Posted on 03/04/2013 9:14:27 AM PST by Olog-hai
The explosion in smartphone use is leaving businesses vulnerable to cyberattacks since almost half of their employees’ mobile phones can become a target, according to new research.
The 2012 Cyber Security Risk Report—published by Hewlett-Packard at the recent RSA security conference in San Francisco—found that mobile phone vulnerabilities rose significantly (68%) from 2011 to 2012, mirroring the growth of mobile applications and the use of smartphones.
Of the mobile applications tested by HP, 48% of them were found to be vulnerable to unauthorized access.
The European Council and Parliament are to consider a Commission-proposed cybersecurity strategy in the coming months. In January, the EU opened a cybercrime center as part of a broader strategy to encourage electronic commerce. …
(Excerpt) Read more at euractiv.com ...
Don’t tell swordmaker that there is a correlation between adoption and hacking. He swore that viruses couldn’t happen on Macs, but they do/did once they became popular enough.
Now with cell phones androids will most likely be the largest to attack but all cell phones are subject to being hacked. While iPhones and Windows Phones are more secure overall one must not rely soley on obscurity and no big announcements to think they are secure.
The European Council and Parliament are to consider a Commission-proposed cybersecurity strategy in the coming months.Now that’s some relief; if anybody knows how to safe us from hackers, it is our Dear Leader, chief technology wizard Herman van Rompuy!
Uh, got-q? We are STILL waiting for that serious virus to infect Macs... Don't bring up that mythical 600,000 trojan. So far, no one has found any members of the so-called Macbot. It was merely a list of supposed members of the Bot by ID number... which included totally ineligible Macs that did not even have Java installed on them, which meant they could NOT have been infected. . . some of which had not even left the factory yet. It was a basic hoax.
So, thus far we are at a count of about 45 trojan horse programs and variants in about eight families, all of which an updated OSX will identify and prevent from being installed, downloaded, or run. Compared to how many for the various Windows platforms including Windows 7 and now 8?
As to the mobile world. Yes, there are some iOS malware apps out there... but they run on Jailbroken devices. Apple is not responsible for idiots who breach their own city walls and invite in the badguys. An unjailbroken iPhone and iPad is pretty damn secure. Android is not.
Reading the report this article refers to, the exploits seem to mostly apply to Android. Gee, guess they don't talk about that in the article. Do they? Nope, like good fear mongers, they generalize. Like them, I see you generalize it to all mobile phones... just as you assumed, for now going on 14 years, that ALL computers were at the same risk of exposure when they were and are not. Apple NEVER relied on security by obscurity. . . yet they are still pretty damn secure. Microsoft finally took steps to fix their gaping holes. . . but it took them too damn long.
The company (Apple- Swordmaker) said it has found no evidence that the attackers stole any data
By Agam Shah, IDG News Service
February 19, 2013 05:30 PM ET
IDG News Service - Apple on Tuesday said it was a victim of a malware attack when a small number of systems inside the company were compromised.
The malware attack was tied to a vulnerability in a Java plug-in for browsers, Apple said in a statement sent via email. (Note that the SAME Java plug in vulnerability resulted in breaking into Windows XP, 7 & 8 computers and actual theft of data including passwords and sensitive information! — Swordmaker)
Since OS X Lion, Macs have shipped without Java installed, and as an added security measure OS X automatically disables Java if it has been unused for 35 days. To protect Mac users that have installed Java, today we are releasing an updated Java malware removal tool that will check Mac systems and remove this malware if found.This is about how Apple Macs are protected AGAINST this malware by Apple.
Did you notice there were no Tweets or comments on that “Crises” Trojan article? Never seen in the wild. It’s a proof of concept Trojan that is already included in Apple’s database. . . and will be blocked. Not the problem you WANT it to be. Ho hum.
Intego wrote that Dockster was uploaded on Friday to VirusTotal, a website that tests malware samples against a variety of security software programs to see if the malicious programs are detected. Dockster has also been found "on a website dedicated to the Dalai Lama that has been compromised," Intego wrote.
By the way, for-q, the article was about MOBILE SECURITY, not Macs. My response to you referred to the security of iOS jail broken and in-jail broken compared to Android. Your links were unresponsive nonsequiturs.
