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PPC Management Guide For e-Commerce

We have now living in an era of digital marketing and Pay Per Click (PPC) has successfully proved its value by being one of the most significant method for online business. On top of that it has rapidly engaged itself in various channels of digital marketing and has acquired an irreplaceable place in the success of online businesses. Most of the qualified professionals and entrepreneurs prefer Pay Per Click (PPC) as their digital marketing method, due to its significance in terms of online success and satisfactory results.

How Pay Per Click (PPC) Benefits Business: Immediate results, It gives you the first look, It pulls in quality traffic, PPC traffic is more likely to convert sale, It offers substantial growth in business revenue, PPC advertising campaigns are far better than organic listings, It is not dependent on SEO or Google algorithm changes, It can drive offline sales, It increases your brand recognition.

When it comes to e-Commerce marketing, PPC is king. But it’s not enough to just throw budgets at PPC campaigns and cross your fingers for sales success. For starters, you need a solid PPC management and optimization plan and robust marketing strategy at the foundation. As crucial as pay-per-click marketing is to ensuring online sellers not only reach their ideal potential shoppers but send them to their store, so many e-Commerce entrepreneurs fall short with their campaign strategies. In this article we would like to discuss explicit information about PPC management. This guide will assist all the users, whether they are planning to start their online store, or they may be an experienced entrepreneur. We also include tips and strategies to help you one-up your biggest competitors without exceeding your budget.

What Are the Top e-Commerce PPC Platforms?

The first thing to consider on your journey to pro-level PPC management is which PPC platforms you’re using and/or which ones you should be using. The important thing to consider when testing and choosing platforms is who your target audience is and what you’re selling.

When it comes to winning at e-Commerce marketing and sales, here are the top PPC platforms every entrepreneur needs in their marketing arsenal to succeed. We’ve included some benefits for each platform, what kinds of sellers should be using each and their top campaign types.

Google Ads :

Google Ads is the leading PPC platform amongst online sellers and it is no surprise why. Exceeding $136 billion in revenue at the end of last year, with as much as $116 billion of that coming from advertising alone, it’s the most prominent PPC platform. The leading PPC campaigns Google offers e-Commerce sellers include:

Shopping Ads

Search Ads

Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs)

Re marketing Ads

YouTube Ads

Display Network

Gallery Ads

Facebook and Instagram Ads :

Coming in at a close second is Facebook’s advertising platform. With over 2.32 billion monthly active users and 78% of marketers reporting that they get the best ROIs from Facebook and Google PPC campaigns, Facebook is a powerful part of an e-Commerce marketing tool kit.

The leading PPC campaigns Facebook offers e-Commerce sellers include:

Dynamic Product Ads

Collection Ads

Carousel Ads

Video Ads

Messenger Ads

Instant Experience Ads

Lead Ads

Shopping Ads

Stories Ads

Offer Ads

Domain Ads

Again, like with any PPC platform, you need to make sure you’re not only choosing the right campaign types for your brand but making use of optimization tools such as ad exclusions, CTA optimization, Lifetime Value and other Facebook audiences, and split testing.

Amazon Ads :

A relative newcomer in terms of being a full-service PPC platform is Amazon Ads. Although this platform is best suited for those e-Commerce brands selling across a variety of channels including Amazon, they are currently the third most popular PPC platform.

Considering a whopping 80 million Americans are Amazon Prime members, it shouldn’t be a big surprise. These are the types of PPC campaign offered by Amazon to e-Commerce advertisers:

Product Display Ads

Sponsored Brands Ads (Headline Search Ads)

Lockscreen Ads

Sponsored Product Ads

Microsoft (Bing) Ads :

Formerly known as Bing Ads, Microsoft Ads is a growing desktop search platform that currently covers 11.2 billion monthly searches around the globe that Google doesn’t reach. With e-Commerce SEM (search engine marketing) ads on this platform, your ads will appear in Bing, MSN search results and select partner sites.

Some of their campaigns and PPC tools include:

Ad extensions

App Install Ads

Countdown customizers

Dynamic Search Ads

Editorial review and appeals

Expanded text ads

Product ads

Responsive Search Ads

LinkedIn :

Another PPC platform owned by Microsoft is LinkedIn. Although it has around 500 million users, it is best suited for e-Commerce entrepreneurs who sell B2B digital and physical products.

But we would caution sellers to think clearly about their market and goals before putting budget into this platform. Instead, we recommend LinkedIn for bigger B2B sellers (or B2C, if their target audience is professionals) who have an active blog that they want to send traffic to; also, don’t forget the power of video. These are the types of PPC campaigns offered by LinkedIn:

Sponsored content

Text Ads

Video Ads

Sponsored In-Mail

Dynamic Ads

Carousel Ads

Pinterest Ads :

If you want to tap into 83% of US women aged 25–54

Now that you have a good idea of what types of PPC platforms and campaigns are available to you, let’s look at how you can set up your PPC strategy to lay a good foundation for PPC management.

Getting Started With Your e-Commerce PPC Strategy

Define Your Goals Based on Real Data :

The very first thing you should be doing to set yourself up for PPC management success is using your current data (established sellers) or market research (new sellers) to set a clear goal for your marketing. In short, if you want to know you’re on the right path, you need to predetermine where you are going. This will help you balance your expectations with your ROIs.

To lay the foundation for successful PPC campaigns, first choose your key metrics, which will help you determine your goal as well as serve as the benchmark for your PPC management success. Here are some top e-Commerce metrics to consider:

CPA (Cost Per Acquisition/Conversion)

CPC (Cost Per Click)

CVR (Conversion Rate)

IS (Impression Share)

CTR (Click Through Rate)

LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)

ROI (Return on Investment)

Product Margins

AOV (Average Order Value)

Choosing the best KPIs to monitor for Google and other PPC platforms and campaign success moving forward will depend on your overall goal. Let’s say your overall goal is to increase sales by $50,000 in the coming quarter. You can reverse-engineer that goal by taking your LTV or AOV to determine how many new customers you would need to reach this goal. Let’s say you have an AOV of $100; your goal would be to gain 500 new customers in the coming quarter. One Should carefully plan the strategies given below :

Set up an awareness-driving campaign to target new potential shoppers based on demographic and interest data from existing customers

Push remarketing campaigns to retarget store traffic that hasn’t converted yet

Wisely Select PPC Platform and Campaign Strategies :

Once you know where you want to go, you need to decide how you’re going to get there. Therefore, the second step of laying a good foundation for PPC management and optimization success is choosing your leading PPC platforms and campaigns within. Here are three strategies based on your e-Commerce business stage.

Beginner PPC Platform and Campaign Strategy :

If you have a new store, the first thing you need to do is generate traffic. Yes, DIY SEO strategies are an essential aspect of your to-do list, but those will be long-term results. What you need is instant, highly-targeted traffic that you can then convert, remarket to convert or introduce into your sales funnel to target across a variety of channels including email. To do this, you will want to focus on three main PPC platforms — Google, Facebook and Instagram — and include the following campaigns:

Google Shopping campaigns

Google Search campaigns

Google Re marketing campaigns

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads

Facebook and Instagram image and video posts

Facebook and Instagram Carousel Ads

Instagram Shoppable Collection Ads

Intermediate PPC Platform and Campaign Strategy :

Once you have generated enough traffic from your awareness and re marketing campaigns, it’s time to upgrade your strategy. Here, you may want to add the following PPC platforms and campaigns to your strategy:

Google Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs)

Google Gallery Ads

YouTube Ads

Google Display Network

Facebook Collection Ads for e-commerce

Facebook Messenger Ads

Facebook Instant Experience Ads

Facebook Lead Ads

Facebook Offer Ads

Facebook Domain Ads

The idea here, is to test all campaigns available across platforms to find a strong cross-platform strategy that feeds you traffic and hooks all potential shoppers at various stages in your funnel. This Google and Facebook expert strategy is a great place to start.

Expert PPC Platform and Campaign Strategy :

Now that you’re generating traffic and sales, it’s time to look at your data and add additional PPC platforms relevant to your target audience. This means adding LinkedIn ads — should you be selling to professionals and have a well-established high-value blog, or testing other social platforms like Twitter or Pinterest — if your target audience aligns with them. Or, you could look at adding other selling channels to increase reach and sales, by listing and marketing with Amazon Ads. Here are some top Shopify Plus store examples to get the creative marketing juices flowing.

Set Yourself Up for Quality Data Tracking

Now that you know where you want to go and how you’re going to get there, you need to be sure you can track your campaign progress. In simple words one has to adopt proper PPC management to achieve significant growth in their business revenue. To do this, you want to ensure you set up e-Commerce tracking within Analytics.

Here are four ways you can use these analytics to set up for success, depending on the stage your e-Commerce business is at:

Pre-Launch

Just because you haven’t launched your online store yet, doesn’t mean Google Analytics doesn’t have a role to play. You can use ‘coming soon’ campaign data at this stage to gain insights into possible targeting and product problems before you launch, and fix accordingly. It also ensures you are gathering valuable data ASAP that can be used for your launch strategies.

Launch

Once you have launched your online store, you can start looking at session and bounce rates, assess which product pages are generating the most traffic, and optimize pages where bounce rates are poor. This can point to technical issues on your site, copy optimization needs, and problems with your ad targeting before you invest too much into low-ROI PPC campaigns.

Initial Growth

This stage refers to those online stores now making upto ten sales a week. This is where your transactional data plays a key role in your PPC management success. Top analytics such as best-selling products, number of transactions, average order value and total revenue can all point to whether you’re meeting or moving towards your ultimate business goal with your PPC strategy.

Constant Growth

The final stage is setting yourself up for consistent, long-term growth. Here, you would want to track things like product views, cart abandonment, checkout and transaction sessions, marketing channel performance, popular products and more.

You can read about this in full detail in our Complete Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics for e-Commerce. But determining your goals and laying the foundation with a strong PPC and data tracking foundation strategy is only half the work. The next thing you will need to conquer is PPC optimization and strategy management, so ensure you constantly keep an eye on your progress and tweak your campaigns and platforms in real-time.

PPC Management Strategies for Online Businesses

Here are our top e-Commerce PPC optimization and management tips and strategies to help you upgrade your PPC management to pro level.

Develop Brand-Specific and Creative PPC Platform

The thing is, PPC management and success aren’t one-size-fits-all activities and you don’t want to blindly follow advice without first testing campaigns to ensure they work for your brand and market. Remember: each platform’s goal is to make revenue, while yours is to get the best results for the budget you have. Additionally, what works for one niche or group of shoppers may not work for others.To ensure you are able to be creative with your campaigns and test budgets, ultimately, you need to leave space to adapt structures to your brand. With every step of your PPC creation, management and optimization, you want to try various things, testing on small budgets, to find the right fit for your brand and potential shoppers.

Adopt Highly Specific Keywords

Keyword research and strategy is the key — if you’ll excuse the pun — to your Search PPC management. What you want is a balance of both broad and very specific keywords. Why? Because broad, more competitive keywords are not only expensive but can result in less targeted traffic that is just browsing brands, topics or pricing. While your more drilled-down long-tail and specific keywords are typically cheaper and have less competition.

You need broad keywords with high-volume potential for awareness and reach, and more specific keywords that may have less volume but target potential shoppers who are searching for exactly what you’re selling. In a nutshell, broad keywords = higher reach; drilled-down long-tail keywords with less volume but higher conversion rates for cheaper.To up your keyword game for PPC optimization, you should be accessing your Search Query Report from your Google Ads dashboard regularly. Here, you can see keyword details for each campaign and which queries are triggering your ads, which in turn help you find long-tail keywords you hadn’t thought of yet and add them to relevant campaign groups.

Optimization to Gain Results

No matter what PPC platform or campaign you’re marketing with, you need to remember that for long-term success, you need a long-term strategy of continuously measuring, tweaking and optimizing your campaigns to keep them thriving. This means you should be:

Monitor your metrics closely

Continually reviewing keywords and testing new options

Split-testing ad variations, landing pages, headlines and CTAs

Try to Be More Relevant and Transparent With All Ads

Another important tactic that can be applied to all your PPC ads is making sure you’re staying relevant in your ad text, images, pricing, etc. and your store URLs and campaign keywords. The idea is not to click-bait your way to more traffic, because that’s just going to lead to meagerly qualified traffic. Not only that, but it will give your brand a bad name while also ruining your credibility with PPC platforms — which in turn can also make your ads more expensive. To improve ad relevance:

Include your main keywords in your ad text as well

Closely link your landing page to what your ad promises searchers will see

Keep campaigns and targeting very segmented so that your messaging is highly specific to who you’re targeting

Always Maintain Your Trend

When it comes to PPC management, you want to stay up-to-date with best-selling product trends and seasonal shifts, and adjust accordingly. Seasonality is a very important aspect of your long-term strategy, including different campaigns for different times of the year. You want to not only edit your campaign text but create season-specific ads. A good example of this is having ads focused on the coming of winter to sell your winter coats or changing the text of your best-selling search ads to show how that product makes a good Christmas gift.In short, you shouldn’t just plan ahead for significant seasonal events such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas and/or Halloween, but also seasonal times for products (winter or summer leggings, for example). Additionally, you really want to be keeping a close eye on current trends and viral products, and be ready to adapt and capitalize on them.

Know When to Loosen the Budget Strings

Yes, you have a budget you want to stick to. You also want to get as many sales for that budget as you can. However, being too tight-fisted with ad spend can also be detrimental to your conversion potential. When it comes to PPC management, your budget needs to be a balancing act: adaptable to your business, campaign and general market needs.

For example, during those peaks seasonal shopping times we mentioned above, there will be more competition, which means you will need to invest more spend into these ads. Or, after testing smaller budgets for Facebook ads, you may want to invest more spend into high-performing PPC campaigns. However, you can plan to be budget-flexible by putting aside extra budget for the busier times.

Result Bearing Tools For PPC Management

As you can see, e-Commerce PPC management is complex, yet necessary to ensuring you are constantly growing your business and sales. However, as your business grows, so will the number of products, the campaigns you need to run and the PPC platforms you use, plus the optimization time you will need. This can become an odious chore, especially in the busy season. When this time comes, it will become imperative to your success that you invest in assistance, which can be in the form of hiring your own PPC management team in-house or an agency — both of which can be effective, but expensive; or, you can invest in a good PPC management tool like Traffic Booster from as little as $120 per month, including your campaign budget.

Conclusion

PPC management and optimization is the most critical part of an e-Commerce marketing strategy. It will not only ensure you are reaching the potential shoppers you want, but help you get more targeted, quality traffic for your spend — quality traffic that will increase your conversion chances. To further help you navigate your PPC management and ensure you get the most out of your campaigns and strategies, here are some of our top platform-specific PPC management and optimization guides.

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Server-Less Architecture

If you’ve chosen to read this article, you’re likely aware that Server-Less Architecture is the next big thing in the cloud paradigm. Since the Amazon Web Services introduced its Lambda platform the Server-Less Architecture has become mainstreams buzzword and grabbed the attention of various brands like Nike,Netflix, BBC and Airbnb. However,the word Server-Less Architecture does not represent the actual state of the technology. This is basically a server where the client doesn’t have to manage, purchase or maintain that particular server. You outsource all server management to someone else, adding a level of abstraction in your cloud foundation. It opens wide opportunities for the developers, as now they have the ability to push server maintenance and put more focus on developing user friendly applications.It is highly important for the business that the deployment of the marketing idea should be as spontaneous as possible. Basically, the approach to Server-Less Architecture is mainly driven by business;it means that by which third parties handle your technical concerns while you focus on delivering results.

Using a traditional cloud model (often called Cloud 1.0), you simply move your storage and networking to the cloud, but you still have to access and monitor it remotely via virtual machines (VMs). The Server-Less Architecture is an approach that takes it to the next level. Where a developer selects an environment in which the code is created by c#, Node.js. Python, etc and then uploads the same code file, then the code by gets automatically deployed by the system. One can easily describe the communication pattern of these service and their data access points by using vendor’s own ecosystem.

Function-as-a-Service

Another name for Server-Less Architecture is Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), referring to the way developers assemble code into building blocks called functions. This cocept is quite similar to Micro-Services where immense amount of codes are being split into small fragments and the manageable elements are then scaled and updated separately. However, the Server-Less Architecture take sit even further by creating partitions even further.

Event-driven coding

I presume that no one wants to occupy the extra space of their camera hard drives recording everything that happens on the street. That’s why we employ motion activated cameras to detect suspicious behavior when we’re not at home. Server-Less Architecture works similarly: Just like a motion sensor, it only works when a particular pre-programmed event is triggered. Server-Less Architecture is stateless, meaning it only executes a task and doesn’t store or re-deployment of requests.

Scalable services

The Server-Less Architecture approach is flexible and ideal for scaling applications. The vendor of Server-Less Architecture takes each of the functions and provides them different containers to operate. This allows you to scale them endlessly and automatically. This is another difference between Server-Less Architecture and traditional cloud. Here you don’t have to purchase the assumed amount of resources; you can be as flexible as possible. To make sure the travel management platform 4site can flexibly grow, we employed AWS Lambda for the server(less) side of the project.

Billing per invocation

In the traditional could system one has to keep the server ready to process requests at all times. It is like keeping your air-conditioning on the entire year, all the time regardless of what weather you are having and end up spending huge part of your fortune on electricity bills. Constant server availability leads to significant back-end costs every month, irrespective of CPU time and memory that are actually practiced. Alternatively, Server-Less Architecture vendors allow you to pay a fraction of a price per request, which means that your costs will depend only on how much traffic you had this month.

Service vendors such as:

Google Cloud Functions

IBM Bluemix

OpenWhisk

Microsoft Azure Functions

Amazon Web Services Lambda

They normally provide similar opportunities in pricing and millions of requests are free of cost, making an easy budgets and great starting point. However, the main difference lies mostly in the community support and the availability of languages supported. To figure out what is better for you, check our comparison of the major Server-Less Architecture providers.

Advantages of Server-Less Architecture

Engineering-wise, the benefits of Server-Less Architectures obvious. It’s a simplified approach to development that eliminates a complicated layer, streamlining engineering efforts. Now let’s talk about how it benefits the business activities.

Cheaper than the traditional cloud:

As discussed earlier that the Sever-Less Architecture allows one to pay the fraction of the price per request, which is highly beneficial for start-ups, as they can easily build their online presences and gain traffic at extremely reasonable cost.

Scalable :

Everyone wants to build the next Uber, but would you risk provisioning foundation just in case? With Server-Less Architecture, you don’t have to make a choice, but you’ll still be ready for any volume of growth.

