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Archive for the ‘Security’ Category

Text scams are increasingly becoming common again due to the forthcoming Philippine national and local elections, as political campaigns take to rampant text messaging for faster political mobilization. Earlier, I received a text message with the following content:

May GOD bountifuly bles u & ur family. Have a blissful day Fr Frends of UNI-MAD Party List, United Movement Against Drugs no.181′Luv ur famly, say NO 2 drugs.

According to the Philippine National Statistical Coordination Board, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) reported an average of 250 million text messages sent daily in 2005. A more updated study reported an upsurge, which more than doubled the said figure in 2009, along with a growth in the number of mobile phone users (i.e., over 63 million).

Numbers such as these in a country known as the “text capital of the world” set the stage for the proliferation of texts scams such as one that features the following message:

CONGRATULATIONS!!!Your # WON TOYOTA AVANZA car w/ 300thou via electronic last Dec.21,2009. For details,please call now Rene Samonte. of Phil. Info. Center on this #.

As similar instances of text scams have already occurred in the past, it is best to take heed and be wary of your mobile phone activities before you fall prey to potential text scams.

Have you ever noticed how security often takes a backseat when trying something new? When I am trying out a protocol out for the first time, I barely skim the Security Considerations section of the RFC. Just the same, as more of us start experimenting with IPv6, the use of tunneling protocols is likely to rise. That is good for IPv6 adoption but not so hot for security.
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This afternoon I had an interesting experience while researching some of the traffic generated on this blog. Amoung the visitors was the link ‘http://[IP Address]:15871/cgi-bin/blockOptions.cgi’. At first, this may appear to be some sort of hack attempt – this of course sparked a huge concern and made my stress levels shoot from 0-100 in speeds that would make even a Bugatti Veyron extremely proud. After some intensive research, it was found that this is infact not a threat at all.
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Security researchers have discovered a way to steal cryptographic keys that are used to encrypt communications and authenticate users on mobile devices by measuring the amount of electricity consumed or the radio frequency emissions.
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Microsoft last week patched nine vulnerabilities, five marked “critical,” in Windows 7, a move that will require users upgrading to the new operating system starting Thursday to download a security update to keep their PCs secure. The patches were the first for Windows 7’s final build, dubbed RTM for “release to manufacturing,” that has been in some customers’ hands, primarily enterprises with volume licensing agreements, since August.
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