Information Protection and Security

National Cyber Security Awareness Month is over but our responsibility remains.  Technology can’t do everything.  All it takes is a visit to a hacked website, email click, or phishing exploit to pick-up malware.  Identity theft is just around the corner, but there are even bigger risks. Botnets have become a significant part of the Internet.  These groups consisting sometimes of millions of computers, remotely control their victims machines through malware for various purposes, including denial of service attacks, spam fraud, theft of application serial numbers, login IDs, and financial information such as credit card numbers. Can we handle it? Of course we can and awareness is a big part of it. Become aware of your surroundings, be careful on the Internet…don’t click that link in email, or provide your personal information unsecured; and if it looks "too good to be true”,  it probably is.  Security is our shared responsibility, so if you’re using a computer or any other mobile electronic device, Stop. Think. Secure IT!  

MESSAGING ANTI-ABUSE WORKING GROUP (MAAWG) GENERAL MEETING -- PHILADELPHIA -- ISPs and vendors here at the mostly closed-door Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) meeting this week shared data and research on more than just email abuse -- botnets, Web-borne attacks, social neworks, and wireless threats were also among the topics for ISPs and email providers.

It’s reasonable to believe that cyber threats will increase in the future. Organized cybercrime groups have become skilled at coordinating  networks of infected computers (botnets), and configuring them to gather large stores of stolen data. Meanwhile, scammers have become efficient in turning stolen data into cash. As members of a botnet t