Lower human resources costs :

Just as you don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on hardware, you can stop paying engineers for maintaining it.

Ability to focus on client experience :

By saving the resources from the server expense the companies can focus more on improving the products features and make it more convenient to meet the needs of their customers.

Disadvantages of Server-Less Architecture

Vendor lock-in :

When you give a vendor the reins to control your operations, you have to play by their rules and it can be extremely complex situation, when one decides to migrate to another vendor. The same concern refers to coding languages: Right now only Node.js and Python developers have the freedom to choose between existing options for Server-Less Architecture.

Learning curve :

One might have a hard time with the learning curve for Server-Less Architecture even with the support of comprehensive documentation and community resources. Also, to painlessly migrate to Server-Less Architecture, you might want to split your monolith into Micro-Services, another complicated task to tackle. That’s why it’s preferable to get help from professionals experienced in tools of Server-Less Architecture.

Unsuitable for long term tasks :

The service provider such as Lambda only gives you some minutes to execute the task and if you fail to complete the task in that time period then one might have to call another function. Server-Less Architecture is great for short real-time or near-real-time processes like sending out emails. It requires additional Sever-Less Architecture functions in order to carry out the long duration tasks such as uploading video files.

Usage of Server-Less Architecture

Currently, most of the technology adopters are startups who seek for a possibility to scale painlessly and lower the entrance barrier. Server-Less Architecture is also a perfect approach for applications that don’t run continuously but rather have quiet periods and peaks of traffic.

Internet of Things applications

The real-time response nature of the approach of Server-Less Architecture works great for IoT usage. The Server-Less Architecture allows the user to sit idle for entire day, which is quite similar to cameras with motion detection.

Virtual assistants and chatbots

People using chats expect immediate responses which is why data processing via Server-Less Architecture can be faster. As your application grows from one hundred to several thousand clients, your processing time should also stay the same which is automated with FaaS.

Image-rich applications

To maintain great client experience, developers have to provide multiple versions of the same images for different screen sizes — from desktops, to tablets and smartphones. This significantly decreases loading time. However, the Google and AWS facilitates their clients by providing a tool to optimize their image as per their requirements, which makes a perfect solution for image-heavy applications.

Agile and Continuous Integration pipelines

Separating the code-base into functions also helps with bug fixing and shipping updates. Server-Less Architecture is an overall friendly way for maximum automation and rapid deployment processes.

Is Server-Less Architecture The Future?

Adopting Server-Less Architecture doesn’t just mean a technical change but also a mindset change. For many companies running on legacy foundation, the migration will be painful and not as cost-effective as it’s promised to be for starting organizations. By adopting Sever-Less Architecture one can avoid all the hardship and extra maintenance of the server and can achieve an optimum work flow. In addition to that the Server-Less Architecture is far from mainstream, though it’s moving in that direction and pretty fast. Various experts predict that the Server-Less Architecture will reach its plateau of productivity in 2–5 years, along with machine learning, VR and IoT. The technology is already available. The real struggle here is to determine the breadth of possible usage and waiting for the larger language and functionality pool from all vendors.

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Top Trends In Software Industry

The software development industry has been changing rapidly due to the introduction of new technologies such as artificial learning and decentralized network. Digital infrastructure has become a significant part of our life and each one of us depends on the latest digital aspects of modern services such as economic structure, profession, business, communication, and entertainment. Waves of innovation build over time, powering the technology-driven-growth engine that appears to be on the cusp of another major leap forward. Emerging technologies are changing the way we work and interact with others, revolutionizing the way we do business, and making high-tech approaches an integral part of our lives. That is why we want to share some of the insights from our experienced engineering team regarding the current software engineering trends that dominate the industry today. Let’s see what they are, how they impact the world of business, and how you can adapt to get the utmost value from these innovations.

Artificial Intelligence

From managing global supply chains to optimizing delivery routes, artificial intelligence is helping companies of all sizes and in all industries improve productivity and the bottom line at every stage of the business lifecycle, from sourcing material to sales and accounting to customer service. Now digital systems have developed to a stage where they independently observe and learn about the world around them, very much similar to human exploration. AI with such ability with increased computing power will be able to accomplish more complex achievements at lightning speeds. With facial recognition, voice recognition, predictive analysis, and much more, intelligence machines are influencing nearly every facet of our lives to help improve efficiencies and augment our human capabilities.

Advantages of AI

Less Room for Errors

As decisions taken by a machine are based on previous records of data and the set of algorithms, the chances of errors reduce. This is an achievement, as solving complex problems that require difficult calculation, can be done without any scope of error.

Have you heard of digital assistants? Advanced business organizations use digital assistants to interact with users, something that helps save them time. This helps businesses fulfil user demands without keeping them waiting. They are programmed to give the best possible assistance to a user.

Right Decision Making

The complete absence of emotions from a machine makes it more efficient as they are able to take the right decisions in a short span of time. Usage of AI Technology in health care facility is the best example. The integration of AI tools in the healthcare sector has improved the efficiency of treatments by minimizing the risk of false diagnosis.

Implementing AI in Risky Situations

Certain situations where human safety is vulnerable, machines that are fitted with predefined algorithms can be used. Recently various scientists are employing complex machines to learn about the ocean floor, where human survival is next to impossible.

Can Work Continuously

Unlike humans, machine does not get tired, even if it has to work for consecutive hours. Machines don’t require rest time to time to sustain its efficiency and this is the major benefit over humans. However, in the case of machines, their efficiency is not affected by any external factor and it does not get in the way of continuous work.

Disadvantages of AI

Expensive to Implement

When combining the cost of installation, maintenance, and repair, AI is an expensive proposition. Those who have huge funds can implement it. On the other hand, the small businesses and industries that lack proper funds can’t properly implement AI technology into their processes or strategies.

Dependency on Machines

With the dependency of humans on machines increasing, we’re headed into a time where it becomes difficult for humans to work without the assistance of a machine. We’ve seen it in the past and there’s no doubt we’ll continue seeing it in the future, our dependency on machines will only increase. This will result in a reduction in our thinking abilities over time.

Displace Low Skilled Jobs

This is the primary concern for technocrats so far. It is quite possible that AI Technology will remove the need for various low skilled jobs, as the machine can operate round the clock without taking any break and now many industries prefer investing their funds in machines over humans. As we are moving towards the automated world, where almost every task will be done by the machines, there is a possibility of large-scale unemployment. A real-time example of this is the concept of driverless cars. If the concept of driverless cars kicks in, millions of drivers will be left unemployed in the future.

Restricted Work

AI machines are programmed to do certain tasks based on what they are trained and programmed to perform and their processing zone is limited to the algorithms in which they have programmed, hence depending on machines to adopt new atmosphere and out of the box thinking capacity is a huge mistake.

Progressive Web Apps

Progressive web apps reside somewhere between web applications and mobile apps. This gives its users the most up-to-date experience across various devices. Everyone from Google to Microsoft has begun developing PWAs that give browser features the same performance characteristics as mobile apps, as PWAs are much easier to develop and maintain than standard mobile apps. The main part of every PWA is a browser script that runs in the background, separate from the web page, called the Service Worker. The script enables smart caching, offline functionality to visited sites, background updating, push notifications, and several other important features that help load a site faster after the first visit.

Advantages of Progressive Web App

Responsively

Being compatible with any device is extremely important to improve the online presence of your business and PWA’s are responsive to every device, such as desktops, tablets, mobiles and any other device that is yet to come.

Progressive

They operate in almost every browser available on the web and one can get Progressive Web App with a simple Google search. This means they have the reach of a traditional website whilst having the capabilities of a native app.

Offline Connectivity

Progressive Web Apps features more than your website and native applications and also has the ability to load the entire page/ application without requiring an internet connection! Nothing is worse than frustratingly watching your 4G trying to load something and giving up after waiting for an eternity and we are pretty sure that this won’t occur in Progressive Web App, which can be a total lifesaver when you need it most.

Fast

They are known to make any web experience extremely faster and also improve the overall functionality without any support.

Secure

All Progressive Web Apps are secured via HTTPS coding to ensure your content and your users are safe from viruses and online hackers/ spying.

Platform Consistency

Progressive web apps are specially developed using similar coding platforms resulting in cheaper development and maintenance. In addition to that developing them can help your website to maintain its consistency and efficiency with content as well as marketing.

Push Notifications

Probably the most salivating aspect of the progressive web app is the push notifications that can be sent to your website.

Disadvantages of Progressive Web App

No Download Store

This point may be considered a pro or a con depending on your perspective, but PWA’s are ultimately a website that does not require installation to your device from an app store. Many people find it more convenient to install apps from an apps store, instead of searching online.

Limited Access To Your Other Applications

There is a range of features that can be accessed by a PWA, but there is also a substantial amount that can’t, such as your contacts, camera, and calendar.

Cross-App Login

Logging into your PWA using another application such as Facebook or Instagram is not supported using this technology.

Artificial Learning

Another trend in the software industry is the increased use of artificial learning, a subfield of AI, which is essentially a computer’s ability to learn on its own by analyzing data and tracking repeating patterns. Artificial learning employs the technique of neural networks operations research, statistics, and physics, in order to determine the insights in data without blindly following explicit program codes.

In traditional artificial learning techniques, domain experts need to identify most of the applied features in order to reduce the complexity of the data and make patterns more visible to learning algorithms. The biggest advantage of deep learning algorithms is that they try to learn high-level features from data in an incremental manner. This totally removes the requirement of hardcore feature extraction and domain expertise.

Most companies dealing with an immense amount of data have realized the value of artificial learning technology and financial institution such as banks and other companies are now turning over to artificial learning technology. The two key purposes of artificial learning are: Reveal important insight into the data and prevent scam. In addition to that artificial learning is growing spontaneously in health care industries as well, because precise data analysis helps to pinpoint red flags that may lead to improved diagnoses and treatment. Based on your previous purchase, you might also like a website recommending artificial learning to organize your buying history.

Advantages of Artificial Learning

Trends and Patterns Are Identified With Ease

A key artificial learning benefit concerns this technology’s ability to review large volumes of data and identify patterns and trends that might not be apparent to a human. For instance, an Artificial learning program may successfully pinpoint a causal relationship between two events, which makes it extremely effective for data mining. However, particularly a continual and ongoing project would require certain algorithms. The ability to quickly and accurately identify trends or patterns is one of the key advantages of artificial learning.

Artificial Learning Improves Over Time

One of the biggest advantages of Artificial learning algorithms is their ability to improve over time. Artificial learning technology typically improves its efficiency and accuracy thanks to the ever-increasing amounts of data that are processed, which ultimately results in improved algorithms and experience.

Artificial Learning Lets You Adapt Without Human Intervention

This technology allows for instantaneous adaptation, without the need for human intervention. This is one of the primary benefits of Artificial learning in a practical sense.

An excellent example of this can be found in security and anti-virus software programs, which leverage artificial learning and AI technology to implement filters and other safeguards in response to new threats. These systems use Artificial learning in order to identify new threats and trends and then the AI technology is employed to implement appropriate security measures to neutralize the threat. Artificial learning has eliminated the gap between the time when a new threat is identified and the time when a response is issued. This immediate response can be crucial, as threats such as viruses, malware, worms; bots developed by hackers can affect millions of systems in a matter of minutes

Disadvantages of Artificial Learning

High Level of Error Susceptibility

An error can cause havoc within an artificial learning interface, as all events subsequent to the error may be flawed, skewed or just plain undesirable. Errors do occur and it’s a susceptibility that developers have thus far been unable to premeditate and negate consistently. These errors can take many forms, which vary according to the way in which you’re using Artificial learning technology. For instance, you might have a faulty sensor that generates a flawed data set. The inaccurate data may then be fed into the Artificial learning program, which uses it as the basis of an algorithm update. This would cause skewed results in the algorithm’s output. In real-time experience, the result could relate to a situation where product recommendations are not quite similar. In this, a system lacks the ability to relate certain thing which only human intelligence can perform. Errors are problematic with Artificial learning due to the autonomous, independent nature of this technology. You run an artificial learning program because you don’t want a human to babysit the project. On the other hand, this will also take a fair amount of time to identify the error. Then, when the problem is identified, it can take a fair amount of time and effort to root out the source of the issue. And finally, you must implement measures to correct the error and remedy any damages that arose from the situation. Artificial learning proponents argue that even with the sometimes time-consuming diagnosis and correction process, this technology is far better than the alternatives when it comes to productivity and efficiency, which can be easily done by reviewing previous data archives.

On a related note, artificial learning deals in theoretical and statistical truths, which can sometimes differ from literal, real-life truths. It is essential that one accounts for the fact when using artificial learning.

Consumes Time and Resources

Overtime occurrence of artificial learning can result in the exposure of massive data archives. In addition to that, artificial learning takes time, especially if you have limited computing power. Operating an immense amount of data files and running system models can consume a high amount of computing power, which will ultimately end up in increasing the budget of the project. So, before turning to Artificial learning, it’s important to consider whether you can invest the amount of time and/or money required to develop the technology to a point where it will be useful. The precise amount of time involved will vary dramatically depending on the data source, the nature of the data and how it’s being utilized. Therefore, it’s wise to consult with an expert in data mining and Artificial learning concerning your project. You should also consider whether you’ll need to wait for new data to be generated. One might be destined to reach a point where they have all the computing power on the globe and then also it will ultimately reach to a point where that computing power will do absolutely nothing to improve the speed of development, as an immense amount of historical data will simply make your wait for a new data generation. This is something that can keep you waiting for days, weeks, months or even years. Fortunately, however, an artificial learning engine can’t walk into your office and put in its two-week notice.

Virtual Cloud Computing

Virtual cloud services are giving businesses a great opportunity to considerably reduce their technology management costs in the most effective way. There are several reasons businesses are moving their content to the virtual cloud instead of maintaining on-site servers. As virtual cloud users can avoid investing in digital hardware, technological infrastructure or purchasing software licenses. In addition to that, the core benefit of virtual cloud computing is it can be achieved by a minimum up-front budget, rapid deployment, customization, flexibility and solutions that encourage innovation. On top of that, it is also beneficial for the client’s scalability, efficiency, and reliability.

Advantages of Virtual Cloud Computing

No cost Foundation

Virtual Cloud computing is divided into three major categories as per the services: Foundation as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). In all these categories, one thing is common that you don’t need to invest in hardware or any foundation. In general, every organization has to spend a lot on their IT foundation to set up and hire a specialized team. Servers, network devices, ISP connections, storage, and software — these are the major things on which you need to invest if we talk about the General IT foundation. But if you move to Virtual cloud computing services, then you don’t need to invest in these. You simply go to a Virtual cloud services provider and buy the Virtual cloud service.

Minimum management and cost

By selecting the Virtual cloud, you save costs in many ways. For starters zero investment on the foundation, as you don’t own the foundation, you spend nothing on its management or staff to manage it. In addition to that Virtual cloud works on a pay as you go model, so you spend only on resources that you need. When you opt for the Virtual cloud, the management of its foundation is the sole responsibility of the Virtual cloud provider and not of the user.

Forget about administrative or management hassles

Whenever there is a purchase or up-gradation of hardware, a lot of time is wasted looking for best vendors, inviting quotations, negotiating rates, taking approvals, generating POs and waiting for delivery and then in setting up the foundation. The process that results in killing an immense amount of time, due to its various tasks related to management and administration. In addition to that with Virtual cloud services, you just need to compare the best Virtual cloud service providers and their plans and buy from the one that matches your requirements. And this whole process doesn’t take much time and saves you a lot of effort. Your system maintenance tasks are also eliminated in the Virtual cloud.

Accessibility and pay per use

One of the great benefits of virtual cloud resources is that one can easily access the data-archives from any corner of the globe. This decides your billing also -you only pay for what you use and how much you use. It’s like your phone or electricity bill. But with other IT foundations, one spends the complete amount in one go and it is very rare that those resources are used optimally and thus, the investment goes waste.

Disadvantages of Virtual Cloud Computing

Requires optimum internet speed internet and bandwidth

To access your Virtual cloud services, you need to have a good internet connection always with good bandwidth to upload or download files to/from the Virtual cloud

Downtime

Since the Virtual cloud requires high internet speed and good bandwidth, there is always a possibility of service outage, which can result in business downtime. In these recent times, no entrepreneur could bear the loss of business revenue, due to downtime or any interruption in between critical business processes.

Limited control of foundation

Since you are not the owner of the foundation of the Virtual cloud, hence you don’t have any control or have limited access to the Virtual cloud infra.

Restricted or limited flexibility

The Virtual cloud provides a huge list of services, but consuming them comes with a lot of restrictions and limited flexibility for your applications or developments. In addition to that sometimes one can find it extremely complex to move from one provider to another, due to vendor lock-in and platform dependency.

Ongoing costs

Although you save your cost of spending on the whole foundation and its management, on the Virtual cloud, you need to keep paying for services as long as you use them. However, one has to invest only once, when it comes to traditional methods.

Security

The security of data-archives is a big concern for everyone. Since public Virtual cloud utilizes the internet, your data-archives may become vulnerable. In the case of public Virtual cloud, it depends on the Virtual cloud provider to take care of your data archives. So, before opting for Virtual cloud services, it is required that you find a provider who follows maximum compliance policies for data-archives security. For complete security of data-archives on the Virtual cloud, one needs to consider a somewhat costlier private Virtual cloud option or the hybrid Virtual cloud option, where generic data-archives can be on the public Virtual cloud and business-critical data-archives is kept on the private Virtual cloud.

Vendor Lock-in

Although the Virtual cloud service providers assure you that they will allow you to switch or migrate to any other service provider whenever you want, it is a very difficult process. You will find it extremely complex to migrate each cloud services from one service provider to another. During migration, you might end up facing compatibility, interoperability and support issues. In order to avoid this inconvenience many customers, does not change the vendor very often.

Technical issues

Even if you are a tech whiz, the technical issues can occur, and everything can’t be resolved in-house. To avoid interruptions, you will need to contact your service provider for support. It can’t be said about every vendor, as very few of them provide 24/7 support to their customers.

Microservices

This is basically a software development technique that involves service-oriented architecture, which helps the software in developing a structure so that the loosely coupled services can be maintained independently. Each of these services is responsible for a discrete task and can communicate with other services through simple APIs to solve a larger, more complex business problem. Unlike the monolithic architecture, where a failure in the code affects more than one service or function, microservices minimize the impact of failure as the entire application is decentralized and separate into service that acts as opposite entities. Scalability is another key aspect of microservices. Because each service is a separate component, it is possible to scale up a single function or service without having to scale the entire application. That approach also brings flexibility to the table in terms of choosing just the right tool for the right task. Each service can use its own language, framework, or ancillary services while still being able to communicate easily with the other services in the application, enabling businesses to develop and launch new digital products much faster.