Wow have you stopped reading for comprehension again?
My response CLEARLY was in regard to your past comments about Mac being secure and no attacks being found on them. Hell I showed where Apple themselves had malware internally on them.
So now go read my original comment where I said Android is the most targeted (its’ also the most popular). So doesn’t mean that iOS and Windows Phone aren’t able to be attacked, rather that android is currently the biggest and easiest target for the time being.
You’re funny. You state give me one example. I give you several.
Then you quibble over the proof and use circular logic then attack windows (as if that makes it ok that Apple does it too).
Show you an example of OSX being attacked
1) Apple themselves admit they were attacked
Your response: But no data was confirmed stolen. However, the much bigger wide spread used machine Windows was also attacked via the same exploit and some data was confirmed stolen.
So how does that make it ok that Apple was exploited? Also how do we know that data was NOT stolen. Hell with Apple’s lack of admitting that they have security issues they may not have been setup to monitor for such activity.
But this just proves my point. The larger the install base the more exploit attempts that will be made. OSX is now getting bigger so expect more things like this to happen.
BTW: Yes NOW they have the vulnerability patched. But SQL Slammer was patched and yet people still got the virus AND it wasn’t even a windows virus yet Windows gets blamed for it. In fact, I think you’ve used Slammer as an example in the past. So pot meet the kettle.
What was CLEAR ythat it was about past comments? My comments were true when they were made. They are true now. The existence of TROJAN applications that are installed by the user themselves through third party plug-ins, especially ones that do not result in any damage to the system or the theft of any data on a Mac, do not change what was said about the facts in the past. This is now, and I stated the facts as they exist today. It's amusing that these SAME third party Trojans that are cross platform, when infecting a Windows box, DO result in damage and data theft.
Your statement in your original was meant to imply that iOS was vulnerable. . . When as of now, it is not. For that reason, it is becoming the enterprise phone of choice, replacing the Blackberry for that purpose. Android is not even in the running.
Your articles were not even good examples and in fact showed the Mac is still pretty safe and secure. . . Compared to the competition. You have been beating this broken drum for years. It's getting old.
Actually, I didn't. I stated a fact, not a challenge: "We are STILL waiting for that serious virus to infect Macs." And the I listed the state of Mac malware as it currently exists: ". . .thus far we are at a count of about 45 trojan horse programs and variants in about eight families, all of which an updated OSX will identify and prevent from being installed, downloaded, or run." Then i asked you about a comparison to the state of malware in the Windows world: "Compared to how many for the various Windows platforms including Windows 7 and now 8?", which, frankly, was rhetorical, for-q, as I know how abysmal that is.
You responded with a pathetic list of articles on minor Trojans (all included in the 45 I had already mentioned in my post, so you weren't revealing anything at all), all of which used Java for their means of incursion which Macs DO NOT EVEN INCLUDE BY DEFAULT, which was the topic of one of your linked articles! AND as I mentioned, not pertinent to the topic of this thread. Non sequiturs.
Finally, even if an an OS is attacked, it cannot be said to be exploited, if there is no successful gain for the attacker. I.e., damage done or data collected. Your speculation that Apple may not have known if data were accessed or not is specious. I assure you, they know. The engineers at Apple who discovered these invaded machines thoroughly examined the incursion and the fact that OSX runs the Java code in the affected machines in a sandbox precludes data theft. Your adding words such as "no data was confirmed stolen" is NOT ethical. That is not what Apple said. . . and your way of stating it has a totally different implication, which YOU intended. Nor did I state it that way. Both Apple and I were explicit. NO DATA WAS STOLEN. . . Yet with Windows, on all versions invaded, data was stolen. That's a big difference. On the Mac, while there was an invasion, there was no successful exploitation of that invasion. It was NOT "exploited," the Windows machines were exploited. Words mean things.
Clearly you can’t read all you have to do is read my comment about android and iOS and Windows phone and you’ll see exactly what OSes I was referring to.
geez...ever since OSX has gone down like a Mexican hooker you’re all upset and have lost all reason. No wonder Macs are preferred by liberals. They fit their personalities.
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