediately place a hold on the account, as well as any purchases made through the account can be protected under purchase protection.

6. Ensure credit cards are signed the moment that they are received and activated. Signing the credit card reduces the chance of the card being used in a case of identity theft.

7. Keep account numbers written in a safe place that cannot be accessed by others. Credit card account numbers should not be written within the wallet, or any other area where they can be easily accessed.

8. Never lend credit cards to anyone or allow anyone to use the number to make purchases over the telephone or the internet. It is important to be aware of all credit card activity and prevent future use of card information.

9. Check your account statement each month for regular and periodic use. Customers that check the account statement are more likely to catch identity theft before it becomes devastating to the card holder.

10. Don’t keep extra copies of credit cards in the house, unless they are in a safe, under lock and key. An extra credit card can be couriered to the card holder in as little as a day – therefore it is important to avoid keeping excess copies of the credit card at home.

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We can Trace a Stolen SIM Card of any mobile phone....

All information about your cell phone is stored on a SIM card inside your phone. This is the card cell phone companies
program when you first activate your cell phone. When your cell phone is stolen, the SIM card is often the only way to trace the phone’s location.

Tracking your stolen cell phone through the SIM card is mainly done through your cell phone provider. As soon as you realize the phone has been stolen, call your cell phone provider. Provide them with your account number, cell phone number and approximate time the phone was stolen. They can then track the phone’s activity. If the SIM card has not been changed out, this will help the cell phone company lead authorities to your phone’s location.

If GPS is enabled on your cell phone, you may be able to monitor your cell phone’s location from home. This will require the cell phone to be turned on and the SIM card active. Open the web page you use to access the GPS locator on your phone. Call authorities as soon as you have a set location.

Try calling your cell phone. Some thieves will actually answer the phone. The call will provide a way for your cell phone provider to track the last known location. Authorities may also be able to provide this service as well.

If the SIM card has already been changed out, finding the cell phone itself may be impossible. However, your cell phone provider can still attempt to trace the location of the SIM card. When the cell phone number assigned to the SIM card’s serial number no longer match, this alerts the provider to the theft. They will then be able to trace the stolen SIM card through the new cell phone number.

New applications are being created that work silently to track the SIM card and cell phone. These applications run quietly to prevent alerting the thief to their presence. One such application is Smart Phone Guard. The application hides itself the moment the SIM card is replaced. A message is then sent to friends’ numbers. The numbers are determined at the time the application is installed. The application also allows you to remotely delete any personal information such as photos and videos remotely through one of the friend’s numbers.

Check with your cell phone provider for other applications that may be able to trace the location of stolen SIM cards. These applications will give you peace of mind that no matter what happens to your phone, you’ll still have control. For older phones, newer applications may not be compatible.

In the event your SIM card or cell phone is stolen, report the incident immediately to your cell phone provider. This will prevent unauthorized calls and charges to your account. For many thieves, once the phone is deactivated, they simply discard the phone. Ask your provider to trace the SIM card if possible. GPS enabled phones can also be tracked through the SIM card and phone number. There are several different ways to trace a stolen SIM card with new methods being developed daily.

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World of Warcraft Attacked by Phishers

World of Warcraft players desperate for a new mount to traverse the online role-playing game's fantasy world are getting a reality check from hackers who have devised a clever pop-up phishing scam to spread malware.

Security technicians at F-Secure Security Lab on Tuesday posted a blog entry Tuesday detailing the latest scam making its way through the world's most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).

With more than 11.5 million monthly subscribers, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft is not only the most successful MMORPG in history, but also a very popular environment for hackers, phishers and assorted click-fraud scam artists.

This latest hoax preys on players' desire to add mounts for their online avatars to ride. After clicking on a link to get a new trial mount, players are redirected to a malicious phishing Web site that mimics an official WoW page.

Those players who are still hard up for a mount are then prompted to enter their WoW log-in details.

"Apart from losing all the gold and items saved, a compromised account could also be used to send out the malicious messages to other victims, adding insult to injury," the researchers warned in their blog post. "An interesting detail about this particular site is that a reverse-IP check on its IP address turned up over a dozen other WoW phishing sites."

F-Secure officials remind players that phishing sites like the one identified today are blocked by the security firm's browser protection software.

World of Warcraft holds an estimated 62 percent of the MMORPG market. The third expansion set, Cataclysm, was announced at the BlizzCon conference earlier this year.