Advantages of Micro-services

Greater agility

Faster time to market

Better scalability

Faster development cycles (easier deployment and debugging)

Easier to create a CI/CD pipeline for single-responsibility services

Isolated services have better fault tolerance

Platform- and language agnostic services

Cloud-readiness

Disadvantages of Micro-services

Lack of the ability to bear results without collaboration, as each development team has to cover the whole lifecycle micro-service

Harder to test and monitor because of the complexity of the architecture

Poorer performance, as micro-services, need to communicate (network latency, message processing, etc.)

Harder to maintain the network (has less fault tolerance, needs more load balancing, etc.)

Lacks the ability to operate without the proper corporate culture

Decentralized Network

A decentralized network is a growing, chronologically ordered list of cryptographically signed, irrevocable transactional records. Called blocks, these records are shared by all participants in a network. Appearing in 2008 to serve as the public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, the decentralized network has been integrated into multiple areas such as finance, government, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain, and others. The secured and simplified recording of transactions in a decentralized ledger with the help of decentralized network technology services is strategically important for businesses in all domains. The technology allows companies to trace a transaction and work with untrusted parties without the need for a centralized third party such as a bank. Decentralized networks greatly reduce business friction and could potentially lower costs, reduce transaction settlement times, and improve cash flow.

Advantages of Decentralized Network

Distributed

When it comes to the decentralized network then the data is often stored in an immense amount of devices on a distributed network of nodes, which are highly resistant to any kind of technical errors or failures and even to cyber-attacks. One of the best parts is that each network has the ability to store a copy of data archives, which eliminates every possibility of technical failures. The security and availability of the network won’t be affected, even if one or two nodes go offline. Recent convectional data archives are under constant threat of technical failure and cyber-attack, due to their reliance on a single or few servers.

Stability

Confirmed blocks are very unlikely to be reversed, meaning that once data has been registered into the decentralized network, it is extremely difficult to remove or change it.

This makes the decentralized networks a highly effective technology to reserve financial records or such data files where an audit trail is required, only because every change made on the server is tracked and permanently recorded on public and distributed ledger. For instance, a business could use decentralized network technology to prevent fraudulent behavior from its employees. This would give a hard time for the employees to hide suspicious transactions because the decentralized network can provide a stable and secure record for each financial transaction that takes place within the company.

Trustless system

In most traditional payment systems, transactions are not only dependent on the two parties involved, but also on an intermediary — such as a bank, credit card company, or payment provider. When using decentralized network technology, this is no longer necessary because the distributed network of nodes verify the transactions through a process known as mining. For this reason, a Decentralized network is often referred to as a ‘trustless’ system. Therefore, a decentralized network system negates the risk of trusting a single organization and also reduces the overall costs and transaction fees by cutting out intermediaries and third parties.

Disadvantages of Decentralized network

51% Attacks

The Proof of Work consensus algorithm that protects the Bitcoin decentralized network has proven to be very efficient over the years. However, there are a few potential attacks that can be performed against decentralized network networks and 51% attacks are among the most discussed. Possibility of such invasion arises, when one single entity gains control on more than half of the hash powering the network. This would provide one the ability to disrupt the network by manipulating the ordering of transaction. Despite being theoretically possible, there was never a successful 51% attack on the Bitcoindecentralized network. Once the size of the network grows then the risk to the security also increases. For instance, it is highly possible that various miners would be ready to invest immense amount of funds in order to invade Bitcoin only to achieve better rewards. However, a successfully implemented 51% invasion would only be able to manipulate the most recent transactions, as each blocks are synchronized with cryptographic proofs and replacing old blocks would require intangible levels of computing power. Also, the Bitcoindecentralized network is very resilient and would quickly adapt as a response to an attack.

Data modification

Another downside of decentralized network systems is that once data has been added to the decentralized network it is very difficult to modify it. While stability is one of decentralized network’s advantages, it is not always good. Changing decentralized network data or code is usually very demanding and often requires a hard fork, where one chain is abandoned, and a new one is taken up.

Private keys

Decentralized network uses public-key (or asymmetric) cryptography to give users ownership over their cryptocurrency units (or any other decentralized network data). Each decentralized network address has a corresponding private key. While the address can be shared, the private key should be kept secret. Each client will require a private key to access their funds, which is quite similar to the banking structure. In case if a client loses their private key then it would ultimately result in loss of their funds.

Inefficient

Decentralized networks, especially those using Proof of Work, are highly inefficient. Recently, due to liquidity the mining is extremely competitive and in order to compete in current market each miner is constantly trying to upgrade their computing power. The resources employed by Bitcoin has gained more momentum in these past few years and currently it consumes more energy than various small countries.

Storage

Decentralized network ledgers can grow very large over time. The Bitcoindecentralized network currently requires around 200 GB of storage. The current growth in decentralized network size appears to be outstripping the growth in hard drives and the network risks losing nodes if the ledger becomes too large for individuals to download and store.

IoT

The Internet of Things is the concept that all technological devices can be connected to the Internet and to each other, transferring data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. That includes an extraordinary number of objects of all shapes and sizes, from wearable fitness devices that measure your heart rate and the number of steps taken to self-driving cars, whose complex sensors detect objects in their paths. On a broader scale, the IoT can be applied to things like smart homes, construction, travel and transportation, health care, and “smart cities,” helping us improve how we work and live.

Advantages of Internet of Things

Efficiency

Automation

Communication

Cost Savings

Instant Data Access

Disadvantages of Internet of Things

Complexity

Technologically Dependent Life

Compatibility

Privacy and Security

Less Jobs

Cyber-Security

Recently each one of us is well aware of the importance of personal information and everyone is quite concerned. As we all know that what kind of catastrophic situations it can create in one’s life if it gets compromised. Protecting data loss and leakage becomes the biggest concern for cyber-security professionals, followed by threats to data privacy and breaches of confidentiality. Businesses of all sizes are facing cyber-security issues, and they all look to the software industry for support, which makes it a trending service requirement in the IT sector. Software development is changing at a lightning speed, with new technologies being introduced regularly to transform and improve the quality of software products. By keeping up with the latest advancements in emerging technologies, you can anticipate what is coming and begin to make adjustments and adapt to industry standards. It also allows you to take a close look at what you are doing and find ways to be at the forefront of software and technology trends so that you can meet the needs of your customers and be a software development industry leader.

Advantages of cyber security

It saves your system from malware attacks

Eliminates the possibility of data theft

Saves your system or network from cyber-invasion

Provides optimum performance

Protects your privacy

Disadvantages of cyber security

It is an extremely complex task to configure an effective firewall

It reduces the efficiency of your own employee if the firewall is not properly configured

Requires high computing power

Quite expensive

One has to keep updating their security measures

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Latest Tech Alert

Smart Television’s Security

If you just bought a smart Television on Black Friday or plan to buy one for Cyber Monday tomorrow, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants you to know a few things. The Smart Televisions that you use for the entertainment are like regular Television sets but with the extra facility of internet connection. This now includes the growth of streaming platforms such as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime; now each of these services requires internet connection. But like anything that connects to the internet, it opens up smart Televisions to security vulnerabilities and Cyber-Criminals. Not only have that, but many smart Televisions also come with a camera and a microphone. However, most of the internet-connected device producers, care very little about the core security of their gadgets. That’s the key takeaway from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Portland field office, which just ahead of some of the biggest shopping days of the year posted a warning on its website about the risks that smart Televisions pose. Beyond the risk that your Television manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that Television can be a gateway for Cyber-Criminals to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured Television can give them an easy way in the backdoor through your router, wrote the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned those Cyber-Criminals can take control of your unsecured smart Television and in worst cases, take control of the camera and microphone to watch and listen in. Active strikes and exploits against smart Televisions are rare, but not unheard of. Every Smart Television set comes equipped with the software designed by their manufacturer and every consumer is at the mercy of their provider’s unreliable and irregular security patches, which also makes some devices more vulnerable than other gadgets. Recently, Cyber-Criminalsdisplayed how Google’s Chromecast streaming stick can be compromised and broadcast random videos to millions of victims. In fact, some of the biggest exploits targeting smart Televisions in recent years were developed by the Central Intelligence Agency but were stolen. Those files were later uploaded on WikiLeaks. But as much as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s warning is responding to genuine fears, arguably one of the bigger issues that should cause as much if not greater concerns are how much tracking data is collected on smart Television owners. Recent study declared that many manufacturers of smart Televisionincluding LG, Sony and Samsung collects immense amount of information about what users are watching, so that the advertisers can develop their ads strategy, for instance, The Television tracking issue has become so complex in this few years and the Television maker Vizio had to pay fine of millions of dollar, when they were caught secretly collecting customer viewing data. Earlier this year, all because of a separate class-action suit related to the tracking again Vizio was allowed to continue. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recommends placing black tape over an unused smart Television camera, keeping your smart Television up-to-date with the latest patches and fixes, and to read the privacy policy to better understand what you’re smart Television is capable of.

Millions of SMS Messages Exposed In Data-Archives Security Lapse

A massive Data-Archives storing tens of millions of text messages, most of which were sent by businesses to potential customers, has been found online.

Data archives operated by a company that is an SMS service provider for businesses and higher education providers and allows universities, companies, colleges to send bulk text messages to their customers and students. The company based in Austin, Texas declared that of the benefits to its services is that the recipients can also text back. It basically allows them to achieve two-way communication with businesses. The Data-Archives stored years of sent and received text messages from its customers and processed by TrueDialog. But because the Data-Archives were left unprotected on the internet without a password, none of the data was encrypted and anyone could look inside. Earlier this month security researchers found that the exposed Data-Archives the part of their internet scanning efforts and observed that a portion of the data, which had detailed logs of messages sent by customers, including phone numbers and text-message contents.

The Data-Archives had information about marketing messages from businesses with discount codes, university finance applications, and job alerts. However, the data also had sensitive text messages, such as security codes and two-factor codes. The viewer can easily achieve online access to that person’s online accounts and the list goes on and on with the codes to access online medical services and password reset and login credentials for various websites such as Gmail and Facebook accounts. It is extremely easy to read the entire chain of conversations with the help of the unique conversation code in two-way message conversations only one log table had millions of text-messages. When Security Researchersinformed TrueDialog about their exposure, they rapidly pulled the Data-Archives offline. The worst part is that in this entire dilemma chief executive officer of the company was silent and was not ready to acknowledge the trespass neither returned any promising answer to the comment. He didn’t even answer, whether the company would follow state data trespass notification laws and inform their customers about the security lapse.

Unfortunately, this is only one company amongst others who have sensitive consumer information on stake and cared less to take necessary security measures and left sensitive text-messages on the internet, so that it can be accessed by anyone. It is yet another example of how the text-messages can be convenient, but it can be compromised so easily due to the carelessness of various text-message service providers.

Mix-Cloud Data Trespass Exposes Over 20 Million User Records

A Cyber-Invasion on Mix-cloud audio streaming platform based in the United Kingdom has threatened the security and privacy of more than million user accounts and after several minutes the stolen data was on sale over the Dark-web. This actually happens earlier in November and as per the statement received from the seller at the Dark-web, who also supplied a portion of the data, allowing us to examine and verify the authenticity of the data. The data contained login credentials, email addresses, and the login credentials that appeared to be scrambled with the SHA-2 algorithm, making the login credentials nearly impossible to unscramble. All those data files contained sensitive details such as sign-up dates for the accounts and the login date. In addition to that is also had the information about the country from which the client accessed the account including their TCP/IP address and a direct link to their profile picture. However, the company doesn’t force its users to verify their email addresses.

The exact amount of data stolen from the companies’ Data-archives is still unknown. But, as per the information disclosed by an anonymous seller on the Dark-Web, that the total amount of stolen data crossed 25 million and all of them were on sale on the Dark-Web. The data was set for an auction on the Dark-Web and the highest bidder in bitcoin can have direct access to the private data of various consumers. It’s the latest in a string of high profile Data Trespass in recent months. The trespassed data came from the same Dark-web seller who also alerted TechCrunch to the StockXtrespass earlier this year. It was earlier stated by the apparel trading company the consumer wide password reset was only for system maintenance. However, later they had to confirm that they were compromised and their incompetence resulted in a Data exposure of an immense amount of records. The spokesperson of Mixcloud maintained her silence and did not comment. She also failed to answer any of the questions, including if the company has any plans to inform customers as per the U.S. state and EU Data Trespass notification laws. The co-founder of the company also maintained his silence. As a London-based company, Mixcloud falls under the U.K. and European data protection rules, the companies will be fined approximately 4% of their yearly turnover. If they violate the rules set by the European GDPR.

Stop Stating that We Take Your Privacy Very Seriously

In our years of covering web security, there is one lie we have encountered several times. In which many companies state that they take your privacy and security very seriously and the funny thing is that by now most of the consumers known that it’s a blunder. One might have heard that phrase on various occasions and it is basically a common statement used by multiple companies in their wake of a Data-Trespass. The companies always include that quote in their email and also on their website that they care about your privacy. But, the harsh reality is that they don’t really give a crap about your privacy and instead many companies have been found misusing your data. Many companies have been also fined on selling private information of their consumers for more profits. We never understood the exact meaning of that quote made by various companies. Honestly, if all the companies really cared about your privacy, then the data-hungry companies like Google and Facebook, have to stop selling consumer’s private data to the advertisers. Even after reading all this, if some of you still want to reside under the bubble and want to think that all the allegations are incorrect and the companies are those fluffy angels who can’t lie to you, then you might want to see the data which we have created by scraping each report notified to the California attorney general’s office, which comes under requirements of state law; in the events such as a trespassing of security. Approximately one-fourth of all data trespass notification had some variations stating that the company doesn’t really care about your privacy. It displays that they don’t even know their next step.

Let me just provide you another perfect example of the incompetence of a company: Last week, recently many clients of OkCupid complained that their accounts were compromised. In addition to that their accounts were hit by credential stuffing, where Cyber-Criminals take lists of login credentials and try to brute-force their way into consumer’s accounts. Various organizations have learned from such strikes and took the time to improve their account security, such as rolling out two-factor authentication. Instead, OkCupid’s response was to defend, deflect and deny, the common way for organizations to leave negative stories behind. It looked like this:

Deflect

The Company states that almost every website has to deal with attempts related to account takeover

Defend

Later Company said to another publication that there is no strong evidence supporting the Story.

Deny

The company maintained its silence when asked for further steps to overcome this issue.

Unfortunately, today every company like this one has long neglected security issue and constant denial and assurance is their policy to deal with such issues where the customer who trusted them with their private details is on stake. Most of the trespasses happen, due to careless behavior and weak security measures. Cyber-Criminals have been advancing in their techniques every day and on the other hand, these companies who the customer entrusted with their private information are doing nothing but giving fake assurance. The companies can also reach out to the customer for this and educate their customers about the bugs and they instruct them to report a bug immediately. Every start-up project should take security measures very seriously right from the beginning, so in the future, they can achieve invulnerable security for their data archives. Even most successful companies ignore these issues and rather take an escape window of paying fines. I think by now the companies have to understand the seriousness of these issues and instead of ignoring this, they have to employ a proper development team to strengthen their security measures. However, again with a lack of incentive to change, these organizations will continue to hide their faces beneath the ground stating everything is okay when they have to do something to prevent such negativity.

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Cyber-Invading Communities In The Dark-Net Cyber-Invading

The role of Cyber-Criminals has changed over the years, in the past, these professionals were viewed as dangerous criminals that needed to be kept away at any cost. However, such times are behind us and recently various private companies, criminal gangs, and intelligence agencies are seeking help from those experts. An increasingly large number of modern business operations rely on an understanding of the risks associated with programs that can easily be made vulnerable to Cyber-Invasion. Reported in a post I published on the Fox News Web-Site on the role of Cyber-Criminals. Cyber-Invading services are among the most attractive commodities in the underground market, it is possible to hire a Cyber-Criminal to request a realistic penetration test, or one can pay a Cyber-Criminal if they wish to take over someone’s Facebook or Gmail account. How much does it cost to hire a Cyber-Criminal? How to do it and what is the price for their services?

Recently many new sources also claimed that now a day it is extremely easy to hire Cyber-Criminals to carry on desires Cyber-Invasion. These Cyber-Criminals have a catalog full of prices for their Cyber-Invading Service, if an individual wants to compromise someone’s Gmail account they have to pay approximately $90 USD to get the job done. This can really come in handy if you forget your password and have important information to access and you are feeling helpless without the password. But, truth is that taking service from these Cyber-Nerds you can unlock your account. It states the post if you want to crack Gmail passwords; you can compromise Gmail with browser settings, phishing and keylogging programs, and special scripts. Cyber-Criminals, for example, could be hired to Cyber-Invade into a social media account, the cost to compromise someone’s Facebook account is $350, or simply to increase the rank of a company on a social network. The investigation conducted by law agencies revealed that the Cyber-Criminal can steal someone’s Facebook Information for $15 and to compromise a NetFlix account you have to just spare $1.25. Other common commodities in the Cyber-Invading underground are the tutorials of Cyber-Invasion that go for $20 and hit-and-run strikes, such as a DDoS or Web-Site defacement. There are various ways to buy Cyber-Invading services and probably the most interesting place where it is possible to meet members of the principal Cyber-Invading communities is the Dark-Net.

Diving In The Cyber-Invading Communities

Many Cyber-Crime investigating agencies disclosed that are countless Cyber-Invading community in the Dark-Net and Strike-Forum, Cyber-Experts, Trojan-Forge, Mazafaka, TheRealDeal and darkdeare some of the rent examples of these community. The majority of the Cyber-Invading communities are closed to the public and one must request an invitation to join the discussions. In many cases, these groups are specialized in their activities on specific topics and practices (e.g. Social media strike, data theft, infections and exploits and hit-and-run strikes (i.e. DDoS, Web-Sitestrike).Among the communities accessible only by invitation there are several strike forums, an example is the popular Trojanforge, which specializes in virus and code reversing.

