Mumbai Police has blocked over 650 posts and pages on a popular social networking site for allegedly uploading the controversial cartoons featured in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, reports The Hindustan Times. Mumbai police spokesperson Dhananjay Kulkarni told the publication that they are blocking every controversial post that they come across.

Whats particularly worrying though is that Kulkarni says they are in constant touch with the authorities managing the servers of a popular USA-based networking site to immediately block such controversial posts and provide us with IP address of the account holders. Its currently not clear as to which site is Kulkarni referring, but it does raise serious privacy concerns for users in the country.

Citing sources, the report also says that Mumbai Polices social media lab was directed to search through various handles and posts to find those putting up these controversial cartoons, following the Charlie Hebdo attack earlier this week.

Censoring the web

This development comes at a time when blocking websites without providing a reason has become the norm rather than an exception and theres been a significant increase in the government actions to censor the web.

Police departments are also issuing warnings or even arresting users over sharing or even liking objectionable content on the Internet. In June last year, we witnessed two incidents of arrest: an MBA student was arrested for allegedly sending an offensive message on Facebook-owned WhatsApp while another person in Mumbai was arrested for posting on the Goa+ Facebook Group, that if elected to power, Modi would unleash a holocaust. (Also read: On 66A, Palghar was not an abuse of power. The law itself is abusive; Notes from the Supreme Court)

#CharlieHebdo #newyorktimes #cartoon (via @wallaceme ) pic.twitter.com/zJe7ll1BGl

saskia jungnikl (@sjungnikl) January 7, 2015

The Karnataka Government had also passed a legislature in August last year, that allows the authorities to arrest a person even before he/she has committed an offence under the IT Act (Read: You could be labelled a goonda in the eyes of the State Bangalore Mirror).

Cartoonist Aseem Trivedis arrest: This incident also reminds us of the arrest of the Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi who was arrested on sedition charges in September 2012, for displaying allegedly offensive cartoons at a Jan Lokpal agitation in Mumbai in December 2011 and on his website, CartoonsagainstCorruption.com. He was released from jail three days later.

IN MEMORY OF MY COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS FROM CHARLIE HEBDO, a cartoon for the International New York Times pic.twitter.com/2v21S7ZmGJ

Chappatte Cartoons (@PatChappatte) January 7, 2015

Lack of transparency from social networking sites

There is also the issue of lack of transparency from social networking sites regarding these blocks. Commenting on the Charlie Hebdo attack, Facebook co-founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that:

Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas. We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world. Im committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.

However, the company doesnt provide any information on why a specific content or a specific page is blocked in the country, although it reinstates pages when there is a public outcry as we saw in the instance of Kiss of love protests.

Similarly, Twitter has also blocked several accounts in the past, but hasnt provided any reason for these blocks. We feel these companies should work on increasing their transparency on these issues. People need to know what was blocked, why it has been blocked, who has taken the decision to block it, and if it is my page or account, what is the process of getting the block removed.

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ECONOMY : Underground hacker markets are thriving reports Dell's SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit

By Michael Kassner

January 7, 2015

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/underground-hacker-markets-are-thriving-reports-dells-secureworks-counter-threat-unit/?tag=nl.e036&s_cid=e036&ttag=e036&ftag=TREa988f1c

A December 2014 security report finds that the internet's underground hacker economy is booming. This economy is doing so well that it's becoming a buyer's market.

Dell SecureWorks published in November 2013 the results of a remarkable project taken on by its Counter Threat Unit (CTU) Director of Malware Research Joe Stewart and independent Network Security Analyst David Shear: The Underground Hacking Economy is Alive and Well. Their research uncovered an extensive and virile underground market for hackers and digital ne'er-do-wells. The duo listed available bad-guy tools, hacker services, and their associated costs. For example, the ever-popular US Fullz sold for $25 US. That may seem like a lot, but the buyer gets a lot -- typically all of the following victim's personally-identifiable information:

· Full name, address, phone numbers, and email addresses (with passwords)

· Date of birth, SSN, or Employee ID Number (EIN)

· Bank account information (account number, routing number, and account type)

· Online banking credentials (varying degrees of completeness)

· Credit-card information (including full track 2 data and any associated PINs)

Additional services offered in the hacker markets include:

· Credit/debit cards from around the world

· Infected computers ($20 US buys 1,000 bots)

· Exploit kits

· Hacker services (rent a DDoS attack for $100 US a day)

The Dell SecureWorks CTU had been following hacker markets for several years prior to 2013, allowing them to delineate changes in the underground economy. "In 2011, the CTU saw hackers selling US bank account credentials with balances of $7,000 for $300," the paper mentions. "Now, we see accounts with balances ranging from $70,000 to $150,000 go for $300 and less, depending on the banking institution where the account is located."

