TMCnet News
Bring your own danger [ITWeb](ITWeb Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Hitting the headlines recently was a story about hackers accessing 45 000 social networking accounts in France and the UK, through passwords stolen from users' computers. They achieved this in a short space of time, through a piece of malware called the Ramnit worm, that steals credentials, collects bank account and other valuable data, takes screenshots, and transmits it to a rogue server which acted as a backdoor. Vladimir Zapolansky, deputy director, Global Research & Analysis Team, and head of technology positioning at Kaspersky Lab, says this particular piece of malware could also block anti-virus updates and power down the infected machine. Particularly significantly though, he said, it was not just another derivative malware, but a hybrid solution built from two other pieces of malware, Ramnit and the notorious banking Trojan Zeus, that equipped it to slip through the nets of many security solutions. Zapolansky said Ramnit is distributed via the autorun.inf file that can be launched from a mobile phone that is connected to a PC, or from a USB drive. Kaspersky research has revealed that this is one of the major ways that malware is spread, accounting for the distribution of 20% of threats globally. However, due to USB sticks' diminishing popularity, Ramnit was most likely spread via mobile devices. Few users realise that smartphones are more than just a phone, and are in many ways the same as a flash drive. When employees bring their phones and connect them to their PCs at the office, to either synchronise files or charge them, the business is exposed to dangers, he explained. To combat BYOD threats, he said Kaspersky Lab has developed Mobile Device Management tools in its consumer and corporate products, with several features that make BYOD security effective, reliable and easy to manage. He cited some examples of this as container technology that allows applications to be installed in a special environment where all the data generated is encrypted and special data protection tools. In addition, users can remotely destroy data and lock devices. (c) 2014 ITWeb Limited. All rights reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info, an Albawaba.com company |