Let’s start our tour on the Dark-Net from the results of a study conducted by the experts at Dell Secure Works Counter Threat Unit (CTU) to see what is changing from the publishing of the report and which are the dynamics and trends behind the Cyber-Invading communities in the underground. In 2013, experts at Dell Secure Works Counter Threat Unit (CTU) published a very interesting report titled “The Underground Cyber-Invading Economy is Alive and Well.” which investigated the online marketplace for stolen data and Cyber-Invading services. The study listed the goods sold in the black markets and related costs. One year later, the same team of researchers at Dell SecureWorks released an update to the study of black hat markets, titled “Underground Cyber-Criminal Markets”, which reports a number of noteworthy trends. Many researchers witness that the demand of fraudulent personal documents is rising every day, these documents could be employed as a second form of identification such as passport, drivers licenses, utility bills, and Social Security Numbers. Another distinguishing element of the evolution of the underground marketplaces in the last year is the offer of Cyber-Criminal Tutorials, as we have seen this kind of product still represents an element of attraction in the Cyber-Invading community. Training tutorials provide instruction to criminals and Cyber-Criminals that want to enter into the business of stolen credit card data, information on running exploit kits, guides for the organization of spam and phishing campaigns, and tutorials on how to organize hit-and-run DDoSstrike. Other tutorials offered in the Cyber-Invading communities include an instruction to compromise ATM and to manage a network of money mules, which are the principal actors for the cash-out process of every illegal activity. An investigation conducted by many law agencies proved various underground illegal activities happening in the Brazilian underground, which is characterized by the availability of a significant number of similar products and services. Cyber-Invading communities are very active in selling stolen credit cards, differentiating their offer to reach a wider audience and provide tailored services at higher prices. In the table listed on twitter, the services and the products are there with related prices expressed in both BTC and USD.

Most Common Browser Employed To Access Dark-Net

The Tor Browser is a web browser that hides your web traffic using the Tor network, making it easy to protect your identity online. The Tor browser is a perfect choice for you, if you’re investigating a competitor, researching an opposing litigant in a legal dispute, or just think it’s creepy for your ISP or the government to know what Web-Sites you browse. Browsing the web over Tor is slower than the clearnet, and some major web services block Tor clients. This browser is illegal in some countries, as the authority there does not want their citizens to publish, read or communicate privately. Various free minds across the globe have embraced the Tor browser, as online freedom and company itself work very hard to improve the overall performance of the browser.

How to Operate the Tor Browser

Like any other browser such as google chrome and Firefox, one can easily download the Tor browser. If you’ve never practiced Tor, then the first thing you’ll notice is that it’s slow or at least, slower than regular internet browsing. Still, Tor has gotten quite a bit faster over the years, and with a good internet connection, you can even watch YouTube videos over Tor.

Tor Browser gives you access to .onion Web-Sites that are only available within the Tor network. For instance, try to access Facebook at https://www.facebookcorewwwi.onion and The New York Times at https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ employing a regular web browser. It won’t work. As you can only reach these Web-Sites over Tor. This makes it possible to read the news privately, a desirable feature in a country where you don’t want the government knowing which news Web-Sites you’re reading, when you’re reading them, and for how long. Operating Tor comes with a major set-back as various web services have blocked the access to Tor, sometimes without useful error message. If a Web-Site you normally visit suddenly returns 404 when visiting over Tor, the service is likely blocking Tor traffic and being needlessly opaque about it. Web-Sites that do not block Tor might push you to click through a ton of captchas. It’s not the end of the world, but it is annoying.

How Tor Browser works

The greatest advantage of the Tor Browser is that it re-routes all the web traffic through their network and it results in complete secrecy. Tor had developed three-layers of the proxy, quite similar to the layers of an onion. Tor Browser connects at random to one of the publicly listed entry nodes, bounces that traffic through a randomly selected middle relay, and finally spits out your traffic through the third and final exit node. As a result, don’t be surprised if Google or another service greets you in a foreign tongue. These services look at your IP address and guesstimate your country and language, but when using Tor, you will often appear to be in a physical location halfway around the world. If you live in a regime that blocks Tor or need to access a web service that blocks Tor, you can also configure Tor Browser to exercise bridges. Unlike Tor’s entry and exit nodes, bridge IP addresses are not publicly listed, making it extremely complex for web services, or governments, to blacklist those IP addresses. Tor does not support UDP, so don’t try to torrent free programs ISOs, as it won’t work.

Is Tor Browser legal?

For most people reading this article, Tor Browser is completely legal to practice. In some countries, this browser is illegal, as the authority there does not want their citizens to publish, read or communicate privately. Various free minds across the globe have embraced the Tor browser, as online freedom and the company itself work very hard to improve the overall performance of the browser. China has banned secrecy and hence blocks Tor traffic from crossing the Firewall and countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia are working day and night to stop citizens from using Tor. Recently most of the traffic of the Tor browser was blocked in Venezuela. It’s easy to see why a repressive regime hates Tor. The service makes it easy for journalists to report on corruption and helps dissidents organize against political repression. The freedom to communicate, publish, and read privately is a prerequisite for freedom of expression online, and thus a prerequisite for democracy today.

How to get on the Dark-Net?

Let’s get this Dark-Net nonsense out of the way once and for all. While it’s true that some criminal entities employ Tor to commit crimes, criminals also employ regular internet to commit crimes. Bank robbers often take getaway cars on public highways to commit crimes. We don’t slander highways or the internet, because that would be foolish. Tor has tons of legitimate operations and it is considered to be a cornerstone of democracy today. So when you hear people talking in scared whispers about the Dark-Net or some other nonsense, understand that there is a lot more going on here than just The Four Horsemen of Infocalypse are using systems in non-normative methods and online Secrecy is not merely the bailiwick of criminals.As a practical matter, Tor is for ordinary people, because criminals willing to break the law can achieve better secrecy than Tor provides.

Does Tor allow criminals to do illegal things?

Criminals can already do bad things, as they want to break the law and they will do it in one way or the other. In addition to that, they have plenty of options available to do their work is absolute privacy. They can steal cell phones, employ them, and throw them in a ditch; they can crack into computers in Korea or Brazil and employ them to launch abusive activities such as spyware, viruses, and other techniques to take control of literally millions of Windows machines around the world. Tor as a browser always aims to provide protection for ordinary people. Those who want to follow some rules. Recently, only criminals can enjoy privacy and we need to do something about it.

Is Tor Browser private?

Tor browser features one of the best private web-browsing so far. However, still is far from perfect. They are currently witnessing an arms race between researchers seeking to strengthen Tor, or even develop a next-generation secrecy tool, and governments around the world studying how to break Tor’s secrecy properties.

Hiring Cyber-Criminal In Tor Network

Product — Price

Small Job-like Email, Facebook etc. compromising — $200 USD

Medium-Large Job, ruining people, espionage, Web-Site strikes etc.comercial Moctezuma — $600 USD

Compromising web server (vps or hosting) — $120 USD

Compromising personal computer — $80 USD

Security Audit

Web Server security Audit — $150 USD

Social media account take-over

Social media (FB, Twitter, etc.) — account Compromising — $50 USD

Spyware and Device Tracking

Spyware development — $180 USD

Device Tracking — $60 USD

Intelligence and Investigation

Intelligent report — locate people — $140 USD

Intelligent report — background checks — $120 USD

Fraud Track — Find your Scammer — $120 USD

Cyber extortion To be agreed prior contact

Compromising web server (vps or hosting) — $250 USD

Compromising personal computer — $200 USD

Compromising Social Media Account (Facebook, Twitter) — $300 USD

Gmail Account Take over — $300 USD

Security Audit

Web Server security Audit — $400 USD

Virus — $150 USD

Remote Access Trojan — $400 USD

Banking virus Customization (Zeus source code) — $900 USD

DDoS strikes

Rent a botnet for DDoS strike for 24 hours — $150 to $500 USD

24 Hours DDoS Service — $480.61 USD

Market set up — $7957.80 USD

Private RAT setup for dummies — $1250 USD

The real GovRAT — source code + Instructions on setup and compile + 1 digital certificate for code signing to sign your files — $1081.38 USD

RAT set up service and deployment on bullet proof hosting — $1201.53 USD

Android RAT + Tutorial — $1200 USD

Compromising web server — $500 USD

Compromising Social Media Account (Facebook, Twitter ) — $200 USD

Compromising Tutorial, Cash out tutorial, Carding tutorial etc. — $240 USD

Compromising Tool: Spying a Computer — $500 USD

Compromising a web server — $1000 USD

Targeted invasion on a specific client — $2000 USD

Programs protection cracking- Reverse engineering — $300 USD

Penetration Testing — $250 USD

Custom Facebook strike — $250 USD

Tutorial

How to make a Botnet — $2211 USD

How to set up a RAT — $1100 USD

All the payments are done privately and in BTC. In the Tor network, several Cyber-Criminals offering their services using their own Web-Sites, black markets represent the privileged choice to get in touch with a Cyber-Criminal and hire him. The principal benefits of hiring a Cyber-Criminal on a black marketplace are: • Possibility to verify the reputation of the Cyber-Criminal and its abilities. • Availability of escrow services that protect both buyers and sellers.

For this reason, we decided to explore some of the most popular black markets searching for Cyber-Criminals to hire. We end up taking a short tour of the TheRealDeal black market. This community was emerged recently to deliver a privileged environment to both buyers and sellers and the core goal is to commercialize exploit kits and Cyber-Invading services. I have found among the Cyber-Criminals that propose their services the possibility to pay for a DDoSstrike or for the customization of a virus, also on TheRealDeal market it is possible to pay for tutorials of a different kind. Below a table that outlines the offers, I received from the Cyber-Criminals I contacted, or that published their offers on the marketplace. Another popular black market is Nucleus(http://nfc2s3fsbjh22hzz.onion, http://ifa3gxnvs6gj7ooa.onion/ but at least another 2 mirrors are up to serve visitors), this marketplace is more focused on products (i.e. virus, stolen card data, etc.) than service. I tried to contact some sellers and only one of them offered me Cyber-Invading services to compromise a server or to compromise a specific client stealing his data with targeted invasion. In the following table are resumed some of the products/services available on Nucleus marketplace.

The Opinion Of An Expert

In order to give you an illustrious opinion about the Cyber-Menaces of the Dark-Net, I decided to involve a valuable colleague, Paolo Stagno, aka VoidSec, which is a Cyber Security Analyst specialized in Underground Intelligence. He provides speeches in various international conferences, which include BlackHat, DEFCON, and Droidcon. He is the proud leader and founder of VoidSec.com. This is the Web-Site where all Cyber-Criminals can share experience and ideas. Below my questions for Paolo regarding Dark-Net and Cyber-Invading communities:

What can we find in the Dark-Net?

The Dark-Net is a “hidden reality” where is possible to find every kind of illegal products and services. Black markets are the places in the Dark-Net were sellers offer their illegal goods and services, including drugs, weapons, counterfeit, stolen merchandise, credit cards, access to bank accounts, fake identities and related documents, various accounts, trafficking in persons, organs, account compromising services and also hitmen. The Cyber-Invading market inside the Dark-Net is flourishing thanks to the secrecy offered by the communications protocols implemented in this part of the web. The newest trend observed by security experts is the model of sale known as Cyber-Invading as a service. The addition of technical support to the Cyber-Strike tools (i.e. Friendly interfaces, email, and IRC) lowers the level of complexity for their usage, ransom-ware kits, for example, are offered according to this model example allowing anyone to commit crimes just for 50 €. Most common services available in the underground Cyber-Invasion:

Hire a Cyber-Criminal

Botnet

exploit kit

Zero-day

Crypter

DDoS

Doxing

Spam

Virus

Money laundering services

In order to rent a botnet, they normally run spam or DDoS campaign, clients pay a price from 2–5$ month, with a limitation on the number of strokes per session and up to $ 100–200 every day for more complex strikes. Exploit kits are still sold with their source code, but they still have exorbitant prices of $ 20–30k, for this reason, clients rent them for the limited periods, which cost them near about $ 500/month and the same goes for 0-day exploits that can cost approximately up to thousands of dollars.

Which are the principal players of the Cyber-Invasion the Dark-Net?

In Dark-Net, there are several Cyber-Invading communities that are accessible via both hiding protocols or via Clearnet. Most of them are exclusive and one must have an invitation in order to gain access. Normally they are more focused on topics like reversing and viruses including Trojan-forge, however, we also have some generic communities such as Cyber-Strike Forum, where members plan various issues related to Cyber-Invasion, Cyber-Frauds, and Financial Crimes. There are various forums and chat on the Dark-Net, which are dedicated to activities of Black Cyber-Invasion. However, the distribution of products and service are done by marketplaces to reach a wider audience. The major players in the Cyber-Invasion landscape in the Dark-Net are:

Agora (TOR)

TheRealDeal (TOR) past the spotlight recently due to the possibility of buying day exploits

DreamMarket (TOR)

MRNiceGuy (TOR, a clone of the original)

Outlaw (TOR)

MajesticGarden (TOR)

Among the black market in Clearnet find

Rescator

Lampedusa

What are the risks for buyers?

The black markets hosted in the Dark-Net increase the safety of both sellers and buyers, making hard to track them by law enforcement. In any case, there is the concrete risk that clients fall victim to a Web-Site known as a honeypot, which was used by law enforcement. Another great risk for the buyer of these black market places is that the law enforcement agencies now have the ability to track their shipment and seize their shipment of illegal products.

How is the payment, what guarantees the buyer?

Trust has been a major issue for the Cyber-Invading communities and quite similar to any other market. The black market has created a reputation mechanism with the help of the buyer’s reviews. Some black markets implement escrow mechanisms based on BTC MultiSignature in order to protect both sellers and buyers. The Payment is generally made by exploiting virtual currency schemas such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, rarely operators allow PayPal, Western Union, and other payment systems.

Activities Of VoidSec In Dark-Net

It normally operates intense activities of the black market and under-ground intelligence by extreme research and preservation of various menaces. They also keep a close eye on the main black marketplaces and Cyber-InvadingCommunities. We analyze the latest trends, products, and services offered in the Dark-Net.

Conclusions

As we have seen it not so hard to hire a Cyber-Criminal in the numerous black markets available on the Dark-Net, especially when someone needs simple tasks. These services are tempting, but it has a greater risk involved, as it is way different from hiring a professional. These groups employ various channels for communication and the majority of the service providers are just scam, as they run away with your money without doing the task. For this reason, clients that intend to hire a Cyber-Criminal usually refer to black markets due to the reputation mechanisms they implement.The rates of various services among various Cyber-Invading communities are quite similar and this allows the user to monitor the evolution and the latest running trends in the Cyber-Invadingmarket place. Variation of price: For instance, prices could be changed, due to the sudden rise in demand for a product in the criminal ecosystem. The availability of a large amount of data related to a data breach could cause a decrease in the price of a single record and sustain the offer Cyber-Criminal against clients of organizations affected.

[vbktechnologiesllp]

Dark-Net

What is the Dark-Net?

Overlay networks that employ the Internet but also require a certain set of specific software requirements and configurations, the authority to access and contain some worldwide web content existing on them, is known as the Dark-Net. It is a part that has not been indexed by web search engines. Though, sometimes dark-web is mistakenly referred to as the deep web. The Dark-Net comprises small networks as well as large and well-known networks. The Dark-Net browsers are Tor, Freenet, I2P, and riffle. These are operated by public organizations and also by individuals. The clients of the Dark-Net have also termed the regular net as ‘Clearnet’. This is due to the fact that the regular net has no encryption. The Tor Dark-Net is also called ‘Onionland’ which is a reference made for the top-level domain suffixes of a network. Onion routing consists of traffic anonymity. There is a list of some common terminologies practiced to refer to it. But, looking at the general confusion which occurs due to the confusion between the dark-web and deep web, the deep web is one such term that is required to gain more clarity on. There have been recommendations to distinguish between them but not many amendments have been made.

How does the Dark-Net work?

Dark-Net Websites are accessed through some specific networks such as Tor, which is ‘The onion’ routing project or I2P which is the Invisible Internet Project. Dark-Net clients employ some frequently exercised Tor-accessible Web-Sites and Tor browser and these can be identified by the domain “.onion”. The function of Tor is to provide anonymous access to the Internet while the I2P has a specialization in providing authority to anonymously access Web-Sites. There is layered encryption in the Dark-Net and due to this the identities and locations of the Dark-Net clients cannot be tracked. The encryption provided by the Dark-Net has a powerful technology that is supposed to route the client’s data through some intermediate servers. This protects the identity of the client and also provides a guarantee of their anonymity.

There is a subsequent node in the scheme through which the information which has been transmitted is decrypted and this leads to the exit node. Owing to the complications of the system, it has become absolutely impossible for the node path to be produced again in order to decrypt the information layer by layer. Due to a level of encryption which is very high, it is difficult for the Web-Sites to be able to track the geolocation and the IP of the clients. Also, clients are unable to get any information about their hosts.

The communication that takes place between the Dark-Net clients is of a highly encrypted nature which allows them to exchange information and files in a very confidential manner. Illegal activities such as trade, forums and exchanges in the media happen with regard to pedophiles and terrorists. Simultaneously, there are certain traditional Websites that have created an alternative method to access for Tor browser to ease connectivity to the clients. ProPublica, for instance, launched a newer version of its Web-Site which was made available uniquely to the Tor clients. Some illicit practice of onion services has been highlighted by some researchers at King’s College London in the past. Some widely employed terms in the Dark-Net stories or its concept are:

Botnets: These are mostly structured with their command and control servers, which have found their base in hidden service which is resistant to censorship. These create a large amount of traffic which is related to the bot.

Bitcoin service: Some services of bitcoin such as tumblers are available on Tor and others such as Grams, provide Dark-Net market integration. There have been tested approaches that have been found to convert Bitcoin into a game currency that is exercised online. There has been evidence of blockchain and cryptocurrency being employed to regulate the Dark-Net.

Dark-Net markets: Transaction of illegal drugs happens in commercial Dark-Net markets. These have been able to pull significant media coverage given to the popularity of Silk Road. Software exploits and weapons are also sold in some markets.

Groups of Cyber-Invaders: There are Cyber-Invaders who function either individually or in groups. And, they sell their services similarly. There are some widely known groups such as Xdedic, Cyber-Strike forum, darkOde, TheRealdeal, Trojanforge, and Mazafaka.

