Skip to main content

Seven fails epics fail 'of computer security to be remembered over time

After seeing as a mistake in the security of a web content manager such as Drupal and a couple of outdated plugins have resulted in the publication of customer and company data in what has been known as «Panama papers », Let's see some of the most famous computer security flaws of all time.


And it is that no operating system is free from suffering from time to time a security breach, which does not have to be catastrophic, but sometimes it does generate an important problem.Sooner or later, the design errors of the software can come to light and computer failures are no longer something generic, to become a specific problem.Let's see some of them.


Windows XP and the Sasser and Blaster viruses


Seven fails epics fail 'of computer security to be remembered over time


The one now yearned for by many Windows XP had two very important security problems, which were used by the Sasser and Blaster viruses to infect millions of computers, causing computers to constantly restart and many companies had to deal with millionaire losses.They took advantage of the buffer overflow in RPC DCOM and spread through TCP, which in a few days its expansion grew exponentially throughout the world.


The effect was such that installing a computer with Windows XP without updating to a few minutes after it was infected .Fortunately, "vaccines" came out quickly and Microsoft soon published the necessary patch which solved this problem, at the same time that numerous security firms released updates of their products to eliminate the infection.Yes, the damage was already done.


Verisign, when the fault is a security company


Verisign is one of the most prestigious companies in the world at the time of issuing SSL certificates , which guarantee the identity of the websites, and in regards to domain validation and control.That is to say, it is responsible for certifying that the page we are visiting is authentic and not a forgery.In 2010 it suffered an attack that they did not report until 2011.


The problem was that no information or the indispensable minimum was provided, without knowing how much the company's systems were compromised.The hackers obtained access to the systems and privileged information , so Verisign certificates were compromised.


LastPass, WHAT if the master password is at risk?


Seven fails epics fail 'of computer security to be remembered over time


Something similar happened in 2015 with LastPass.It is a password manager, which allows you to safely store all the passwords of the websites where we identify ourselves.The attackers had access to all LastPass systems exposing the master passwords of the users.


To improve security, after a short time, they set up a two-step verification system, so that in order to identify ourselves, in addition to the password, an additional code is needed that they send us to the mobile phone or that we generate through of the company's own app.


The DNS failure that affects all Internet


The researcher and security expert Dan Kaminsky detected a failure in the DNS that could compromise Internet security in 2008.Recently he has discovered another problem that allows web browsers to be deceived through the response of excessively long DNS names by part of the servers, causing a buffer overflow.


This allows to carry out attacks and execute remote code , so that it is possible to take control of the equipment.Correcting the problem for which a patch exists could take a long time, since it depends on the update of a Linux library, Glibc, the operating system used by many of the affected servers.


Stuxnet, there is always SOME INGENUO that connects a USB memory


Seven fails epics fail 'of computer security to be remembered over time


Stuxnet can be considered the first information weapon .It was created by the governments of the United States and Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.USB sticks that distributed around the central area in the hope that someone, at some point, would connect it within the system.


And it happened.Somebody skipped all security protocols and connected an infected memory.tuxnet was programmed to cause a system malfunction, no messages appeared or a system restart, just the results of the enrichment of Uranium were not expected.This caused a delay of more than two years in the Iranian nuclear program.


Ashley Madison, the most private is made public


When a web service has discretion as its main claim, it cannot afford security problems.This is what happened to Ashley Madison, a social network designed to find new partners to be unfaithful to the current one.A security breach allowed a hacker to seize the database of all users.


I try to negotiate with the social network, but finally the lack of agreement caused the data to be made public , with the corresponding damage to its users and to the image of the company, which was seriously compromised, in addition to revealing some non-ethical practices.


Ransomware, you shouldn't have opened that email


One of the last problems we have had has been Ransomware attacks .In this case, they take advantage of the ignorance or confidence of users to open an email and run a program that is disguised as email notification, bank notice, etc.It's what is called social engineering , which seeks to gain the trust of the person on the other side of the keyboard to run a program.