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14 More Open Source Tools to Protect Your Identity

AS IN PREVIOUS POST I DID EXPLAIN 14 OPEN TOOL FOR SECURE YOUR DATA,IN THIS POST I ADD SOME MORE TOOL AND EXPLAIN TO--SO READ AND APLY THEN GIVE COMENT...AS ADVICE....YOUR ADVICE WILL PROVIDE ME A WAY AND ENERGY TO COLLECT MORE INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR NEED
To help you keep from making the same sort of mistake I did, we've compiled a list of 14 more open source apps that can help protect your identity. Some of these fit into traditional security categories, like anti-spam, anti-virus, and firewalls. Others, like browsers, e-mail, and PDF tools, we've included in this list because they include encryption or other security features that can help you protect yourself.
No one is likely to need all 14 of these apps, but the list should give you plenty of options for filling in any security gaps in your system.Open Source Anti-Spam=========

Open Source Compression

1. 7-zip

7-zip offers higher than normal compression ratios and supports multiple file formats. However, in order to take advantage of its strong AES-256 encryption capabilities, you'll need to create either 7z or zip files. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

2. PeaZip

One of the most flexible compression utilities available, PeaZip currently supports about 90 different archive file formats. It also supports multiple encryption standards and even offers a two-factor authentication option for maximum security. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

3. KGB Archiver

One big benefit of using this compression utility is that it encrypts files with AES-256 encryption automatically. It also supports multiple file formats and nine different languages (but not Russian, which seems odd for an app named after the KGB). Operating System: Windows.

Open Source Data Destruction

4. Darik's Boot And Nuke

Also known as "DBAN," Darik's Boot and Nuke allows you to create a boot disk (CD, DVD, thumb drive, or even an old floppy) which will completely erase all the drives it can detect on your system. It's a great tool if you're getting rid of an old computer, but not as helpful if you're just deleting a few files. Operating System: OS Independent.

5. Eraser

If you need to erase only a few files—perhaps your financial or tax records, work files, or as the website suggests, bad poetry—Eraser is the tool for you. It overwrites deleted data multiple times, making it nearly impossible to retrieve the "erased" files. Operating System: Windows.

6. BleachBit

Like Eraser, BleachBit can completely erase files, but it also includes a number of other features to help protect your privacy and speed up your system. For example, it can erase your cache, remove your browsing history and cookies, clean up junk left by more than 50 applications, and much more. Operating System: Windows, Linux.

Open Source Email

7. Thunderbird

This e-mail client from Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) includes built-in encryption capabilities, anti-spam, and phishing protection. It further protects you by blocking remote images in e-mail and alerting you when security updates become available. Operating System, Windows, Linux, OS X.

8. Zmail

Need to send a secret e-mail? Zmail lets you send e-mail messages anonymously if you know your SMTP server address. Operating System: OS Independent.

Open Source Encryption

9. AxCrypt

With more than 1.5 million registered users, AxCrypt has become one of the most popular open-source encryption applications. It integrates seamlessly with Windows—simply right-click a file to encrypt it. Operating System: Windows.

10. TrueCrypt

With more than 12 million downloads, TrueCrypt is also a very popular way to protect your files. While AxCrypt focuses on encrypting individual files, TrueCrypt makes it easy to encrypt a drive partition or an entire drive (including USB thumb drives). Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

11. Gnu Privacy Guard

Also known as "GPG," Gnu Privacy Guard lets you encrypt and digitally sign documents before transmitting them. This is a command line tool, but the Web site includes links to a number of graphical interfaces for the software. Operating System: Windows, Linux, Unix, OS X.

Open Source File Transfer

12. FileZilla

FileZilla supports regular FTP and the more secure FTPS and SFTP protocols. While the client version should work with any operating system, the server version only works with Windows machines. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

13. WinSCP

This Windows-only file transfer tool has won tons of awards and supports FTP, SFTP, and the older SCP file transfer protocols. Note that it's a client-only tool—i.e., you can use it to download files from other sites, but you can't use it to set up your own FTP server. Operating System: Windows.

Open Source File Sharing

14. Waste

While most file sharing networks are designed to help users circumvent copyright laws, Waste at least claims to be aimed at law-abiding citizens. With it, small groups (10-50 nodes) can chat and share data securely without opening their systems to unauthorized users. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

Open Source Firewalls

15. Firestarter

Unlike most of the open-source firewalls, Firestarter can protect a single PC as well as a network. Best of all, you can probably install it and be up and running in just a couple of minutes. Operating System: Linux.

16. IPCop

IPCop is a complete Linux distribution designed to be used as a standalone firewall and boasts a very user-friendly interface. To use it, you'll need an old PC to connect to your network. Operating System: Linux.

17. Vyatta

Vyatta sells open source networking hardware and software commerically atwww.vyatta.com, and they also maintain the free, community version. With the community version, you can turn a PC into a network appliance that offers routing, firewalling, VPN, intrusion prevention, and WAN load balancing services. Operating System: Linux.
32. SmoothWall E
Because it's designed to be used by people with no knowledge of Linux, SmoothWall Express is an excellent option if you aren't a technical whiz, but want to tackle setting up your own network. A supported commercial version is also available. Operating System: Linux.
33. LEA
The "Linux Embedded Appliance Framework" (aka LEAF) can be used as an Internet gateway, router, firewall, or wireless access point. This app requires a little more know-how than some of the other choices in the category, but is a good option. Operating System: Linux.