Dark-Net tools and services

The Into the Web of Profit report identified 12 categories of tools or services that could present a peril in the form of a network breach or data compromise:

Infection or Strikes, including virus, distributed denial of service (DDoS) and botnets

Access, including remote access Trojans (RATs), keyloggers and exploits

Espionage, including services, customization and targeting

Support services such as tutorials

Credentials

Phishing

Refunds

Customer data

Operational data

Financial data

Intellectual properter/trade secrets

Other emerging menace

The report also outlined three peril variables for each category:

Devaluing the enterprise, by undermining brand trust, reputational damage or losing ground to a competitor

Disrupting the enterprise, by DDoS Cyber-Invasion or other malware that affects business operations

Defrauding the enterprise, by IP theft or espionage that impairs a company’s ability to compete or causes a direct financial loss

Dark-Net browser

All this activity, this vision of a bustling marketplace, might make you think that navigating the Dark-Net is easy. It isn’t. One would imagine that the Dark-Net is an extremely chaotic and messy place and everyone on the Dark-Net, is anonymous and a substantial minority of criminals who are out to scam other peoples. Accessing the Dark-Net requires to employ an anonymous browser called Tor. The Tor browser makes your task extremely easy by routing your web page requests via a series of proxy servers handled by thousands of people around the globe, making your IP address untraceable and unidentifiable. Tor works like magic, but the result is an experience that’s like the Dark-Net itself: unpredictable, unreliable and maddeningly slow. Still, for those willing to put up with the inconvenience, the Dark-Net provides a memorable glimpse at the seamy underbelly of the human experience — without the peril of skulking around in a dark alley.

Dark-Net search engine

Dark-Net search engines exist, but even the best are challenged to keep up with the constantly shifting landscape. The experience is reminiscent of searching the web in the late 1990s. Even one of the best search engines, called Grams, returns results that are repetitive and often irrelevant to the query. List of links such as Hidden Wikipedia are other routes to take, however, even indices return multiple 404 errors and a frustrating number of timed-out connections.

Dark-Net Websites

Dark-Net Websites look pretty much like any other Web-Site, but there are important differences. One is the naming structure. Instead of ending in .com or .co, Dark-Net Websites end in .onion. That is the special practice of top-level domain suffix is designating an anonymous hidden service reachable via the Tor network. Browsers with the appropriate proxy can reach these Web-Sites, but others can’t. Dark-Net Web-Sites also employ a scrambled naming structure that creates URLs that are often impossible to remember. For example, a popular commerce Website called Dream Market goes by the unintelligible address of “eajwlvm3z2lcca76.onion.”

Many Dark-Net Web-Sites are set up by scammers, who constantly move around to avoid the wrath of their victims. Even commerce Web-Sites that may have existed for a year or more can suddenly disappear if the owners decide to cash in and flee with the escrow money they’re holding on behalf of customers.

Law enforcement officials are getting better at finding and prosecuting owners of Web-Sites that sell illicit goods and services. In the summer of 2017, a team of cybercops from three countries successfully shut down AlphaBay, the Dark-Net’s largest source of contraband, sending shudders throughout the network. But many merchants simply migrated elsewhere. The anonymous nature of the Tor network also makes it especially vulnerable to distributed denial of service Cyber-Invasion (DDoS), said Patrick Tiquet, Director of Security & Architecture at Keeper Security, and the company’s resident expert on the topic. Web-Sites are constantly changing addresses to avoid DDoS, which makes for a very dynamic environment. Due to this weird atmosphere, the quality of the search is greatly reduced and it also varies a lot, on top of that most of the material is outdated.

Commerce on the Dark-Net

The Dark-Net has flourished thanks to bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that enables two parties to conduct a trusted transaction without knowing each other’s identity. Bitcoin has been a major factor in the growth of the Dark-Net, and the Dark-Net has been a big factor in the growth of bitcoin. Nearly all Dark-Net commerce Web-Sites conduct transactions in bitcoin or some variant, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe to do business there. The inherent anonymity of the place attracts scammers and thieves, but what do you expect when buying guns or drugs is your objective?

Dark-Net commerce Web-Sites has the same features as any e-retail operation, including ratings/reviews, shopping carts, and forums, but there are important differences. One is quality control. One can’t determine the credibility of the rating system when true identity both buyers and sellers are anonymous. In addition to that rating here can be easily manipulated, and even sellers can sometimes scam others and have long track records of sudden disappearance with their customer’s assets such as crypto-coins.

Most e-commerce providers offer some kind of escrow service that keeps customer funds on hold until the product has been delivered. However, one can’t expect service with a smile in case of a dispute. It’s pretty much up to the buyer and the seller to duke it out. Every communication is encrypted, so even the simplest transaction requires a PGP key. Even completing a transaction is no guarantee that the goods will arrive. Many need to cross international borders, and customs officials are cracking down on suspicious packages. The Dark-Net news Web-SiteDeep.Dot.Web teems with stories of buyers who have been arrested or jailed for attempted purchases.

Is the Dark-Net illegal?

No, it is not illegal. It is merely a part of the network which has not been indexed by search engines such as google.com and duckduckgo.com. So, simply speaking, using the Dark-Net is accessing a part of the internet and so it cannot be illegal. Just that, because of the fact that it is hidden from the normal eyes; it is exercised by many Cyber-Criminals for certain illegal purposes. For instance, black marketing of weapons and drugs is carried out by this. Also, it is employed by professionals who need to works as Cyber-Invader, journalists, and whistleblowers to maintain their anonymity. Also, upon being censored by certain authorities, some items were found which were said to be infected. These comprised Trojans, malware, ransomware and many more. So, basically, it has to be practiced with caution. Clients should abstain from clicking just any link they find. Also, privacy should be maintained in putting up any personal information on it. This information and other sensitive details can be employed by Cyber-Criminals to cause harm. Cyber-Criminals can indulge in illegal pornography, phishing strikes, cyber terrorism, and other destructive purposes and even on maintaining the standard security protocols; there are chances that one might get trapped in such situations of crisis. Also, even if anonymity is provided by them, there’s no guarantee of someone being a hundred percent untraceable. Some steps can be taken to prevent harm. A proper functioning anti-virus should be in place. Also, the webcam should be covered with tape. But then looking at the one-word answer to the question about the legality of the Dark-Net, well, it’s a no. It’s not illegal. It’s the activities that are illegal.

[vbktechnologiesllp]

Top Web-Site Security Menace And How to Protect Your-Self From Such Cyber-Invasion

You can’t take Web-Site security menace seriously enough especially if your customers entrust you with their credit card information and other sensitive data. From using strong passwords to defending your site against images that Cyber-Invasion, taking the important steps necessary to protect your website from cybersecurity menaces. This article will take a deep dive into the most prevalent Web-Site security menace, and outline some steps you can take to remain vigilant against them. Here’s what we’re going to cover:

WordPress And Web-Site Security Menace

The report shows that WordPress continues to lead the infected CMS pack and the worst part is that it powers more than one-third of all Web-Sites on the internet. In addition to that, WordPress has to command over 60% of shares of all open-source content management systems. Word-Press is extremely popular on the web-world, hence it painted a huge target on its back.

Cyber Security Menace For Small Business Web-Sites

However, it’s important to know that Web-Site security Cyber-Invasions aren’t necessarily targeted at specific Web-Sites. In most attempts of Cyber-Invasion, the Cyber-Criminals aren’t actively seeking out any Web-Site in particular, which is why even small Web-Sites get invaded. The Cyber-Criminals normally employ bots to sniff out vulnerabilities, and once one is found, the Cyber-Criminals jump in to do some damage. A recent study showed that 58% of small businesses are most vulnerable to cyber-Invasion by a virus. Many studies display that small business is number one on Cyber-Criminal’s hit-list. But only 30% of businesses regularly check for vulnerabilities, and 40% rarely do. Small businesses are most vulnerable to Web-Site security menace simply because they don’t usually have enough security acumen nor do they have enough budget or time to devote to Web-Site security compared to many large corporations.

Effects of Cyber-Invasion On Businesses

By now, you should have a basic understanding of why Web-Site security is important.

But to make things even more clear, let’s take a look at some of the negative effects that a business might experience after experiencing a Cyber-Invasion:

Financial loss

Nearly half of small businesses are suffering from a financial loss from Cyber-Invasion, with one out of eight saying that the loss was greater than $5,000.

You might notice that there’s a bit of a paradox for small businesses dealing with Cyber-Invasions. In most cases, small businesses don’t have enough money for Web-Site security, yet when faced with a Cyber-Invasion, they are often advised to pay up, even when those Cyber-Invasionscause financial losses. Even worse, Security magazine reports that 60% of compromised small businesses go out of business within six months.

Reputation Damage

If any business experiences a Cyber-Invasion which threatens their customer’s personal information, then it comes under their duty to inform their client regarding that problem. If you’ve ever been a customer whose data has been exposed after trusting a company to handle it properly, you realize how this can jeopardize business relationships.

Blacklisting By Search Engines

Web-Sites compromised by Cyber-Invasion are often blacklisted by search engines or internet security companies. It can have major negative effects on the business, which mainly rely on search engine traffic.

Types of Cyber Security Menace And Virus Families

Virus families allow our team to assess cyber-criminals tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP), the authors write. This information inevitably leads us to their intentions and helps us understand and mitigate future menace. Virus families and another notable Web-Site security menace both highlighted in the report and beyond, include:

Backdoors

From Backdoors strike the Cyber-Criminals can achieve unauthorized access and rights to a system or network after a successful compromise. In addition to that, it also provides them with the opportunity to breach modern Web-Site scanning technologies and acquire access to controls of web server environments. This makes them one of the most commonly missed payloads and a leading cause of reinfections.

Virus

Virus, short for “infected programs,” is a generic term exercised for intrusive code that tries to take control of your Web-Site in some way. Forms of the virus include Trojan horses and drive-by downloads.

SEO spam

SEO spam is the culprit in more than 51% of all the infection cases and 7% increase from the year before. Detecting SEO spam is extremely complex and they have a strong economic engine driven by impression-based affiliate marketing, making it the fastest-growing threat to the web-world.

Mailers

Mailers are spam-generating tools designed to exploit server resources, allowing Cyber-Criminals to send unwanted emails from a domain. These forms of the virus can wreak havoc by distributing infection via phishing campaigns and stealing sensitive information.

Tool Employed In Compromising Security

SQL Injections

SQL injections are web security vulnerabilities that allow bad actors to interfere with a query an application makes to its Data-Archives.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross-Site Scripting is a type of Cyber-Invasions that happens when infected scripts are inserted into an otherwise trusted Web-Site with the intent of stealing the client’s identity data through cookies, session tokens and other information.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)

When a Cyber-Criminals try to manipulate normal traffic of a specific server, service or network by overwhelming the server by generating fake internet traffic, employing botnets.

Defaced

Cyber-Invasionleaves a Web-Site’s home page unusable and promotes an unrelated subject.

Phishing

It is the type of scam where a fraudster sends fake emails, pretending to became from a legitimate company or an organization.Once the client falls for this trick, then they would end up providing sensitive information like credit card and login credentials to the unknown fraudster.

Dropper

This is a type of virus that drops infected codes into a targeted system. The virus’s code is contained within the dropper.

Banking Trojans

Banking Trojans focus on stealing bank account logins. Examples include Citadel and Zeus.

Keyloggers

Keyloggers steal anything that’s typed on a keyboard or touchscreen.

Ransom-ware

Ransomware encrypts data then ransoms its release. One example is the Cyber-Invasion that struck the city of Atlanta.

Exploit Kits

Exploit kits give cyber crooks virus upload options.

Bots

Bots take control of the infected system to assist in other crimes.

Drive-By Downloads

Drive-by downloads are unintentional downloads of infected code that open the door for security breaches on apps, operating systems or web browsers.

Advanced Persistent Menace

Advanced persistent menaces are a type of Cyber-Invasions that usually involves virus.

Understanding And Prevent Strike By SQL Injections

The SQL injection is a web security vulnerability that allows Cyber-Criminals to interfere with a query an application makes to its Data-Archives.

Why SQL Injections Are Harmful

Many Web-Sites and web applications store their data in SQL Data-Archives. Sometimes, you can practice SQL commands to run operating system commands. When a Cyber-Criminal gets access to the SQL Data-Archives, they can view and modify data they normally aren’t able to retrieve or access, which includes data belonging to clients, or data that the application has access to. The Cyber-Criminals can modify or delete data, or even grant themselves admin access. In some cases, you can even access the operating system using the Data-Archives server. When Cyber-Criminals get access to this, they can invade the internal network behind a firewall.

How SQL Injections Work

Cyber-Criminals find vulnerable input fields on the Web-Site and insert content via an SQL query. This is often called infected payload and is a key part of the Cyber-Invasion. After the Cyber-Criminal sends this content, infected SQL commands are executed in the Data-Archives.

Types of SQL Injections

There are three types of SQL injections:

In-Band SQLi

The most common and easy to exploit SQLi, in-band SQLi is when the Cyber-Criminal is able to employ the same communication channel to launch the Cyber-Invasion and gather results.

The two most common types of in-band SQLi are error-based SQLi and Union-based SQLi:

Error-based SQLi: Errors can be beneficial to develop the phase of a Web-Site, but should be disabled on a live Web-Site. This type of SQLi relies on error messages thrown by the Data-Archives server to obtain information about the structure of the Data-Archives.

Union-based SQLi: Leverages the UNION SQL operator to combine the results of two or more SELECT statements into a single result, which is returned as part of the HTTP response.

Blind/inferential SQLi

This type of Cyber-Invasions takes much longer than an in-band SQLiCyber-Invasions. This type of Cyber-Invasions, no data is actually transferred via the web application and the Cyber-Criminal isn’t able to see the result of the Cyber-Invasion in-band (that’s why it’s called blind SQLi). Instead, the Cyber-Criminal is able to reconstruct the Data-Archives by sending payloads and then observing the web application’s response and the resulting behavior of the Data-Archives server.

Types of blind SQLis:

Boolean-Based/Content-Based Blind SQLi: In this, the Cyber-Criminal sends an SQL query to the Data-Archives, in order to force the application to achieve a different result depending on whether the query returns a False or True result.

Time-Based Blind SQLi: This type of Cyber-Invasion forces the Data-Archives to wait for a specific amount of time (in seconds) before responding. Depending on the result, the HTTP response may be returned immediately or with a delay, and the Cyber-Criminal can infer whether the strike was TRUE or FALSE based on how long the result took.

Out-Of-Band SQLi : Of the three types of SQLi, this is the most uncommon because it depends on the features being enabled on the Data-Archives server being employed by the web application. This type of SQL injection occurs when the Cyber-Criminal is unable to employ the same channel to launch the Cyber-Invasion and gather results. This type of Cyber-Invasion is an alternative to inferential SQLi, especially if the server responses are not stable.

How To Prevent SQL Cyber-Invasions

Determine whether your Web-Site is vulnerable by launching your own SQL Cyber-Invasion on your Web-Site to see whether they are successful. You can practice an automated SQL injection strike tool such as Havij, SQLmap or jSQL. Besides dealing with vulnerabilities on your own, make sure to also employ a web application firewall (WAF).

Understanding And Preventing Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross-Site Scripting is a type of Cyber-Invasion that happens when infected scripts are inserted into an otherwise trusted Web-Site with the intent of stealing the client’s identity data through cookies, session tokens and other information. It’s important to have an understanding around these types of Web-Site security menace, as 84% of vulnerabilities are a result of XSS Cyber-Invasions.

Why Cross-Site Scripting is Bad

At this very moment your browser will be helpless and it will lose its ability to differentiate between a trusted script and infected script. Unlike other web Cyber-Invasions, XSS targets its clients and not your web application, causing harm to your clients and reputation

Why Cross-Site Scripting happens

Many developers automatically trust all clients to the point that they don’t make an extra effort when it comes to filtering client input. There are many variants of an XSS Cyber-Invasion, so the application gets confused regarding what to filter.

How Cross-Site Scripting Works

Cyber-Criminals inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other clients through a vulnerable point. Once the client visits the Web-Site or clicks on the link, the infected string of code from the Data-Archives is sent in response. The victim’s browser then executes the infected script.

Types of Cross-Site Scripting Cyber-Invasions

Cross-Site Scripting can take on many different forms of infection, including:

Non-Persistent/Reflected Cyber-Invasions

The Cyber-Criminal usually sends a link containing an infected code or exploits a form on the Web-Site. These Cyber-Invasions may be sent to a victim with the intention of stealing their session cookies and ultimately their account. But compared to other XSS Cyber-Invasions, these are much less dangerous. This is because reflected Cyber-Criminals rely on a victim taking action, making it hard to automate. For the Cyber-Invasion to be successful, each victim must be targeted individually.

Persistent/stored Cyber-Invasions

The Cyber-Criminals sends infected data to a Web-Site stored in Data-Archives. When the client visits the Web-Site, they are served the data that performs infected action. Compared to reflect cyber-Invasions, these can be automated. A script can be created that visits thousands of Web-Sites, exploits the vulnerability on each Web-Site, and drops the stored XSS load. In this case, the Web-Site’s visitor does not have to do anything but visit the Web-Site to get infected. Needless to say, the persistent Cyber-Invasion affects more people.

Document Object Model (DOM) Cyber-Invasion

The Cyber-Criminals modifies the DOM environment of the client’s browser, the result of exploiting the original client-side JavaScript hardcoded into the Web-Site. While uncommon, this Cyber-Invasion is difficult to address because it usually occurs on the client-side. During these strikes, the HTTP response of a page is not changed and no unique data is sent to the server.

How to Prevent Cross-Site Scripting

In some cases, preventing an XSS Cyber-Invasions can be as simple as adding an HTML code to your Web-Site.

Here’s how to protect yourself:

Encoding: In a nutshell, encoding is when you strip client input of all code and force web browsers to interpret that input only as data. The end result is rendered as text on both the client-side and server, instead of being rendered in JavaScript, CSS, HTML or as URL.

Validation: the process where one makes sure that the data matches their expectations.

Sanitization: Involves cleaning up all data entered by a client. Many code libraries and e-Commerce platforms do this by default. The problem with this is that it can limit what a client can enter. Info-sec shares a list of data that needs to be sanitized as well as for instructions on how to sanitize your data.

Understanding and Preventing Cyber-Invasions By Virus

A virus is a portmanteau of infected words and programs. It’s an intrusive code (normally installed via a corrupted file packaged with healthy programs) that tries to take control of your Web-Site in some way.

A virus can take on many forms:

Viruses: The most common form of virus, often found in email attachments.

Trojan horses: Also known as a backdoor virus, it is disguised as a legitimate program but can take control of your system once installed.

Driveby downloads: Here an invader employs your Web-Site to delivery other corrupted files and can cause damage without the recipient knowing.

Ransom-ware: A kind of Cyber-Invasion where criminals hold data hostage until a payment is made.

How Virus Operates

A virus spreads when you download or install infected programs. It can also enter your system via a link or email. Once installed, it replicates fast and can immediately spread to another system in the network. The virus can affect PC performance, resulting in a slow PC response. It can also consume internet data: if your internet usage is higher than normal, you might be infected with a virus. It can interfere with system activities by generating unwanted popups and ads. It can destroy system programs and the system’s operating system. In addition to that, a virus can steal personal information or encrypt your files and then it would force you to pay for an encryption key to unlock them.