From here, the files on the hard disk of the computer are encrypted , as well as the network drives that are connected, so if we want to recover the files, we can only pull backup or pay the ransom that they ask us to obtain the encryption password, something that on the other hand does not offer any guarantee.


The information security is a very sensitive issue .A good investment is needed to keep the systems up to date and secure, but it is not visible immediately, but is raised late, at the time it is verified that things did not do well after having suffered an attack.

Images | pixelcreatures | geralt | EssaRiuta | MasterTux

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Internet of plants: a tomato knows as much about networks as you

The possibility of plant species communicating through complex networks, what some scientists have called the internet of plants , is an issue that has been discussed for a long time, at least 20 years.It was in 1997 when the scientist Suzanne Simard , from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada), published a study in the journal Nature on how Forest plants use complex systems where species exchange nutrients, send warning signals and relate to the environment. Although there is no scientific consensus, several investigations seem to support this hypothesis.If confirmed, as we read in a fascinating report by the Sinc Agency, the forests would act as huge structures that are articulated under the soil through a network in which factors invisible to the human eye interact and can determine the future of the climate.Understanding how it works is the challenge that even science faces. internet of plants and the wisdom of forests The premise of Suzanne Simard ...

New setbacks for conspiranoicos: radiofrequencies do not affect health

New evidence published by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency and Health (CCARS) in its 2016 Radio Frequency and Health Report indicates that there are no adverse health effects derived of exposure to radio frequencies emitted by mobile phone antennas or radio and television broadcasting.No evidence has been found on the danger in wireless systems (Wi-Fi) or airport scanners. The new 2016 Radio Frequency and Health Report collects, updates and analyzes the scientific evidence on the subject for the period between January 2013 and June 2016. radio frequencies are not dangerous According to the conclusions of the report " the critical analysis of the evidence supports that there are no technical or sanitary reasons that justify the arbitrary and discretionary imposition of more demanding exposure limits than those recommended by WHO-ICNIRP and the Union European ", while the application of more restrictive limits" would imply increasing the n...

GIF history: where they come from and where they are going

Funny, witty, curious... GIFs have already become a regular resource in social networks and messaging applications and have become part of our daily lives and jokes.It is an image format that has evolved significantly throughout its history and is experiencing a new awakening. In fact, to find its origins, we must go back more than twenty years ago .A moment in which they had little to do with what we know today and an evolution that we could not stop review.So let's find out where they come from and try to catch a glimpse of where they are going. What is a GIF The word GIF responds to the acronym of Graphics Interchange Format , or what is the same, graphic exchange format.A term for the graphic format used in the network for both static images and animations.In more concrete terms, it supports 8 bits per pixel and allows you to display images with up to 256 colors simultaneously-limited by a palette of 16 million-. This particularity makes it a perfect ally of infogr...

Amazon Prime Video arrives in Spain: this is all you need to know

That during the last years there has been a change in the way we enjoy audiovisual content is an obvious reality, as reflected by the huge popularity of streaming services like Netflix and the like.A context in which new competitors are constantly added and that, after the landing of this company in our country just over a year ago, is in full transformation. In fact, today we have learned of the incursion of a new protagonist in this area.Yes, because Amazon Prime Video has just arrived in Spain .A landing that takes place only two weeks away that of HBO, which culminates in a 2016 sown of changes.But, what exactly does it consist of? What advantages and disadvantages does it have compared to the "of its kind"? WHAT AMAZON PRIME VIDEO OFFERS The type, quality and quantity of movies and series offered by the service will be key when determining your success.A catalog a priori smaller than that of HBO and Netflix, but in which we find titles like Seinfield , Into...

What we know and what we suspect in the new Facebook algorithm change

"In my time, we read the newspaper in Facebook ".By 2020, nostalgia has taken over billions of people.In its memory, 2018, when Facebook stopped being Facebook to become Facebook again.Paraiso of engagement for brands and media, land paid for clickbaits and fake news, the social network of Mark Zuckerberg has given a rudder to his algorithm. He wants to return to his origins .And this is what will happen. Related If something goes well, to change it.40.653 million dollars entered in 2017.More than 2.100 million active users per month, a quarter of the world's population.But Zuckerberg is not one of those, of which they are.Want a Facebook with more social connections between people and less presence of brands and media .And what do your users want? Nearly two-thirds of American adults consume news on social networks.More than half do so on their Facebook walls.Pew Research Center data points to a clear trend: Facebook is becoming a media platform.54% of Facebook u...

