Social media sites and cellphones will prove to be fertile grounds for cyber criminals to exploit globally important events in 2012 to steal personal information and data and make financial gains. Identity information posted by users of sites such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn may prove more valuable to cybercriminals than even credit cards.

Bad guys will actively buy and sell social media credentials in online forums, if he compromises your social media log-ins, there is a good chance he can manipulate your friends. The primary blended attack method used in the most advanced attacks will be to go through your social media “friends,” mobile devices and through the cloud. We have already seen attacks that used the chat functionality of a compromised social network account to get to the right user. Expect this to be the primary vector, along with mobile and cloud exploits, in the most persistent and advanced attacks of 2012.

The number of people falling victim to believable social engineering scams will rise significantly if the unscrupulous attackers find a way to use mobile location-based services to design hyper-specific geo-location social engineering attempts. Also important are globally important events including the London Olympics or U.S. presidential elections. Cybercriminals will continue to take advantage of today’s 24-hour, up-to-the minute news cycle, now they will infect users where they are less suspicious. Sites designed to look like legitimate news services, Twitter feeds, Facebook posts/emails, LinkedIn updates, YouTube video comments, and forum conversations may proliferate.

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In the era of the personal computer, Apple Inc. machines are often less vulnerable to security threats than the alternatives. This can also be the case with the rise of smartphones.

Google Inc. operating system Android for mobile devices has been an increase of nearly six times to threats like spyware and viruses since July, according to a security agency, which may increase the perception that Apple devices are safer than smartphones and tablets that run on Android.

You will not see nearly the number of infections on Apple you see in Android.

Most of the growth is a threat to Android applications, or applications available from third party sites not associated with Google’s Android Market, according to data from a networking agency collected as of November 10. Apple does not face the same problem, because the owners of iPhone and iPad can obtain applications from the App Store, which is controlled by the company.

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A network scanner is used as a tool by malicious people to determine which machines are available and what services they ran. With this information, an attacker was able to decide which hosts he could attack based on what feats he had access. This resulted in security professionals creating their own network scanner, or better yet, a network security scanner that would also scan the network, but also check these vulnerabilities and report to the administrator, which measures should be taken.

Network security scanners have evolved from the old network scanner, although today both terms are used interchangeably. Network security scanners have evolved a bit and it’s amazing how many security vulnerabilities of a network security scanner can detect.

Below I put together a list of the most important advantages for a company when a network security scanner is used:

1. Open ports: It could be a basic function, but knowing which ports are open on your network will help you tweak your firewall and close unnecessary services that could potentially exploit the attackers. Advanced network security scanners will also be noted that these ports are usually attacked by known malicious software. Some go even further and finger print all the services running on this port. So if your web server runs on port 25, which is generally used by a mail client, it will always be correctly reported as a web server.

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“Do you think it’s safe to access sensitive date on your mobile phone?  Perhaps you should think again,” warns an infographic about mobile malware.  The threat of smartphone hackers is on the rise and internet security and antivirus software provider BullGuard has got you covered with a brand new infographic on ‘Mobile Malware & What You Need To Know.’

What is malware?  According to BullGuard, “Malware is software with a malicious purpose.  It may be designed to disable your phone, remotely control your device, or steal valuable information.”  And it is becoming more and more common.  The infographic reveals that in 2010 there was nearly 50 times as much malware as there was in 2005.

The infographic explores the real dangers of malware, how malware affects mobile devices, and more.  Apparently, a lot of users aren’t even aware that security software is available for smartphones.  24 percent of mobile users bank from their phones, yet most of them don’t have any security measures in place.  Talk about scary business.

Check out the infographic below and feel free to share your thoughts with us.  Are you protecting yourself from smartphone hackers?  You may want to after taking a look at this.

Are You Protected From Smartphone Hackers?

Cell Phone Security

No one endorses hacking someone else’s voice mail or cell phone accounts. For an audience of geeks curious to know how it’s done, though, the waterfall of coverage of the News of the World scandals skipped the most important part: how did it hack all those cell phones and how can I ensure none of my users are hacked that way.

For the most part, News of the World investigators allegedly paid to access the phones didn’t clone the target phones and reproduce identical spoofs, as is often portrayed in spy thrillers and almost-accurate tradecraft voice-overs on Burn Notice.

They just got the victims’ PIN numbers so they could listen to v-mails stored on server-based voice mail systems owned by cell phone carriers. Read the rest of this entry