How To Prevent Virus-Strike

Bad news first: most of the time, you won’t be informed if you were infected by a virus, though some Web-Sites warn you before allowing you to navigate to an infected Web-Sites. If you’ve been infected by a virus, always seek help from a dedicated tool to find and remove a virus from your Web-Site.

How To Protect Your Web-Site From Virus

There’s not a lot you can do after the fact, which means you must be proactive. One should always employ a Web-Site monitoring service to regularly scan your Web-Site for virus and other vulnerabilities. Keep monitoring your Web-Site, scan your downloads for viruses and verify if the links you click are safe. One should not forget to follow each and every security measure.

Understanding And Preventing Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) Cyber-Invasions

A Denial-of-Service (DoS) Cyber-Invasion is a state where a Cyber-Thief tries to block the access of legitimate users from system information, devices or other network resources. Services affected may include email, websites, online accounts and other services that rely on the affected system or network. A (DoS) Cyber-Invasion is executed by a Cyber- Thieves by flooding the victim’s network with abnormal traffic until the target loses their ability to respond and simply crashes or the authentic users fail to access the server. DoS Cyber-Invasion can cost an organization both time and money while their resources and services are inaccessible.

How Distributed Denial of Service Works

A DDoS Cyber-Invasion requires a Cyber-Criminal to gain control of a network of online machines in order to carry out anCyber-Invasion. System and other machines (such as IoT devices) are infected with a virus, turning each one into a bot which the Cyber-Criminal has control over. The Cyber-Criminal collects a network of bots, which is called a botnet. Once a botnet is established, the Cyber-Criminal controls the botnet by sending updated instructions to each bot via a method of remote control. Once a botnet targets the victim’s IP address, then every bot will keep firing requests on the target’s server till it reaches maximum capacity and crashes.Because each bot is a legitimate internet device, separating the invaded traffic from normal traffic can be difficult.

Types Of Distributed Denial Of Service Cyber-Invasions

There are 12 types of DDoS Cyber-Invasions, falling under these three main categories:

Volume-based Cyber-Invasion creates congestion by consuming all available bandwidth between the target and the larger internet. These represent the most common Cyber-Invasions for botnets.

Protocol Cyber-Invasions

This type of Cyber-Invasion is also called as state-exhaustion, they normally create a service disrupt by occupying all the space available on the server or intermediate resources such as load balancers and firewalls.

Application Layer Cyber-Invasions

This is the most sophisticated type of DDoSCyber-Invasions, named after the seventh layer of the network device where the human-system interaction occurs, and applications can access network services. The goal of the Cyber-Invasions is to exhaust the resources of the target, which can be costly to the server-side. These Cyber-Invasions typically leverage flaws in a Web-Site application’s code and exploit it in ways that overwhelm the system. By this process, they are simply miss-guiding the system into assuming that they are receiving genuine web-traffic when it’s actually just traffic from botnets. These types of Cyber-Invasions are hard to defend as the traffic can be difficult to flag as infected. If you think that only large Web-Sites are targeted and your small Web-Site is exempted, think again. Cyber-Criminals have different motivations: They can either target Web-Sites they hold grudges against or want to get a ransom from, or they might just want to target a random Web-Site. In any case, it’s always best to be prepared. If your Web-Site experiences slow traffic and traffic is generated by a bot, your Web-Site may have been hosted on the same server as a targeted Web-Site.

How To Prevent Distributed Denial Of Service Cyber-Invasions

Here are a few things to do to protect your Web-Site from DDoS Cyber-Invasions:

Monitor Your Web Traffic

If you will have the knowledge of your normal traffic rate, then it will help you to differentiate between genuine traffic and fake traffic created by botnets and once you know your normal traffic rate, then you can limit it to accept requests as per the maximum capacity of the server. While you’re at it, get a little bit more bandwidth than you actually need.

Install a Web Application Firewall (WAF)

A firewall can analyze traffic before it reaches your Web-Site and it can also protect your Web-Site from botnet traffic surges and other infected content.

Distribute Your Network Infrastructure

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. By keeping multiple network resources, you have backups when one is being invaded.

[vbktechnologiesllp]

Your Web-Site Is Not Secure Anymore

Cyber-Invasion is a growing menace for every business, whether it��s stealing private data, taking control of your digital system, or shutting down your Web-Site. The Cyber-Criminals can seriously impact any business, at any time. VBK Technologies have been running analysis since its existence on different possible Cyber-Invading techniques and hence has been proven a record in securing Web-Based-Applications. As a company, we always desire to improve our service and deliver the best result to our customers. Hence, our development team works every-day to save our customers from every kind of Cyber-Invasion. To the amazement, VBK Technologies has not only stood up for their customers in the past but now it has been providing ground-breaking research for all their customers with special deliverables given services from VBK Technologies. But there is a side, which VBK Technologies has chosen to opt for the betterment of the web world, and it’s White Ethical Cyber-Invasion which makes its way through the corporate business world and provides in-depth security services for an overall web security protection to their valued customers. Apart from that, we have maintained a wise standard, when it comes to Infection Hunting and hence proven excellence for its quality and Security Excellence. Our team has taken the responsibility to represent our company and earned much gratitude. Whether it is on spreading information security concerns, attending a conference related to Cyber-security, educating industries regarding recent Cyber-Threats and how to deal with those strikes. This has vastly resulted in extreme awareness among various business owners and they have to take matters seriously or else it can bring great losses for their business. Cyber-Criminals can infiltrate your security in so many ways; however, in this article, we have mentioned some of the techniques Employed in most popular Cyber-Invasions.

Remote Code Execution Cyber-Invasion

A Remote Code Execution Cyber-Invasion is a result of either server-side or client-side security weaknesses. The libraries, frameworks, remote directories on a server that haven’t been monitored and other programing modules that run on the basis of authenticated Client access can be extremely vulnerable components and the Web-Applications that Employs these components are always invaded by things like scripts, virus, and small command lines that extract information. By failing to provide an identity token, Cyber-Criminal could invoke any web service with full permission.

Cross Web-Site Request Forgery Cyber-Invasion

A Cross Web-Site Request Forgery Cyber-Invasion happens when a Client is logged into a session (or account) and a Cyber-CriminalsEmploys this opportunity to send them a forged HTTP request to collect their cookie information. In most cases, the cookie remains valid as long as the Client or the Cyber-Criminal stay logged into the account. This is why Web-Siteasks you to log out of your account when you’re finished — it will expire the session immediately. In some cases, The Cyber-Criminals can generate requests to the application, once the Client’s browser session is compromised and the worst part is that the application won’t be able to differentiate between a valid Client and a Cyber-Criminal. In this case, the Cyber-Criminals creates a request that will transfer money from a Client’s account and then embeds this strike in an image request or iframe stored on various Web-Sites under the Cyber-Criminal’s control.

Packet Editing

Packet editing Cyber-Invasions are silent infiltration. Cyber-Criminalsstrike in the midst of data being exchanged, but both the Client and Web-Site administrators do not know that the Cyber-Invasion is occurring.

When a Client makes a request to the web server processes the request and responds back to the Client. For example, if a Client executes Web-Based-Applications, then the webserver will send a response so that the Client can process the data they requested. However, while the web server sends the response, a Cyber-Criminal can edit the response and access unauthorized rights to that data. This is called Man in the Middle Cyber-Invasion or Packet editing.

Cyber-Invasion By Injections

Injection infiltration occurs when there are flaws in your SQL Data-Archives, SQL libraries, or even the operating system itself. When your company employees unknowingly open some credible files with hidden commands or injections, then in doing so they allow Cyber-Criminals to successfully gain unauthorized access to private data such as credit card numbers, social security numbers or other private financial information.

The Cyber-Criminal modifies the ‘id’ parameter in their browser to send: ‘ or ‘1’=’1. This changes the meaning of the query to return all the records from the accounts Data-Archives to the Cyber-Criminal, instead of only the intended customers.

Broken Authentication And Session Management Cyber-Invasions

Cyber-Invasion is a growing menace for every business, whether it’s stealing private data, taking control of your digital system, or shutting down your Web-Site. The Cyber-Criminals can seriously impact any business, at any time. VBK Technologies have been running analysis since its existence on different possible Cyber-Invading techniques and hence has been proven a record in securing Web-Based-Applications. As a company, we always desire to improve our service and deliver the best result to our customers. Hence, our development team works every-day to save our customers from every kind of Cyber-Invasion. To the amazement, VBK Technologies has not only stood up for their customers in the past but now it has been providing ground-breaking research for all their customers with special deliverables given services from VBK Technologies. But there is a side, which VBK Technologies has chosen to opt for the betterment of the web world, and it’s White Ethical Cyber-Invasion which makes its way through the corporate business world and provides in-depth security services for an overall web security protection to their valued customers. Apart from that, we have maintained a wise standard, when it comes to Infection Hunting and hence proven excellence for its quality and Security Excellence. Our team has taken the responsibility to represent our company and earned much gratitude. Whether it is on spreading information security concerns, attending a conference related to Cyber-security, educating industries regarding recent Cyber-Threats and how to deal with those strikes. This has vastly resulted in extreme awareness among various business owners and they have to take matters seriously or else it can bring great losses for their business. Cyber-Criminals can infiltrate your security in so many ways; however, in this article, we have mentioned some of the techniques Employed in most popular Cyber-Invasions.

Click-Jacking Cyber-Invasions

Click-Jacking also called a UI Redress Cyber-Invasions, is when Cyber-Criminal Employs multiple opaque layers to trick a Client into clicking the top layer without them knowing.Thus the Cyber-Criminal is “hijacking” clicks that are not meant for the actual page, but for a page where the Cyber-Criminal wants you to be. For instance, by employing a safely crafted combination of iframes, text boxes, and stylesheets, leads a Client to assume that they are typing in the login credentials for their bank account, but they are actually typing into an invisible frame controlled by the Cyber-Criminal.

DDoS Cyber-Invasions

DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Services, is where a server or a machine’s services are made unavailable to its Clients and when the system is offline, the Cyber-Criminal proceeds to either compromise the entire Web-Site or a specific function of a Web-Site to their own advantage. It’s kind of like having your car stolen when you really required it. The normal goal of a DDoS Cyber-Invasion is to completely take down or temporarily interrupt successfully running system. The most common example of a DDoS Cyber-Invasions could be sending tons of URL requests to a Web-Site or a webpage in a very small amount of time. This may result in bottlenecking at the server-side because the CPU just ran out of resources. Denial-of-service Cyber-Invasions are considered violations of the Internet practice policy issued by the Internet Architecture Board and it also violates the acceptable internet practice policies of virtually all Internet service providers.

Cross Website Scripting Cyber-Invasions

Cross Web-Site Scripting, which is also described as an XSS Cyber-Invasion, occurs when an application, URL receives a requestor file packet. The infected packet or request then travels to the web browser window and bypasses the validation process. Once an XSS script is triggered, its deceptive property makes Clients believe that the compromised page of a specific Web-Site is legitimate. For Instance, if www.abcdxyzple.com/gfdhxccd.html has XSS script in it, the Client might see a popup window asking for their credit card info and other sensitive info. As a result, the Client’s session ID will be sent to the Cyber-Criminal’s Web-Site, allowing the Cyber-Criminals to hijack the Client’s current session. That means the Cyber-Criminals has access to the Web-Site admin credentials and can take complete control over it.

Symlinking–An Insider’s Cyber-Invasions

A Symlink is basically a special file that “points to” a hard link on a mounted file system. A Symlinking Cyber-Invasion occurs when Cyber-Criminal positions the Symlink in such a way that the Client or applications that access the endpoint think they’re accessing the right file when they’re really not.

If the endpoint file is output, the consequence of the Symlink Cyber-Invasions is that it could be modified instead of the file at the intended location. Alteration made in the endpoint file could include overwriting, corrupting, changing permissions or even appending. In different variations of a Symlinking Cyber-Invasion, a Cyber-Criminal may be able to control the changes to a file, grant them advanced access, insert false information, expose sensitive information or corrupt and manipulate application files.

DNS Cache Poisoning

DNS Cache Poisoning also described as DNS Spoofing, involves old cache data that you might think you no longer have on your digital-system. The Cyber-Criminal can identify the liabilities in the domain name system, which allows them to exploit those liabilities and divert traffic from legit servers to a fake WebSite or Server. This form of Cyber-Invasion can spread and replicate itself from one DNS server to another DNS, “poisoning” everything in its path. Once the DNS server finds the appropriate IP address, data transfer can begin between the client and Web-Site’s server. The given below visualization will display how this process will take place at a larger scale. Once the DNS server locates domain-to-IP translation, then it has to cache subsequent requests for the domain. As a result, the DNS lookup will happen much faster. However, this is where DNS spoofing can act as a great trouble creator, as a false DNS lookup can be injected into the DNS server’s cache. This can result in an alteration of the visitors’ destination.

Since DNS servers cache the DNS translation for faster, more efficient browsing, Cyber-Criminals can take advantage of this to perform DNS spoofing. If a Cyber-Criminal is able to inject a forged DNS entry into the DNS server, all clients will now be using that forged DNS entry until the cache expires. The moment the cache expires, the DNS entry has to return to the normal state, as again the DNS server has to go through the complete DNS lookup. However, if the DNS server’s Programs still hasn’t been updated, then the Cyber-Criminal can replicate this error and continue funneling visitors to their Web-Site.DNS cache poisoning can also sometimes be quite complex to spot. If the Infected Web-Site is very similar to the Web-Site it is trying to impersonate, some clients’ may not even notice the difference. Additionally, if the Cyber-Criminal is using DNS cache poisoning to compromise one company’s DNS records in order to have access to their emails for example, then this may also be extremely complex to detect.

Social Engineering Cyber-Invasions

A social engineering strike is not technically a Cyber-Invasion. However, you can become of a larger scam or a Cyber-Invasion, if you share your information out of good faith. By sharing information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and banking credentials. You allow those scammers to exploit that information and they can use your information for any illegal activities. People pretending to call you from Microsoft can take control of your systems and once they do take the control of your system, then all your personals information including your browsing information and credentials are at risk of being comprised. As matter of fact, they have no intention to fix any of your issues, but instead, they only require one-time access of your computer to plant their infected files and enjoy the unlimited access to all the information saved in your system or other activities your perform. If they succeed in planting infected files in your computer then it is highly possible that they can monitor each and every activity you do on that system, those infected files can save all your credentials and browsing activity to transmit that information to those scammers.

Web Server Security And Server Security

Various high-profile cyber-Invasion have proven that web security remains the most critical issue to any business that conducts its operations online. Due to the sensitive information they usually host, the web servers are one of the most targeted public faces of an organization. Securing a web server is as important as securing the Web-Site or Web-Based-Applications itself and the network around it. If you have a secure Web-Based-Applications and an insecure web server, or vice versa, it still puts your business at a huge peril. Only by strengthening the venerable point, one can ensure the optimum security of their company’s server. However, securing a web server can be an extremely complex task to do and a frustrating one too, as one might have to take the help of the trained professional. In addition to that one might have to spend multiple hours of coding and research, an overdose of caffeine to save them from working all night without headaches and data infiltration in the future. Irrelevant of what web server programs and operating system you are running, and out of the box configuration is usually insecure. It extremely important, that you take the necessary steps to increase web-server security.

Remote Access

Nowadays it is neither logical nor practical when the admin has to login to the local webserver. If remote access is required, one must make sure that the remote connection is secured properly, by using tunneling and encryption protocols. Using security tokens and other single sign-on equipment and programs is a very good security practice. It is extremely important that one must restrict the remote access to a specific number of IP’s and only to authorized accounts. It is also very essential that one should avoid operating their digital-systems, on public networks to access corporate servers remotely. Accessing private and confidential servers using places like public wireless networks or internet cafes can result in a huge breach in your security in the future.

Deserted Accounts

Deserted default Client accounts created during an operating system install should be disabled. There is also a long list of programs that were installed when Client accounts were created on the operating system. Such accounts should also be checked properly and change of permissions is highly required. The built-in administrator account should be renamed and it should not be abandoned, same for the root Client on a Linux / Unix installation. Every administrator accessing the webserver should have his own Client account, with the correct privileges required. It is also a good security practice not to share each other’s Client accounts.

Remove All Deserted Modules, Application, Extensions And Unnecessary Services

Mostly when it comes to installation of Apache, then it is most likely that the installation will have a number of pre-defined modules enabled, which are not at all required in a typical web server scenario, until and unless they are specifically required. Turn off such modules to prevent targeted Cyber-Invasion against such modules. The same thing goes with the Microsoft-Web Server; As in this installation, the IIS is configured to serve an immense amount of application types. The list of application extensions should only contain a list of extensions the Web-Site or Web-Based-Applications will be using. Every application extension should also be restricted to employ specific HTTP verbs only, where possible. Only Employ security tools provided with web server programs. Recently Microsoft has launched various tools to assist the system admin to successfully secure IIS web server installation process. The Apache also has a module known as Mod_Security, however, configuring such tools is extremity time consuming and very tedious process and they do have to add an extra bit of security and peace of mind, especially when it comes to custom Web-Based-Applications. The default installation of the operating system and configurations is not that secure. In other words in a default installation, many services related to network are installed which are not actually useful for web server configuration. This includes services such as RAS, print server service and remote registry services. The more services running on an operating system, the more ports will be left open, thus leaving more open doors for infected Clients to exploit. I highly recommend that one should turn off all the unimportant service, so they don’t start automatically every time you reboot the server. In addition to that turning off unnecessary services will also provide an extra boost to your server performance by reducing the excess load on your server’s hardware.

Employ Web-Liability Scanners

Scanners are handy tools that help you automate and ease the process of securing a web server and Web-Based-Applications. Now a day various Web-Liability Scanners also come equipped with a port scanner, which when enabled will port scan the web server hosting the Web-Based-Applications being scanned. Similar to a network security scanner, In the future, we might also have a number of advanced security checks against the open ports and network services running on your web server. In addition to that these Web-Liability Scanners ensure Web-Site and web server security by checking for SQL Injection, Cross Web-Site scripting, web server configuration problems, and other vulnerabilities. It checks password strength on authentication pages and automatically audits shopping carts, forms, dynamic Web 2.0 content, and other Web-Based-Applications. As the scan is completed, the programs produce detailed reports that pinpoint where vulnerabilities exist.

Monitor And Audit The Server

It is extremely important that you store every log that are present in a Web-Server in a segregated area. Archives like Web-Site access logs, network services logs, Data-Archives server logs, and operating system logs should be actively monitored and frequently inspected and should not avoid any strange log entries. Log files tend to give all the information about an attempt of a Cyber-Invasion, and even a successful strike, but most of the time these are ignored. If one witnesses any strange activity from the logs, then they should address or escalate that matter immediately, so the issue can be further investigated.