Why the drop in prices? The paper mentions, "There is no shortage of hackers willing to do about anything, computer related, for money, and they are continually finding ways to monetize personal and business data."

Fast forward to December 2014

Stewart and Shear are back, and the word in the Dell SecureWorks December 2014 report, Underground Hacker Markets (PDF), is more of the same. "The most significant difference between the current hacker underground markets and those of 2013, is that the markets are booming with counterfeit documents to further enable fraud, including new identity kits, passports, utility bills, social security cards and driver's licenses," mentions the 2014 paper. "Of course, these types of documents are required to commit many kinds of in-person fraud, whether it is buying high-end purchases with duplicated credit or debit cards at a retail outlet; applying for bank loans; committing check fraud; or attempting government fraud."

For the curious, a fake US driver's license sells for around $150 US, scans of US Social Security cards including name and address go for $250 US, and $100 US adds a utility bill to make the fraud attempt less suspicious.

Hacker tutorials

It seems, in 2014, the digital underground decided there is a market for training aids. Hacker markets already provide services such as DDoS attacks. So, it is not much of a leap to include how-to tutorials, for a fee of course. Stewart and Shear note a manual containing several tutorials sells for $30 US.

100% guarantee

Another trend seen by the researchers seemed inevitable. What do businesses do in order to stand out from the crowd -- offer something unique. In the case of the hacker markets, that appears to be guarantees.

Dell SecureWorks ends the report with a list of security precautions companies and individual users should have in place. The following safeguards are the more notable ones:

· Reconcile your banking and credit card statements, often, with online banking and/or credit card activity to identify potential anomalies.

· Do not use "trial versions" of antivirus products as your source of protection. Trial versions do not get updates.

· Be cautious about installing software deemed too good to be true, as it likely contains malware.

· Subscribe to a credit monitoring service, and set up alerts to warn you of any changes or credit checks.

As the bad guys get more sophisticated, it seems we must as well.

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STOLEN : Hackers have stolen $5 million to Bitstamp Bitcoin exchange

by Pierluigi Paganini

January 6th, 2015

http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/31858/cyber-crime/hackers-stolen-5-million-bitstamp.html

The UK-based Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp has temporarily suspended its service in the wake of a major cyber attack against company online systems.

The UK-based Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp has temporarily suspended its service in wake of compromise. Bitstamp announced that its systems suffered a major cyber attack, which lead to the theft of less than 19,000 BTC.

We have temporarily suspended Bitstamp services. Bitstamp customers can rest assured that their bitcoins held with us prior to temporary suspension of services on January 5th (at 9am UTC) are completely safe and will be honored in full. On January 4th, some of Bitstamps operational wallets were compromised, resulting in a loss of less than 19,000 BTC. states the official statement issued by company on its website.

As incident response, Bitstamp has immediately disclosed the news of the cyber attack and as a security precaution it is informing the customers that they should no longer make deposits. While the investigation is going on, Bitstamp has frozen customers accounts and blocked any activity, including deposits and other every transaction.

Upon learning of the breach, we immediately notified all customers that they should no longer make deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses. To repeat, customers should NOT make any deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses. As an additional security measure, we suspended our systems while we fully investigate the incident and actively engage with law enforcement officials.

The breach seems have impacted just a small fraction of Bitstamps total Bitcoin reserves, meanwhile the majority of the virtual coins the firm manages is held in secure offline cold storage systems.

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WAR : Why we're losing the war for cyber security

By David Shipley

Jan 6, 2015

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-were-losing-war-cyber-security-david-shipley

2014 was an abysmal year for cyber security. JP Morgan Chase, Home Depot, Sony - the list goes on and on.

And 2015 promises to be even worse.

The recent massive DDOS attacks over the Christmas holidays against Sony's Playstation network and Microsoft's xBox Live service demonstrates how much damage a small group can do with easily accessible tools - disrupting services to tens of millions of years just for "lulz" or laughs.

On top of these commodity security issues, there's the more serious, state-sponsored attacks on critical infrastructure such as what was revealed by Cylance with its report on hacking activities attributed to an Iranian team.

The cost of losing

Arriving at a precise price tag for the cost of cyber attacks and cyber crime isn't possible, but reasonable estimates from firms such as Intel Security (formerly McAfee) put the cost of cyber crime at between 15 and 20 percent of the overall value of the Internet economy, which was between two to three trillion dollars.

Bleeding hundreds of billions of dollars through lost reputation, service outages, expensive lawsuits and more isn't a sign we're winning.

To add insult to injury, on top of the costs of cyber attacks and cyber crime, come the long-term erosion in consumer trust in the Internet economy, which may cause even more damage as more and more firms fall victim to such attacks.

The wild west

The Internet economy and cyber security is in its Wild West phase. The breaches of major financial institutions and retailers are the great train robberies of our age. They are the digital equivalent of high seas privacy and companies are ill prepared to deal with these activities.