No kidding: selfitis exists and can be a problem

Sometimes one thinks that social networks were created to share photos of faces putting on little bones and images of dishes overflowing with appetizing foods or, better, of faces putting little bones in front of plates overflowing with appetizing foods in the same shot.is to see faces, faces, faces...all of them smiling, as if looking at the smartphone mirror was the height of happiness.And it does not seem that there are so many beautiful and happy people, or maybe yes, that you go Namely.What envy. Well, what we're going to do: Janarthanan Balakrishnan psychologists from the Thiagarajar School of Management in India; and Mark D.Griffiths, of the Nottingham Trent University, in the United Kingdom, have published an article in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction entitled 'A study on' Selfitis', which names this mania of going around the world taking pictures of oneself, as if beyond our curls the world had been destroyed by that meteorite th...

Twitter shows the best of ourselves (it wasn't always going to be the worst)

In the era of social networks, accustomed to interact daily with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google or WhatsApp, we forget that these tools are phenomenal in the History of Humanity capable of mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in very different geographical locations in a matter of hours or even minutes. Already in the past, Twitter has asserted its more social dimension to mobilize people, companies or organizations and also, from a broader perspective, feelings of solidarity and support or also of rejection and repulses towards causes with an important mediatic impact.Recently, Twitter was once again the engine of solidarity after Dortmund's explosions as the Borussia Dortmund team bus passed on its way to the local stadium on the occasion of the Champions League match between the Borussia and the Monaco. These explosions did not have the devastating effect that they could have caused , so that everything remained in a major social commotion at international lev...

Most apps for children violate your privacy

Do you know if apps with which children enjoy their safety? A team of researchers from the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) of the University of Berkeley has studied compliance with the Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in these mobile applications for the little ones, through a scalable dynamic analysis that allows the automatic evaluation of privacy behaviors of Android apps. After studying 5,855 applications aimed at children, the research concludes that most of these apps, 57%, violate the privacy of their users mainly due to the use of data by third parties. apps for children and privacy Although many apps offer options in their configuration to respect the federal law that protects minors in the United States, by disabling tracking, their results suggest that a majority of applications either do not use these options or propagate them in wrong way. In addition, researchers believe that 19% of apps for children send user IDs to third parties to show ...

Are social networks damaging democracy?

The revelations according to which Russian agents inserted ads on Facebook that tried to influence the 2016 US elections raise a disturbing question: is Facebook bad for democracy? As an expert in the social and political repercussions of technology, I think that the problem is not exclusively from Facebook, but that it is much broader: Social networks are weakening some of the conditions that have historically enabled the existence of national states democratic. I understand that it is a dramatic statement, and I do not expect anyone to believe it immediately, but considering that almost half of all potential voters received false news promoted by the Russians in Facebook is an argument that must be debated. Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina-Charlotte How we create a shared reality Let's start with two concepts: the "imagined community" and the "bubble filter". ...

This is how visual challenges star in some of the most viral content

Constantly, we all receive in our mail, our WhatsApp or our Facebook account, games that try to test our ingenuity, imagination or visual skill.There are a thousand types, more fun or darker.But they have one thing in common: we cannot avoid trying them and see if we are able to solve them .This is how the visual challenges star in some of the most viral content of the network. Visual challenges, why are we crazy? The visual challenges are games.So, they attend to this playful and fun part that people have no choice but to feed from time to time.They are pure and hard entertainment, with no more pretensions, and that desire to Having fun represents one of the main features that are sought when surfing the Internet . Another of the qualities for which they succeed is because they challenge the mind directly.Human beings love that feeling of feeling a little troubled, somewhat lost, but convinced that there is a solution to that enigma to which, sooner or later, it will come.Rathe...