CYBER THREAT FOR 2013

To help organizations prepare for next year, the Websense Security Labs announced a few predictions for the 2013 threat landscape
 
Since the spear-phishing attack on the White House, it is evident that cyber criminals have gained confidence and momentum in 2012. To help organisations prepare for next year, the Websense Security Labs announced a few predictions for the 2013 threat landscape.
Highlights include:

Mobile devices will be the new target for cross-platform threats: As development barriers are removed, mobile threats will be able to leverage a huge library of shared code. Attacks will also continue to increasingly use social engineering lures to capture user credentials on mobile devices;

Cyber criminals will use bypass methods to avoid traditional sandbox detection: More organisations are utilising virtual machine defenses to test for malware and threats. As a result, attackers are taking new steps to avoid detection by recognising virtual machine environments. These advanced attacks will remain hidden until they are sure they aren't in a virtual security environment;

Legitimate mobile app stores will host more malware in 2013: Malicious apps will increasingly slip through validation processes. They will continue to pose risks to organisations enabling Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies;

Government-sponsored attacks will increase as new players enter: Expect more governments to enter the cyber-warfare arena. In the wake of several publicised cyber-warfare events, there are a number of contributing factors that will drive more countries toward these strategies and tactics;

Malicious emails are making a comeback: Timed and targeted spear-phishing email attacks, along with an increase in malicious email attachments, are providing new opportunities for cyber crime.

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Posted By Sundeep aka SunTechie

Sundeep is a Founder of Youth Talent Auzzar, a passionate blogger, a programmer, a developer, CISE and these days he is pursuing his graduation in Engineering with Computer Science dept.

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All aBoUt "Phishing"

The act of sending an Email to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

The Email directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is Bogus and set up only to steal the User’s information.

Phishing scams could be

v Emails inviting you to join a Social Group, asking you to Login using your Username and Password.

v Email saying that Your Bank Account is locked and Sign in to Your Account to Unlock IT.

v Emails containing some Information of your Interest and asking you to Login to Your Account.

v Any Email carrying a Link to Click and asking you to Login.

Prevention against Phishing

v Read all the Email Carefully and Check if the Sender is Original

v Watch the Link Carefully before Clicking

v Always check the URL in the Browser before Signing IN to your Account

v Always Login to Your Accounts after opening the Trusted Websites, not by Clicking in any other Website or Email.

How to do e-mail tracing?

Tracing an Email means locating the Original Sender and Getting to know the IP address of the network from which the Email was actually generated.

To get the information about the sender of the Email we first must know the structure of the Email.

As we all know the travelling of the Email. Each message has exactly one header, which is structured into fields. Each field has a name and a value. Header of the Email contains all the valuable information about the path and the original sender of the Email.

For tracing an email Address You need to go to your email account and log into the email which you want to trace after that you have to find the header file of the email which is received by you.

You will get Source code of the email.
for rediffmail

for gmail

for yahoo

Now see from bottom to top and the first IP address you find is the IP address of the sender.

Once you have the IP Address of the sender, go to the URL www.ip2location.com and Find the location of the IP Address.

And you are done we have traced the person.....

And from where he had sent the email.

What is Keystroke loggers?

Keystroke Loggers (or Key loggers) intercept the Target’s keystrokes and either saves them in a file to be read later, or transmit them to a predetermined destination accessible to the Hacker.

 Since Keystroke logging programs record every keystroke typed in via the keyboard, they can capture a wide variety of confidential information, including passwords, credit card numbers, and private Email correspondence, names, addresses, and phone numbers.

Types of keyloggers

 Hardware keylogger

 Software keylogger

Some Famous keyloggers

Ø Actual Spy

http://tinyurl.com/c47gtnt

Ø Perfect Keylogger

http://tinyurl.com/2egdk4f

Ø Family Keylogger

http://tinyurl.com/cuqxxkx

Ø Home Keylogger

http://tinyurl.com/yhgwels

Ø Adramax Keylogger

http://tinyurl.com/3yst4kj

how to secure your E-Mail Account ?