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14:-Open Source Tools to Protect Your Identity

Usually these lists of open source software start with statistics or general observations on current trends in the open source community. This one starts with a personal story.
I used to use a thumb drive to backup my budget software, and I also kept a copy of our tax returns on the same drive. While the files were password protected, I didn't encrypt them because the drive never left the house, and we don't exactly live in a high crime area.
Then one day my friend was looking for a drive to carry some files to the school where he teaches. As you probably guessed, he grabbed the drive with our financial info on it. And as you probably also guessed, someone stole his computer and the thumb drive right out of his classroom. As a result, I've had the great joy of spending many, many hours changing our account numbers, checking our credit reports, and setting up fraud alerts.
To help you keep from making the same sort of mistake I did, we've compiled a list of 14 open source apps that can help protect your identity. Some of these fit into traditional security categories, like anti-spam, anti-virus, and firewalls. Others, like browsers, e-mail, and PDF tools, we've included in this list because they include encryption or other security features that can help you protect yourself.
No one is likely to need all 14 of these apps, but the list should give you plenty of options for filling in any security gaps in your system.Open Source Anti-Spam
1. SpamAssassin
The highly acclaimed "#1 open-source spam filter," SpamAssassin, uses a number of different features to identify spam, including header tests, body phrase tests, Bayesian filtering, blacklists and whitelists, and others. It can be used on its own, but it's also been incorporated into a number of other commercial and open-source applications. Operating System: OS Independent.
2. ASSP
Humbly claiming to be "the absolute best SPAM fighting weapon that the world has ever known," ASSP is short for "Anti-Spam SMTP Proxy" Server. While it takes a little work to get it up and running at first, it doesn't require a lot of maintenance, and the site wiki includes extensive help on configuring the app so that it works for you. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.
3. Spamato
Available as an Outlook add-on, as a Thunderbird extension, or as a stand-alone proxy, Spamato uses multiple filters to separate junk mail from the stuff you actually want to receive. Unlike some anti-spam tools, it also lets you see why a message gets classified as spam and adjust your settings as necessary. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.
Open Source Anti-Spyware
4. Nixory
Nixory will quickly scan your system and remove any malicious cookies from Firefox. Unlike some similar apps, you can use it alongside other anti-virus or anti-spyware applications without first disabling those systems. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.
Open Source Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware
5. ClamAV
One of the best-known open-source security projects, ClamAV provides e-mail virus and malware scanning for Unix-based systems. Its owners update its prodigious virus database several times each day to provide up-to-the minute protection from evolving threats. Operating System: Linux.
6. ClamWin
Based on the well-respected ClamAV engine, ClamWin integrates with Microsoft Outlook and Windows Explorer to scan files for viruses and other malware. You can set it up to automatically download the updated virus database, and you can schedule system scans. However, unlike many commercial products, it does not include a real-time scanner for files you receive by e-mail. You'll need to save files and right-click in order to scan them for viruses. Operating System: Windows.
7. ClamTK
As you might expect, this is another interface for ClamAV, this time for Linux only. Operating System: Linux.
8. Moon Secure
This app also uses the Clam AV engine (though developers claim to be working on one of their own), but offers a different interface and some different features. Operating System: Windows.
Open Source Backup
9. Amanda
Currently protecting more than 500,000 computers, Amanda is one of the most popular (if not the most popular) open-source backup and recovery program. Importantly, it encrypts backup data both in transit and at rest. Several commercial vendors (notably, Zmanda) use Amanda to offer cloud backup services for users who prefer to store archived data off-site. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.
10. Areca Backup
Designed to be both flexible and simple, Areca Backup makes it extremely easy to archive your files and work with those archived files (browse, merge, track versions, etc.). It also gives users the option to encrypt backup files with strong algorithms. Operating System: Windows, Linux.
11. Bacula
While it's primarily aimed at enterprises and users with large networks, Bacula can also be used to backup a small home network or a single system. It's an excellent program (one of the most popular open source enterprise apps), but you need to be pretty tech-savvy to use it. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.
Open Source Browser
12. Firefox
An independent study cited on the Firefox site claims that Internet Explorer users are vulnerable to threats 98 percent of the time while Firefox users are only vulnerable 2 percent of the time. In addition to being secure, Firefox is fast and highly customizable. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.
13. Tor Browser Bundle
If you're really paranoid about privacy or have other reasons for wanting to browse the Internet anonymously, the Tor Bundle will install with your existing browser for ultimate protection. When its running, no one can tell what sites you are visiting, sites can't figure out your physical location, and you should be able to access sites that are blocked by governments or Web filtering software. You can also install it on a thumb drive for mobility. Operating System: Windows.
14. TorK
For Linux users, this Tor front-end lets you anonymously browse the Internet, send instant messages and e-mail, and more. Operating System: Linux.

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