Application developers today develop software solutions keeping reliability and efficiency in mind. Unfortunately, security is not taken as seriously as it should be. However, it is essential that students be aware of generic security issues and secure coding practices. A CTF or “Capture The Flag Contest” is an opportunity for students to ‘apply’ and ‘practice' the theories they have learnt in college and exploit vulnerabilities and patch them thereby getting to know both offensive and defensive sides of IT security better.

CTF style ‘ethical’ hacking contests were introduced with this in mind, and are now quite popular in the US and Europe. Based on the research which has been carried out about various methods to teach security, this technique has been proved very useful. InCTF’10 is India’s first national level CTF-style ethical hacking contest hosted by Amrita Center of Cybersecurity, Amrita University. Its primary aim is to promote knowledge on how to counter a cyber attack. In this contest, teams must attempt to steal opponents’ flags. A flag is a file unique to each team’s machine. Participants then submit them to a central game server to earn points. Each team’s attacking and defending strategies are evaluated and their scores are awarded accordingly.

A team should comprise of maximum 5 students from a college. No prior experience is needed to participate as long as they are familiar with computer programming. The contest begins in the last week of February 2010 and consists of 3 rounds. For additional details on participation and sponsorship information, please visit http://inctf.amrita.ac.in

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Trend Micro has recently released a report that exposes the presence of 25,000 Indian email addresses and passwords on different hacker forums. The report states that the 25,000 Indian email ids and passwords is a mix of email ids and passwords from sites like yahoo, gmail, sify, different webmail addresses and a number of corporate email addresses as well. As per Trend Micro researchers, the nature of the list indicates that the email providers themselves were not hacked, but third party websites on which these users were registered were compromised. Trend Micro suggests that it is ideal for the Internet users to use different passwords for each website that they sign up to. That will help them to limit their risk in the case of any event such as ChristianSingles and Faithwriters website hackings. However, it is an extremely tough task to remember so many different sets of account details.

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RSA announced the results of its 2010 Global Online Consumer Security Survey that polled more than 4,500 consumers regarding their awareness of online threats, concerns with the safety of their personal information online and their willingness to share it, and desire for better identity protection.

Of the more significant survey findings, consumer awareness of phishing attacks has doubled between 2007 and 2009 and the number of consumers who reported falling prey to this attack increased six times during that same period of time. Social networking websites have become a hotbed for online criminals because of their global reach and the participation by hundreds of millions of active users from all walks of life.

Online banking continues to provide significant levels of convenience for consumers, with quick access to checking and savings accounts, the ability to pay bills automatically, transfer funds and perform other financial transactions. The RSA survey revealed that consumers using online banking (86 percent) websites shared more concern with the theft of their personal information than those using healthcare portals (64 percent) and government websites (68 percent). As a result of these concerns, more than half of all consumers reported that they are less likely to share information and interact on these websites.

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IT security and data protection firm, Sophos, has commented on the French Government's advice to its citizens to stop using Internet Explorer until critical security vulnerability in the browser is resolved. France's move follows this weekend's recommendations from the German government to do the same, after the unpatched security hole was blamed for the attack announced last week against Google and other companies.

"It looks like governments in Europe might be falling over themselves to advise the public and official departments to stop using the world's most popular internet browser until Microsoft manages to rustle up a fix for this critical security threat," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos. "But switching rashly away from Internet Explorer might be a mistake. Some users may be unfamiliar with a different browser and cause support problems, and some web-based applications may not work at all if you're not using Internet Explorer."

Further information about the issue and the French government's announcement, can be found on Graham Cluley's blog at: http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/01/18/french-government

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BitDefender recently warned of the rapid spread of malware intended for users of Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access. The unsolicited message directs users to “apply a new set of settings” to their mailboxes to update several “security upgrades” that have been applied. The link in the e-mail leads towards a Web page with Microsoft Office logos and instructs users to download and launch an executable file that will supposedly update their e-mail settings.