ü Always configure a Secondary Email Address for the recovery purpose.

ü Properly configure the Security Question and Answer in the Email Account.

ü Do Not Open Emails from strangers.

ü Do Not Use any other’s computer to check your Email.

ü Take Care of the Phishing Links.

ü Do not reveal your Passwords to your Friends or Mates.

E- mail hackinG

Consequences of fake emails

v Email from your Email ID to any Security Agency declaring a Bomb Blast can make you spend rest of your life behind the iron bars.

v Email from you to your Girl friend or Boy friend can cause Break-Up and set your friend’s to be in relationship.

v Email from your Email ID to your Boss carrying your Resignation Letter or anything else which you can think of.

v There can be so many cases drafted on Fake Emails.

Proving a fake Email

v Every Email carry Header which has information about the Travelling Path of the Email

v Check the Header and Get the location from the Email was Sent

v Check if the Email was sent from any other Email Server or Website

v Headers carry the name of the Website on which the mail sending script was used.

Email Bombing

v Email Bombing is sending an Email message to a particular address at a specific victim site. In many instances, the messages will be large and constructed from meaningless data in an effort to consume additional system and network resources. Multiple accounts at the target site may be abused, increasing the denial of service impact.

Email Spamming

v Email Spamming is a variant of Bombing; it refers to sending Email to hundreds or thousands of users (or to lists that expand to that many users). Email spamming can be made worse if recipients reply to the Email, causing all the original addressees to receive the reply. It may also occur innocently, as a result of sending a message to mailing lists and not realizing that the list explodes to thousands of users, or as a result of a responder message (such as vacation(1)) that is setup incorrectly.

Email Password Hacking

v There is no specified attack available just to hack the password of Email accounts. Also, it is not so easy to compromise the Email server like Yahoo, Gmail, etc.

v Email Password Hacking can be accomplished via some of the Client Side Attacks. We try to compromise the user and get the password of the Email account before it reaches the desired Email server.

PHP Mail sending script

All it takes is the right configuration (to send mail using a local or a remote server) and one function:

mail().

Send Email from a PHP Script Example

The first argument to this function is the recipient, the second specifies the message's subject and the third one should contain the body. So to send a simple sample message, we could use:

<?php

 $to = "recipient@example.com";

 $subject = "Hi!";

 $body = "Hi,\n\nHow are you?";

 if (mail($to, $subject, $body)) {

   echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");

  } else {

   echo("<p>Message delivery failed...</p>");

  }

 ?>

That's it! Note that you can have PHP validate your email addresses for correctness before sending.

Use Custom Headers (e.g. "From:") in Mail from a PHP Script

Do you want to set a custom From: address, maybe taken from the form you send, or another custom header line? It is but an additional argument you need.

Protecting Your Script from Spammer Exploit

If you use the mail() function (in combination with a web form in particular), make sure you check it is called from the desired page and protect the form with a CAPTCHA maybe. You can also check for suspicious strings in any arguments (say, "Bcc:" followed by a number of email addresses).

Send Email from a PHP Script with SMTP Authentication

If mail() does not work for you, you have options, too. The mail() function included with stock PHP does not support SMTP authentication, for example. If mail() does not work for you for this or another reason, try the PEAR Mail package, which is much more comprehensive and sending mail almost as easily from your PHP scripts.

Email hacking

How Email Works?

Email sending and receiving is controlled by the Email servers. All Email service providers configure Email Server before anyone can Sign into his or her account and start communicating digitally. Once the servers are ready to go, users from across the world register in to these Email servers and setup an

Email account. When they have a fully working Email account, they sign into their accounts and start connecting to other users using the Email services.

Email Travelling Path

Let’s say we have two Email providers, one is Server1.com and other is Server2.in, ABC is a registered user in Server1.com and XYZ is a registered user in Server2.in.