Install All Security Patches On Time

If someone assumes that by employing fully patched programs they have fully secured their server then they are living in huge illusion, as having fully patched programs does not mean that their server is fully secure. It is also extremely essential for one to maintain the latest version of their operating system, latest security patches and any other programs running on that operating system. Up until this day, Cyber-Invasion incidents still occur because Cyber-Criminals took advantage and exploited unpatched servers and programs.

Permissions and Privileges

Network and file sharing permission plays a significant role in overall Web-Server security, as if a web server engine is compromised via network service programs, the infected Client can operate the account on which the network service is running to carry out tasks, such as execute specific files. Hence, it is extremely essential for one to always assign the least privileges required for a network service to operate. It is also very important to assign minimum privileges to the anonymous Client who requires access to the Web-Site, Web-Based-Applications files and also backend data and Data-Archives.

Separate Development / Testing / Production Environment

Since it is easier and faster for a developer to develop a newer version of Web-Based-Applications on a production server, it is quite common that development and testing of Web-Based-Applications are done directly on the production servers itself. It is a common occurrence on the internet to find newer versions of a specific Web-Site, or some content which should not be available to the public in directories such as /test/, /new/ or other similar subdirectories.

Because the Web-Based-Applications were tended to various vulnerabilities in their early stages of development and they use to lack in a number of input validation and sometimes failed greatly in providing satisfactory results. Such applications could easily be discovered and exploited by an infected Client, by using free available tools on the internet.

To ease more the development and testing of Web-Based-Applications, developers tend to develop specific internal applications that give them privileged access to the Web-Based-Applications, Data-Archives and other web server resources, which a normal anonymous Client would not have. Such Web-Base Application lacks various types of restrictions and they are just test applications only operated by developers. Once the developers complete their testing and development process, on a production server, then it is extremely easy to discover these applications employing infected Clients. This might help the Cyber-Criminals to compromise or exploit sensitive information to gain control over the production server.

Ideally, development and testing of Web-Based-Applications should always be done on servers isolated from the internet, and should never involve or connect to real-life data-archives.

Web-Based-Applications Content And Server-Side Scripting

The Web-Based-Applications or Web-Site files and scripts should always be on a separate partition or drive other than that of the operating system, logs, and any other system files. During our year of encounters with the case files related to various activities of these Cyber-Criminals, we have learnt one thing that by gaining access to the webroot directory, the invaders can easily exploit other liabilities and then they can further access on various other sensitive information such as operating system and other system files and the data of the whole disc. From there onwards, the infected Clients have access to execute any operating system command, resulting in complete control of the webserver.

Stay Informed

Nowadays, information and tips on the programs and operating system being exercised can be found freely on the internet. It is highly recommended for one to stay aware and they should keep researching the latest Cyber-Invasions and the techniques used to carry out the invasion and by reading these security-related newsletters, forums, magazines and another type of community. You will have a chance to come up with better security measures.

[vbktechnologiesllp]

Internet Is Not Safe Anymore

There is a reality check for everyone who does ethical Cyber-attack for living no matter what the scope, size or age of your Word-Press site, your site is at risk! It is not that much certain that Cyber-Criminals don’t concentrate or feel to target only mainstream websites; however, they also target small and venerable sites as well, as they can easily exploit the common vulnerabilities of such websites. Normally, most of these Cyber-Attacks are smartly conducted via programmed bots to automatically find certain soft spots in websites. At times, they do not differentiate between your site and a popular one. Smaller sites are more prone to get compromised since they generally have lower website security measures in place. So, the next time you think your site is too insignificant for a Cyber-Criminals, think again. The odds are high that your website can be used by the Cyber-Criminal to send spam, do SEO spam or perform a malicious redirect. Once the Cyber-Criminals manage to find a loophole in your site, they can gain access to a plethora of opportunities to take their ‘spammy’ intentions for a spin. Cyber-Criminals can pull off many different types of Cyber-attacks. For instance DDoS attacks, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attack, injection attacks, SQL injection attacks, session hijacking, clickjacking attacks, etc. Luckily, most of the threats that can damage your Word-Press site can be prevented. But first, we need to arm you with the right knowledge of these common types of Cyber-Attack, so that you can take the right measures to address it.

Plugin Vulnerabilities

If you have ever worked on Word-Press projects, then you might be aware of the fact that the plugins play a significant role in Word-Press website development. As a matter of fact, Word-Press is designed for non-developers and developers alike. The one who is in need of a quick online presence, then the plugin proves to be a reliable solution that bridges the gaps and integrates various functionalities to the website.

Unfortunately, plugins are considered to be the most vulnerable to Cyber-attack when it comes to the Word-Press ecosystem. However, one can’t blame the developers who created that plugin. Cyber-Criminals manage to find vulnerabilities within the plugin’s code and use them to access sensitive information.

Brute Force Attacks & Weak Password

Lack of login security is another entry point for Cyber-Criminals to target Word-Press sites. Cyber-Criminals tend to leverage readily available software tools to generate the password and force their way into your system. Malicious Cyber-Criminals employ software tools such as Wires-hark (sniffer) or Fiddler (proxy) to capture your Word-Press login details and steal your personal information and other sensitive information. In addition to that, the brute force attacks can create devastating seniors for users who have a weak credential management system. By way of such attacks, the Cyber-Criminals can generate 1000s of password guesses to gain entry. So, you know what to do if your password is 12345678 or admin123, right?

Word-Press Core Vulnerabilities

Nothing is perfect in this world. It often takes time to discover vulnerabilities within the Word-Press ecosystem, and this delay can put thousands of Word-Press users at grave risk of data breaches. Fortunately, the Word-Press team releases security patches and updates on a regular basis.

Unsafe Themes

At times, you can give in to temptation and install a free theme from your favorite search engines. However, how one can determine whether that theme us safe or not, especially when it is free? Honestly, most of these free themes available on internet are vulnerable to Cyber-Attack just like an outdated plugin would. However, this does not mean that all free themes are a strict no-no. There are plenty of efficient and reliable free themes uploaded by developers who provide regular update and actively support the project.

Hosting vulnerabilities

Another popular entry point for Cyber-Criminals is through your own hosting system. Normally, most of the Word-Press websites are hosted on the SQL server and this is how the Word-Press website becomes a potential target of Cyber-Criminals. In addition to that, if one uses poor-quality or shared hosting services, then it makes their website more venerable to Cyber-Attack. In such cases, the attacker can gain unauthorized access to other websites on the same server.

Cyber-Infection

Cyber-Menace, or simply menace, refers to creating certain circumstances or events that result in developing potential issues for cyber-protection. A few common examples of such Menaces include a social-engineering or phishing invasion that helps a Cyber-Criminal in installing a Trojan-Virus in your system and steal private information, political activists DDoS-ing your Web-Site, an administrator accidentally leaving data unprotected on a production system can result in a data breach, or a storm flooding your ISP’s data center.

Cyber-Protection Menaces are actualized by Cyber-Criminals. These Cyber-criminals usually refer to persons or entities who may potentially initiate a Cyber-Invasion. While natural disasters, as well as other environmental and political events, do constitute Menaces, they are not generally regarded as being Cyber-Criminal, it does not mean that such Menace activists should be disregarded or given less importance. Examples of common Cyber-criminals include financially motivated politically motivated activists for Cyber-Invasion, nation-state Cyber-Infiltrators, disgruntled employees, Cyber-Criminals, competitors, careless employees.

Cyber-Menaces can also become more catastrophic if Cyber-Criminal leverages one or more vulnerabilities to gain access to a system, often including the operating system.

Cyber-Liabilities

Cyber-Liabilities simply refer to weaknesses in a system. They make Cyber-Menace possible and potentially even more hazardous. A system could be exploited through a single Liability, for example, a single SQL Injection infiltration technique could give a Cyber-Criminal full control over sensitive data. A Cyber-Criminal could also bind several exploiting techniques and take advantage of various Liabilities of your system. For instance: The most common vulnerabilities are Cross-Web-Site Scripting, server misconfigurations, and SQL Injections.

Cyber-Perils

Cyber-Perils are usually misinterpreted with Cyber-Menace. However, there is a subtle difference, as a Cyber-Protection Peril refers to a combination of probability and end results of a Cyber-Menace and it is usually in the monetary terms but quantifying a breach is extremely complex. Therefore, a Cyber-Peril is a scenario that should be avoided combined with the likely losses to result from that scenario. The following is a hypothetical example of how Cyber-Perils can be constructed:

SQL Injection is a Liability

Sensitive data theft is one of the biggest Cyber-Menace that SQL Injection enables

Financially motivated Cyber-Criminals are one of the examples of Cyber-Menace activists

When sensitive data is compromised then is it extremely complex to bear the significance of such financial loss to the business

The probability of such a Cyber-Invasion is high, given that SQL Injection is easy-access, widely exploited Liability and the Web-Site is externally facing

Therefore, the SQL Injection Liability in this scenario should be considered as extremely hazardous liability for Cyber-Protection.

The difference between a Liability and a Cyber-Peril are usually easily understood. However, understanding the difference in terminology allows for clearer communication between security teams and other parties and a better understanding of how Cyber-Menace influences Cyber-Peril. This, in turn, may help prevent and mitigate security breaches. A good understanding is also needed for effective Cyber-Peril assessment and Cyber-Peril management, for designing efficient security solutions based on Cyber-Menace intelligence, as well as for building an effective security policy and a Cyber-Protection strategy.

Targeted and Non-Targeted WordPress Cyber-Invasions

If you have been reading about Word-Press security and looking for ways in which your Word-Press security can be compromise and techniques that can be employed to protect your WordPress Web-Site from Cyber-Criminals, you will notice that there are two types of Cyber-Invasion, targeted and non-targeted Word-Press Cyber-Invasion.

What is the difference between a targeted and non-targeted WordPress Cyber-Invasion and how can you protect your Word-Press from both of these Cyber-Invasion? This article explains the difference between these two types of Cyber-Infiltration and explains why some or the WordPress infiltration techniques can be implemented to protect your Web-Site from one type of Cyber-Invasion.

Non-Targeted WordPress Cyber-Invasion

Non-targeted WordPress Cyber-Invasion is an automated invasion and it is not specifically launched against WordPress Websites only. For example, if Cyber-Criminals are trying to exploit a known Liability in an old version of Word-Press, they do not manually look for Word-PressWeb-Sites, check their version and see if they are vulnerable to such Liabilities.

Instead, they employ automated tools to send a specific HTTP request that is exercised to exploit the Liability to a number of Web-Sites, typically a range of IP addresses. Depending on the HTTP responses received back, the tool determines if the target Web-Site is a vulnerable Word-Press installation or not.

Protect WordPress from Non-Targeted Cyber-Invasion

Therefore if you hide your version of Word-Press, or even hide the fact that you are using Word-Press for your Web-Sites you won’t be protecting your Web-Site from non-targeted Word-Press Cyber-Invasion. To protect Word-Press from non-targeted Cyber-Invasions follow the below recommendations:

One must always keep all their Programs up to date and always install the latest and most secure version of Word-Press, plugins, and themes. This also applies to MySQL, Apache and any other programs that are running on your web environment.

Always uninstall and remove any unnecessary plugins, themes and any other components and files which are not being frequently employed.

Do not employ typical login credentials such as admin, administrator, and root for your Word-Press administrator account. If you do rename the Word-Press administrator account.

One must always properly protect the Word-Press Login and admin pages by developing an additional layer of authentication, which involves read protection for Word-Press Login Page with HTTP Authentication.

One must always try to develop strong login credentials and this does not apply only to Word-Press but to any other service or Web-Site. If you have multiple clients for your Word-Press, then employ a Plugin to create policies forward-Press credentials, in order to ensure the safety.

Targeted WordPress Cyber-Invasion

Targeted Cyber-Invasions are specifically targeted towards your Web-Site and blogs. There are several reasons why your Word-PressWeb-Site might be a victim of a targeted Cyber-Invasion and the reason why your Word-Press is a victim of a targeted Cyber-Invasion is not of importance. What is important is to understand what happens in a targeted Cyber-Invasion so you can protect your Word-PressWeb-Sites and blogs better.

Targeted Cyber-Invasions are more catastrophic than non-targeted ones simply because rather than having a number of automated tools scanning Web-Sites randomly, there is a human being analyzing every detail about your Web-Site in the hope of finding something that could be exploited.

Anatomy of Targeted WordPress Cyber-Invasions

At first, the Cyber-Criminals will employ automated tools to check if your version of Word-Press is vulnerable to any known vulnerabilities. Since automated tools are employed to hide the version of your Word-Press.The Cyber-Criminals will also try to determine what plugins are running on your Word-Press and if any of them are vulnerable to a particular Liability. In addition to that most of these tasks are executed employing automated tools.

One of the most venerable links in the Word-Press security is credentials and by employing these automated tools the Cyber-Criminals will try to enumerate all the Word-Pressclients and even launch a password dictionary Cyber-Invasion against Word-Press.

There are many other ways and means how to infiltrate a Word-Press blog or Web-Site and targeted Cyber-Invasions do not specifically take advantage of a security weakness in Word-Press or one of its components. It could also be a security hole in the webserver Programs or configuration etc, but the above three are the most common Cyber-Invasion entry points.

Protect WordPress from Targeted Cyber-Invasions

There are many WordPress Cyber-Invasion and techniques you can employ to protect your WordPress from a targeted Cyber-Invasion as highlighted in the below list:

To start off with, all that applies to protect your WordPress from non-targeted Word-Press Cyber-Invasions applies also to targeted Cyber-Invasions

Secure and Protect your WordPress Administrator Account

Enable Word-Press SSL to access your WordPress login page and admin pages over an encrypted communication layer to avoid having your WordPress login credentials being hijacked.

Always employ a WordPress security monitoring and auditing plugin to keep track of everything that is happening on your WordPress and identify any suspicious activity before it becomes a security issue

Practice WordPress client roles to improve the security of WordPress by ensuring every client only has the minimum required privileges to do the job

One must always employ a WP-Scan WordPress security black box scanner and other tools to frequently scan and audit their WordPress Website.

Protecting WordPress from Cyber-Criminals

From time to time you might read about a particular WordPress security tweak that some people say it works while some others say it doesn’t, such as hiding your WordPress version. In such scenarios we often witness that secrecy of the WordPress version has minimum effect on the overall security of the WordPress design, then we think why bother? If you are dubious about a particular tweak if the tweak does not impact the performance of your Word-Press and is easy to implement go ahead and implement it. Better to be safe than sorry!

Apart from the above tips, there are many other ways how to improve the security of your WordPress blogs and Websites and protect them from both targeted and non-targeted WordPress Cyber-Invasions. Ideally, you should keep yourself updated by subscribing to a WordPress security blog where frequent WordPress security tips and infiltration techniques are published.

What Is DNS Spoofing?

DNS spoofing occurs when a particular DNS server’s records of “spoofed” or altered Infection to redirect traffic to the Cyber-Criminals. This redirection of traffic allows the Cyber-Criminals to spread viruses, steal data, etc. For example, if a DNS record is spoofed, then the Cyber-Criminals can manage to redirect all the traffic that relied on the correct DNS record to visit a fake Website that the Cyber-Criminals has created to resemble the real Website or a completely different Website.

How Does Normal DNS Communication Work?

A DNS server is normally employed for the purpose of resolving a domain name (such as keycdn.com) into the associated IP address that it maps to. Once the DNS server finds the appropriate IP address, data transfer can begin between the client and Web-Site’s server. The given below visualization will display how this process will take place at a larger scale. Once the DNS server locates domain-to-IP translation, then it has to cache subsequent requests for the domain. As a result, the DNS lookup will happen much faster. However, this is where DNS spoofing can act as a great trouble creator, as a false DNS lookup can be injected into the DNS server’s cache. This can result in an alteration of the visitors’ destination.

How Does DNS Spoofing Work?

DNS spoofing is an overarching term and can be carried out using various techniques such as:

DNS cache poisoning

Compromising a DNS server

Implementing a Man in the Middle Cyber-Invasions

However, the Cyber-Criminal’s end goal is usually the same no matter which method they practice. Either they want to steal information, re-route you to a Web-Site that benefits them, or spread Virus. The most argued technique of DNS spoofing is employing Cache-Poisoning.

DNS Cache-Poisoning

Since DNS servers cache the DNS translation for faster, more efficient browsing, Cyber-Criminals can take advantage of this to perform DNS spoofing. If a Cyber-Criminal is able to inject a forged DNS entry into the DNS server, all clients will now be using that forged DNS entry until the cache expires. The moment the cache expires, the DNS entry has to return to the normal state, as again the DNS server has to go through the complete DNS lookup. However, if the DNS server’s Programs still hasn’t been updated, then the Cyber-Criminal can replicate this error and continue funneling visitors to their Web-Site.

DNS cache poisoning can also sometimes be quite complex to spot. If the InfectedWeb-Site is very similar to the Web-Site it is trying to impersonate, some clients’ may not even notice the difference. Additionally, if the Cyber-Criminal is using DNS cache poisoning to compromise one company’s DNS records in order to have access to their emails for example, then this may also be extremely complex to detect.

How to Prevent DNS Spoofing

As a Website visitor, there’s not much you can do to prevent DNS spoofing. Rather, this falls more in the hands of the actual DNS provider that is handling a Web-Site’s DNS lookups as well as the Web-Site owner. Therefore, a few tips for Web-Site owners and DNS providers include:

Implement DNS spoofing detection mechanisms — it’s important to implement DNS spoofing detection Programs. Products such as XArp help product against ARP cache poisoning by inspecting the data that comes through before transmitting it.

One must always employ encrypted data transfer protocols with end-to-end encryption via SSL/TLS will help decrease the chance that a Web-Site / its visitors are compromised by DNS spoofing. This type of encryption that allows the clients’ to verify whether the server’s digital certificate is valid and belongs to the Web-Site’s expected owner.

One must employ DNSSEC — DNSSEC, or Domain Name System Security Extensions, as it exercises digitally signed DNS records to help determine data authenticity. DNSSEC is still a work in progress as far as deployment goes, however, it was implemented in the Internet root level in 2010.

DNS Spoofing — In Summary

DNS spoofing can result in making quite a bit of trouble both for Web-Site visitors and Web-Site owners. The Cyber-Criminal’s main motive to carry out a DNS spoofing Cyber-Invasion is either for their own personal gain or to spread Virus. Therefore, as a Web-Site owner, it’s important to choose a DNS hosting provider that is reliable and clients’ up-to-date security mechanisms.