Instead, they receive a potent malware cocktail, including the Trojan.SWF.Dropper.E, a generic detection name for a family of Trojans sharing a similar behavior—they’re Flash files, which usually do not display any relevant images/animations, but drop and execute various malware files (by exploiting Adobe Shockwave Flash vulnerability). The dropped files may be subject to change and different variants can drop and execute different malware programs.

The attack also included other prolific malware, including one of the longest-lasting Trojan breeds—Trojan.Spy.ZBot.EKF, which was also intensively used into AH1N1-related malware distribution campaign. The latest variants are also able to steal bank-related information, login data, history of the visited Web sites and other details the user inputs, while also capturing screenshots of the compromised machine's desktop. Exploit.HTML.Agent.AM uses flash-object vulnerabilities that allow arbitrary code execution by loading a specially crafted flash object into a Web page. Once an infected Web page is opened, the Trojan creates a specially crafted SWF object which allows the execution of a payload into the heap (at the time this article was created, the downloaded file was detected as Trojan.Spy.ZBot.EKG; however, this may be subject to change).

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F5 Networks announced the availability of a new Application Ready Solution that provides high availability, improved performance, and scalability for the recently announced Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) 2010.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager maximizes the availability and performance of the Forefront UAG 2010 servers. F5 iRules commands provide custom client connection handling to ensure that traffic returns from application servers to clients via the same UAG server where the original connection was established. This solution enables multiple UAG servers to be deployed together for optimal utilization of resources, and scaling to service the required number of end-users. In addition, F5’s DevCentral portal, the only ADN online IT user community, provides a custom iRule specifically designed for Windows Server 2008 R2 Direct Access configuration. With DevCentral, customers can download free iRules, collaborate on innovative ADN solutions, and share best practices in the portal’s discussion forums.

This announcement marks the latest Application Ready Solution release from F5 supporting Microsoft’s 2010 product launches. F5 design and qualification testing on site with Microsoft validates the technical implementation and solution viability. Deployment guidance for F5 and Microsoft solutions is located online at www.f5.com/solutions/applications/microsoft/.

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HP introduced a security services portfolio and new solutions that offer increased vulnerability assessment, enhanced data protection and improved compliance controls, enabling customers to reduce infrastructure risks. The addition of new services and solutions to the HP Secure Advantage portfolio helps customers establish a comprehensive security strategy encompassing key areas of the technology infrastructure—from the data center to desktops and printers—across the enterprise and via the cloud.

Using a common reference model to help reduce complexity and manage costs, the new security services portfolio addresses all aspects of security in cloud computing and traditional technology environments. These include applications, business continuity, content, data integrity, data center, end points, networks, identity and access management, risk management, and security operations. Each category of offering is supported by many individual services and capabilities for various types of information security needs.

Through the new portfolio, HP offers a range of sourcing options to provide customers with flexibility to meet their security needs. Based on each customer’s individual business objectives, HP works to design, implement and maintain their own security environment; manage certain security functions for them; or outsource their entire security environment.

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IBM announced a major expansion of IBM Lotus collaboration software and delivery of enterprise secure mail for Android, the iPhone and Nokia Symbian smartphones.

As the collaboration leader, IBM is the first to announce plans to expand its enterprise mobile messaging offering in a future release of Lotus Notes Traveler. This will include mail, calendar and contacts support for versions 2.0 and 2.1 of Google's Android mobile operating system.

Lotus Notes Traveler is no-charge software that can be downloaded by Lotus Notes customers and provides two-way, over-the-air synchronization of information between Lotus Domino data and mobile devices.

In addition, IBM's new application for the iPhone is called IBM Lotus Notes Traveler Companion, a plug-in to view encrypted mail on the iPhone. Available now in the App Store, the Lotus Notes Traveler Companion download allows Lotus Notes users who synchronize their mail, calendar, contacts and Domino mail via Lotus Notes Traveler to view encrypted mail such as confidential business and personal data on the iPhone. The application requires Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.1 software.

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