ABC signs in to his Email account in Server1.com, he then writes a mail to the xyz@server2.in and click on Send and gets the message that the Email is sent successfully.

But what happens behind the curtains, the Email from the computer of abc@server1.com is forwarded to the Email server of Server1.com. Server1 then looks for server2.in on the internet and forwards the Email of the server2.in for the account of XYZ. Server2.in receives the Email from server1.com and puts it in the account of XYZ.

XYZ then sits on computer and signs in to her Email account. Now she has the message in her Email inbox.

Email Service Protocols

SMTP

SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. SMTP is used when Email is delivered from an Email client, such as Outlook Express, to an Email server or when Email is delivered from one Email server to another. SMTP uses port 25.

POP3

POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol. POP3 allows an Email client to download an Email from an Email server. The POP3 protocol is simple and does not offer many features except for download. Its design assumes that the Email client downloads all available Email from the server, deletes them from the server and then disconnects. POP3 normally uses port 110.

IMAP

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP shares many similar features with POP3. It, too, is a protocol that an Email client can use to download Email from an Email server. However, IMAP includes many more features than POP3. The IMAP protocol is designed to let users keep their Email on the server. IMAP requires more disk space on the server and more CPU resources than POP3, as all Emails are stored on the server. IMAP normally uses port 143.

Configuring an Email Server

Email server software like Post cast Server, Hmailserver, Surge mail, etc can be used to convert your Desktop PC into an Email sending server.

HMailServer is an Email server for Microsoft Windows. It allows you to handle all your Email yourself without having to rely on an Internet service provider (ISP) to manage it. Compared to letting your ISP host your Email, HMailServer adds flexibility and security and gives you the full control over spam protection.

Email Security

Now let’s check how secure this fast mean of communication is. There are so many attacks which are applied on Emails. There are people who are the masters of these Email attacks and they always look for the innocent peoplewho are not aware of these Email tricks and ready to get caught their trap.

You have to make sure that you are not an easy target for those people. You have to secure your Email identity and profile, make yourself a tough target.

If you have an Email Id Do not feel that it does not matters if hacked because there is no important information in that Email account, because you do not know if someone gets your Email id password and uses your Email to send a threatening Email to the Ministry or to the News Channels.

Attacker is not bothered about your data in the Email. He just wants an Email ID Victim which will be used in the attack. There are a lots of ways by which one can use your Email in wrong means, i am sure that you would have come across some of the cased where a student gets an Email from his friends abusing him or cases on Porn Emails where the owner of the Email does not anything about the sent Email.

Email Spoofing

Email spoofing is the forgery of an Email header so that the message appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Distributors of spam often use spoofing in an attempt to get recipients to open, and possibly even respond to, their solicitations. Spoofing can be used legitimately.

There are so many ways to send the Fake Emails even without knowing the password of the Email ID. The Internet is so vulnerable that you can use anybody's Email ID to send a threatening Email to any official personnel.

Methods to send fake Emails

Open Relay Server

Web Scripts

Fake Emails: Open Relay Server

An Open Mail Relay is an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server configured in such a way that it allows anyone on the Internet to send Email through it, not just mail destined ‘To’ or ‘Originating’ from known users.

An Attacker can connect the Open Relay Server via Telnet and instruct the server to send the Email.

Open Relay Email Server requires no password to send the Email.

Fake Emails: via web script

Web Programming languages such as PHP and ASP contain the mail sending functions which can be used to send Emails by programming Fake headers i.e.” From: To: Subject:”

There are so many websites available on the Internet which already contains these mail sending scripts. Most of them provide the free service.

Some of Free Anonymous Email Websites are:

Ø Mail.Anonymizer.name (Send attachments as well)

Ø FakEmailer.net

Ø FakEmailer.info

Ø Deadfake.com

Ø www.hackingtech.co.tv/index/0-93