Just as ill-equipped are our police forces. In Canada, the RCMP have acknowledged that criminals are increasingly turning to the Internet to ply their trade. Yet at the same time our ability in Canada to identify cyber criminals, let alone successfully prosecute them, is woefully inadequate. According to police reported criminal reports, only six percent of property-related cyber crimes had an identified suspect in 2012, the most recent year data is available.

Our laws and our investment in digital capabilities for police have simply not kept pace with the threat. Similarly, our military capabilities have lagged when it comes to cyber security and cyber defence.

A losing strategy

Cyber security often leverages key terms and ideas from military history, such as ideas around defence in depth when it comes to network and device security.

But there are fundamental lessons that stretch back thousands of years. Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu once said that if you "Know the enemy and know yourself and you can fight 100 battles without defeat (Zhi ji ahi bi, bai zhan bu dai)".

But too few organizations truly understand who they're fighting - because if they're like my university, opponents range from bored teenagers with access to DDOS tools to petty criminals looking for quick wins with online scams, to organized cybercriminal syndicates with sophisticated malware to state-sponsored hacking teams looking to steal valuable intellectual property or leverage our assets to attack others.

The threat keeps changing.

The good news for my university is that we've made some progress by understanding who and what we're up against and investing in short, medium and long-term plans to mitigate and minimize threats. It's the best we can do - for now - but it's a far cry from winning.

A more modern military and business analogy highlights why the current approach to reactive cyber security cannot win. Known as the OODA loop, the concept was developed by US Air Force Colonel John Boyd as he studied US pilot combat performance in Korea. Boyd observed that the American pilots had significantly higher kill ratios over their North Korean opponents at the time who had jets that should have outperformed the American equipment. But the Americans had a crucial advantage - a much better canopy that allowed for greater pilot visibility.

This led to the decision model known as OODA - observe, orient, decide and act. As an individual or group goes through the OODA cycle, they iteratively improve and are able to make decisions faster. Meanwhile, opponents reacting to those decisions find their OODA loops getting larger or slower.

in the case of cyber security, companies are always on the losing end of an OODA battle when faced with sophisticated opponents (and sometimes even with ones who are not all that sophisticated).

To win, we're going to need better tools to identify threats as they happen and as they're in the planning stages.

Bigger digital Maginot lines aren't the answer

We can't defend ourselves out of this dilemma. There is a need for the ability to respond to threats proactively, not merely to attempt to limit the extent of the damage such attacks can do.

The argument I'm making isn't that security investments such as next generation firewalls, endpoint protection, network access control, VPNs, malware detection tools, applications security detection and more aren't necessary. It's that they're not enough.

Ultimately we need a combination of better policing and military resources to deal with the larger scale threats. But we also need the capability and ability to proactively monitor for threats and when necessary take steps to stop them in their tracks, either in conjunction with law enforcement or unilaterally. For example, firms should have the right to investigate the source of DDOS attacks and with sufficient evidence, take offensive steps to shut down the source(s) of such attacks, when and where possible.

In terms of digital defences, we need tools that integrate together and work to create rapid responses to threats at machine speed, rather than human speed. We need to move towards a digital immune system model.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

2015 is going to be a difficult year for cyber security. But in that adversity, I'm hoping we'll not only see new technologies (though arguably cyber security tools and hacking tools are caught in a perpetual digital arms race) but changes in attitudes towards the importance of developing better policing and military responses as well as better approaches for each individual organization's proactive security.

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IT Term of the day

Docking Station

A docking station, or dock, is a device that connects a laptop to multiple peripherals. It provides a single connection point that allows a laptop to use a connected monitor, printer, keyboard, and mouse. This allows a laptop to function like a desktop computer.

Laptop manufacturers often build custom docking stations for their laptops. These docks usually have a proprietary input port that connects to a matching port on specific laptop models. Early docks, such as those built in the 1990s, included serial ports for connecting input devices, parallel ports for connecting printers and scanners, and VGA ports for connecting monitors. In recent years, laptop docking stations have become more standardized, with USB ports for connecting most peripherals and DVI ports for connecting displays.

While modern docks provide standardized I/O ports, many docking stations still use a proprietary dock connector, which means when you buy a new laptop, you may need to buy a new dock. Fortunately, the Thunderbolt connector, first used in Apple's MacBook laptops, eliminates the need for a docking station. A single Thunderbolt connection can support USB, FireWire, Ethernet, and DisplayPort connections. Therefore, a Thunderbolt hub serves the same purpose as a laptop dock and is compatible with any computer that has a standard Thunderbolt connection.

NOTE: Docking stations may also refer to hardware used to connect tablets, smartphones, and other portable devices to one or more peripherals. However, these devices are generally called "docks" and typically have fewer I/O connections than a laptop dock.

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Quote of the day

I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit.

Thucydides

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