Furthermore, as a Web-Site visitor it’s just as important that you “be aware of your surroundings” in a sense that if you notice any discrepancies between the Web-Site that you were expecting to visit and the Web-Site that you are currently browsing, you should immediately leave that Web-Site and try to alert the real Web-Site owner.

Denial-of-Service Cyber-Invasions

There are many different techniques that Cyber-Criminals practice to carry out DoS Cyber-Invasion. The most common method of Cyber-Invasion occurs when a Cyber-Thieves floods a network server with traffic. In this type of DoS Cyber-Invasion, the Cyber-Thievessends several requests to the target server, overloading it with traffic. These services that request can be illegal and with mostly fabricated return addresses. This results in a scenario where the server is overwhelmed, due to the constant process of shooting junk requests. This ultimately misleads the server in its attempt to authenticate the requestor and helps the Cyber-Thieves to exploit the vulnerabilities of the server.

In a Smurf Cyber-Invasion, the Cyber-Thief delivers Internet Control Message Protocol broadcast packets to a number of hosts with a spoofed source Internet Protocol (IP) address that belongs to the target machine. The clients of these infected packets will then respond and the victim’s host will be overwhelmed with those responses.

A SYN flood occurs when a Cyber-Thief sends a request to connect to the victim’s server but never completes the connection through what is known as a three-way handshake. This is the method employed in a TCP/IP network to develop a connection between a local host/client and the server. The improper handshake leaves the connected port in an occupied status and it then lacks the ability to process further requests. A Cyber-Thief will continue to send requests, saturating all open ports, so that legitimate clients’ cannot connect.

Individual networks may be affected by DoS Cyber-Invasions without being directly targeted. If the network’s internet service provider (ISP) or cloud service provider has been targeted and compromised, the network will also experience a loss of service.

CSRF Cyber-Invasion Technique

Cross-Web-Site Request Forgery, also known as session riding or sea surf. It is a widely known Cyber-Invasion against authenticated web applications by employing cookies. The Cyber-Criminal is able to trick the victim into making a request that the victim did not intend to make. Therefore, the Cyber-Criminal exploits the trust that a web application has for the victim’s browser. While Cross-Web-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Cyber-Invasions do not provide a Cyber-Criminal with the response returned from the server, a smart Cyber-Criminal has the ability to create disastrous scenarios that can have a catastrophic effect on your Web-Site, especially when paired with well-crafted social engineering Cyber-Invasion.

Cross-Web-Site Request Forgery is a kind of Cyber-Invasion conduct by Cyber-Criminals that involves authentication and authorization of the victim’s network. In this technique first of all the Cyber-Criminals has to send a forged request to the webserver. On top of that, the CSRF Liabilities affect highly privileged clients, such as administrators, which could result in a full application compromise. During a successful CSRF Cyber-Invasion, the victim’s web browser is tricked by InfectedWeb-Site into unwanted action. It will then send HTTP requests to the web application as intended by the Cyber-Criminals. In addition to that, such a request could involve submitting forms present on the web-application to modify data-archives and once the HTTP request is successfully delivered, then the victim’s browser will include the cookie header. Cookies are typically employed to store the client’s session identifier so that the client does not have to enter their login credentials for each request, which would obviously be impractical. If the victim’s session of authentication is safely archived in a session cookie or if the application is vulnerable to Cross- Web-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), then the Cyber-Criminal can leverage CSRF to launch any desired infected requests against the Web-Site and the server-side code is unable to distinguish whether these are legitimate requests.

CSRF Cyber-Invasion can be employed to compromise online banking by forcing the victim to make an operation involving their bank account. CSRF can also facilitate Cross- Web-Site Scripting (XSS). Hence it is extremely important that you treat CSRF as extremely serious issues for your web application security issue.

The CSRF Cyber-Invasionnormally employs an HTTP GET request. If the victim visits a web page controlled by the Cyber-Criminals with the following payload, the browser will send a request containing the cookie to the URL crafted by Cyber-Criminals.

Cross- Web-Site Request Forgery in POST Requests

GET requests, however, are not the only HTTP method the Cyber-Criminals can exploit. POST requests are equally susceptible to Cross- Web-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), however, The Cyber-Criminals also has to involve a little bit of JavaScript to submit the POST request.

CSRF Protection

One can have two kind of primary approaches to deal with Cross-Web-Site Request Forgery. For starters, One has to synchronize the cookie with an anti-CSRF token that has already been given to the browser or preventing the browser from transmitting cookies to the web application.

Anti-CSRF Tokens

The recommended and the most widely employed prevention technique for Cross- Web-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Cyber-Invasion is known as an anti-CSRF token, sometimes referred to as a synchronizer token or just simply a CSRF token. When a client submits a form or makes some other authenticated request that requires a cookie, a random token should be included in the request. Now, the web-application has to verify the existence and purity of this token before processing any requests. It is extremely important that the web-application should have the ability to reject the token with a suspicious approach.

It’s highly recommended that you employ an existing, well tested and reliable anti-CSRF library. Depending on your language and framework of choice, there are several high-quality open source libraries that are ready-to-deploy. Here we have mentioned some of the characteristics of a well-designed anti-CSRF system.

It is extremely important that each client’s session should have a unique token.

For security measures, the session should expire automatically after an instructed period of time.

It is extremely essential that the Anti-CSRF token should be a cryptographically random value and it should have significant length.

It is extremely important that the Anti-CSRF token should be added within URLs or as a hidden field for forms.

It is also important that the server should have the ability to reject the requested action if the validation of the Anti-CSRF token fails.

Same-Web-Site Cookies

The Same-Web-Site cookie attribute is a new attribute that can be set on cookies to instruct the browser to disable third-party usage for specific cookies. The Same-Web-Site attribute is set by the server when setting the cookie and requests the browser to only send the cookie in a first-party context. Therefore, the request has to originate from the same origin — requests made by a third-party Website will not include the Same-Web-Site cookie. This effectively eliminates Cross-Web-Site Request Forgery Invasion without the practicing synchronizer tokens.

[vbktechnologiesllp]

Pharma Spam-Virus

What is Pharma Spam-Virus?

Pharma Spam-Virus is a type of SEO spam employed by Cyber-Criminals to improve the SEO rank of Web-sites selling pharmaceutical products like Viagra, Cialis, Xanax, Valium, and Celebrex. Compromised Website Report 2017 found that 44% of all Cyber-Invasion including the creation of SEO spam campaigns on the targeted Web-site. This kind of Cyber-Invasion involves the addition of new pages or alteration of existing pages to add links for SEO purposes. In addition to that, it is the form of Black Hat SEO called spamdexing. Spamdexing practices a variety of techniques to get links placed onto other people’s Web-sites. These links will point to other compromised Web-sites with more links or directly to the Cyber-Criminal’s money Web-sites. This is the Web-sites that they want to rank-up in search engines. It is an effective technique because a search engine employs a number of links coming into a Web-site to determine where it ranks of the Web-sites in search engine results. If Cyber-Criminals succeeds in employing exploits or spamming techniques to obtain links on thousands of Web-sites, their money Web-site will rank higher and make more money. Cyber-Criminals involved in this activity may also place entire pages of spam on other people’s Web-sites (as shown below). These pages are fully functional sales pages that send clients to payment gateways to purchase products. In this article, we have tried to explain how Pharma Spam-Virus operates and how you can secure your Web-site from such Cyber-Invasion.

This is How Cyber-Criminals Employ Pharma Spam-Virus to infiltrate Your WordPress Web-site’s Security

The Cyber-Criminals will Exercise a backdoor to gain remote access to your Web-site

The Cyber-Criminal must find a way to upload an infected file to your Web-site before they can run their spam scripts. They will usually start by looking for Web-sites that are running an outdated version of WordPress or which are running a plugin that can be exploited. Sometimes, Cyber-Criminals will target a specific hosting company that is known to have lax security on their servers.

Once the backdoor is installed, the Cyber-Criminalmay or may not practice it immediately. However, it totally depends on the status of their black hat SEO campaigns. The most common locations for this kind of backdoor script are inside wp-content/uploads/.*php (with a random PHP name file), wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile_old.php.xl, wp-includes/wp-db-class.php and wp-includes/images/wp-img.php.

The contents of this file usually include a long encoded string that employs the eval function to run. The string will look like a jumbled series of letters and numbers.

The Cyber-Criminals will run this file remotely to scrape your Data-Archives details from wp-config.php. The file will then act as a remote shell, giving Cyber-Criminals all kinds of information about the server. Once the Cyber-Criminalshas the Data-Archives and login credentials from wp-config.php, they can modify and add pages as they see fit.

Locating this backdoor file and removing it is usually the first step to perform when removing Pharma Spam-Virus from a Web-site.

The Backdoor Adds Files To Plugin Folders

The files installed during the backdoor entry will help the Cyber-Criminals to create and manage their Pharma Spam-Virus. In addition to that these files will usually be installed in a plugin directory. They will often be named in a way that resembles the plugin directory in which they are located. For example, if they have been installed in the Jetpack plugin directory, they might be named wp-jetpack.php, db-jetpack.php, ext-jetpack.php. In some cases, they might employ hidden files or image files to store some types of data and the easiest way to ensure that your plugin directory is cleansed of all infected folders is to reinstall them from a reputable source.

The Backdoor Modifies The Data-Archives

Finally, the Cyber-Criminals will make some changes to your Data-Archives so they can add their Pharma Spam-Virus. They will often make changes to the wp_options table, adding records to help their programs. This Pharma Spam-Virus includes rows in the wp-options table like “class_generic_support”, “widget_generic_support”, ”wp_check_hash”, “fwp”, and “ftp_credentials”. You should delete these records from your Data-Archives if they are present.The Cyber-Criminal’s backdoor may also make changes to the clients registered on your Web-site or will even add new client with administrator permissions. You will have to check the registered clients, their email addresses, and reset all passwords to address this risk.

How Does Pharma Spam-Virus Affects Your Website

Unfortunately, having Pharma Spam-Virus on your Web-site carries some negative consequences including:

Forcing your Web-site to rank lower. When Google sees that you have dozens of spammy outbound links on your Web-site’s pages, it may reduce your search engine rankings.

Your Web-site may be blacklisted. Because of spammy links that go to low-quality spam Web-sites are against search engine guidelines. If your Web-site accumulates enough of these links, it may be blacklisted from some search engines.

If your Web-site is compromised to Pharma Spam-Virus, then it might have other issues. For starters, it will attract other forms of the virus to your Web-site. This include infected redirects and forced downloads.

Checking If You Have A Pharma Spam-Virus

Pharma Spam-Virus is not always easy to detect. If the Cyber-Criminals have managed to create completely new pages on your domain, you may never see them because you don’t know the URLs. One might get a hint in initial stages about their presence if one gets a penalty from Google or someone informs them about the spam in their Web-site. Some techniques you can be employed to check if you have Pharma Spam-Virus:

Search Your Web-site With Google

The Cyber-Criminals are very effective at getting their spam pages indexed, so they should be easy to find using Google. Visit google.com and search for “inurl:yoursite.comviagra or Cialis”. It might display all of the pages on your domain that contain the words similar words. Most Pharma Spam-Virus pages will contain one or both of those words. To make it easier you can try the Advanced Search by Google.

Employ A Virus Scanner On Your Web-site

There are any third party scanners that will check your Web-site for pharmacy spam or Website status against several blacklists like Google Safe Browsing, PhishTank, Virus domain list. You can test your Web-site against several blacklists at once here with Threat Press Website Scan.

Manually Inspect Your Server

You can also navigate through the folders and files on your server to see if there are any new additions.

Removing Pharma Spam-Virus From Your Website

Pharma Spam-Virus is notoriously difficult to remove because Cyber-Criminals often try to exploit multiple backdoors and insert infected code in different locations. One should employ the following techniques to ensure the method employed by the Cyber-Criminals is permanently deleted:

Track Down The Backdoor

Start by removing the entry point that the Cyber-Criminals employed to compromise your Web-site. As discussed earlier, one has to perform a search by the date to locate files such as wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile_old.php.xl, wp-includes/wp-db-class.php, wp-content/uploads/.*php and wp-includes/images/wp-img.php.

Delete Your Plugins

Start by backing up your plugins and then move towards the data that these plugins saved to the Data-Archives. Later on, you can install the new plugin via a genuine source. This will ensure any infected files added to your plugins directories are gone.

Always Employ A WordPress Plugin To Scan Your Files

In order to ensure the safety one can install a WordPress security plugin and scan their WordPress core files. This scanner will spot every infected code that has been added to your WordPress core files. They may help you locate the backdoor if you did not find it in step 1.

Scan Your Website With A Third Party Tool

There are many third-party tools that will scan your Web-site to identify any spam pages or compromised files. The following services offer free scans for infected files.

Always Employ Server-side Anti-virus Programs

Ensure the server has an up-to-date antivirus program. Applications like ClamAV, are very effective at locating potentially infected files.

Change Your Passwords And Check Registered Clients

You should assume that Cyber-Criminal has gained access to your Data-Archives and now you will have to generate new WordPress salt keys and change your passwords for your FTP accounts, Data-Archives (important), WordPress clients and hosting accounts. Check that there are no additional clients in the system and check all email addresses of clients.

Remove The Spam Pages

Cyber-Invasion by Pharma Spam-Virus usually adds pages to your WordPress Data-Archives. Track down all of these pages and remove them, including the additional PHP files throughout your installation.

Reinstall Your WordPress Files, Plugins, And Themes

In order to ensure extreme safety, it is always a good idea to change your WordPress core files with the latest versions. Some Cyber-Invasion by Pharma Spam-Virus stores files in the active theme’s directory, so delete and replace your theme’s files also.

Check other Websites hosted on the same server (account)

If you have an account on the multiple Website hosting, we suggest you check out other Websites because all Websites on the same hosting account could be compromised as well.

Resubmit Your Web-site To Google

If Google has detected the Pharma Spam-Virus on your Web-site, then your Web-site may already be penalized. Once you have repaired your Web-site then go to Google’s Search Engine Console and using the Remove URLs Feature to eliminate any references that Google has to the infected pages. You will then have to go to Search Traffic > Manual Actions and Request a Review of your Web-site.

Ensuring this kind of Cyber-Invasion does not happen again

Here are a few techniques you can follow to ensure you don’t get compromised with Pharma Spam-Virus again.

Improve your passwords

Install Word-Press security program

Install a Word-Press theme checking plugin

Always avoid installing plugins or themes from an untrusted source

Keep WordPress, your themes and your plugins updated

One must always ensure that their Word-Press installation is backed upregularly

One might move to a web host, as they have better WordPress security as compared to others

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WordPress Web-Site’s Protection and Performance

WordPress security and WordPress performance are two main topics that bother Web-Site owners every day. Everyone wants a fast and secure Web-Site which would require as little care as possible. For some unknown reason, a lot of Client thinks that safety and speed are two incompatible things. However, we would like to we want to prove that this is a misconception. In the real world, attempting to make the Web-Site safer also has a positive effect on its speed. So, let’s take a look at the steps you can take to enhance WordPress security while speeding it up noticeably.

Do you really required all of the WordPress plugins you have?

There are thousands of various free WordPress plugins available on the WordPress plugin repository; moreover, there are thousands of premium WordPress plugins available across multiple code markets like Envato and similar. Indeed, the choice is extremely large and tempting, but are you really not using more plugins than you really require? Yes, plugins solve many problems, offers more features and functionality for your Web-Site, but there is also a dark side. Each plugin Employs one or another resource of your Web-Site’s server, which affects the speed of your Web-Site and hurts the Client experience. This is just one dark side, the other lies in the potential vulnerability in the code that relates to such programs. You cannot be sure of the security of the source code. Nobody can guarantee that there will be no security issues in the current or future versions of the plugin. So why keep more plugins than it is really required?

We highly recommend checking plugins installed on the Web-Site and try to reduce their number. First of all, if there are plugins that are only installed but not activated, then delete those plugins you no longer require. Now check out your active WordPress plugins if they offer the same functions and capabilities, maybe there are plugins that you can remove and employ other active plugins to cover those functions. However, there are countless small plugins that are designed to offer a straightforward function. For instance, there is one that disables the Emoji script integrated into the WordPress core design or those plugins that redirect HTTP to HTTPS. It’s not a good idea to solve simple tasks with plugins, especially if there are a lot of solutions to how you can reach the same results by merely altering files like .htaccess, wp-config.php, functions.php (WordPress theme file) and more. Get rid of the plugins who’s offered functions can be changed only by several lines of code.

A straightforward method for identifying plug-ins that may pose a risk to WordPress security or cause speed and compatibility issues in the future is the latest version release date. If the plugin has not been updated for several years and there are many unresolved issues in the support forum, there is a chance that this plugin is abandoned. In this case, it would be better to replace the potentially hazardous plugin in the other one that is actively developed and maintained. From practice, we can say that many abandoned plugins may have compatibility issues with the latest PHP versions that are very actively implemented by hosting companies.

In the end, check if none of your plugins are identified as vulnerable. Plugin vulnerabilities are one of the significant WordPress security issues, so knowing if you are using a hazardous plugin is very important. Remember that each plugin that you delete will reduce the security risks and will speed up your Web-Site.

Are you sure you want to keep un-employed themes?

We talked a lot about un-employed and un-important plugins, but the same applies to themes. If you have un-employed themes in your WordPress install, please delete them. If you ask why then the answer is simple– Google Dorking. Sometimes WordPress themes can also be vulnerable. If Cyber-Criminals can detect a Web-Site that contains a vulnerable template through Google’s search with a specific search query it will definitely exploit the theme vulnerability. Delete un-employed themes (be careful, make sure you’re not deleting parent theme that is employed by child theme). A small reminder, avoid templates and plugins that you do not know or have downloaded from untrusted sources or torrent networks.

Think about whether you really want to register Clients?

I guess you have to think twice before making up your mind whether or not you require client registration functionality. If your answer is “No”, then you should avoid this function at all costs. This allows preventing the risks related to privilege escalation vulnerabilities and will require fewer resources from various archives employed by WordPress, which will respond positively to the Web-Site’s speed. Undoubtedly, if you require Client registration feature, you do not have to abandon it, but be sure to assess all the risks and take the required security measures, including protecting the personal archive of those Clients.

Programs and its versions

Update, update once more and always upgrade to the latest available program versions. You have to keep your WordPress, its plugins and themes up to date, this is the only way to get the safest and cleanest code of your program. Well maintained and developed plugins, themes and other programs that are up to date will work better, faster and of course it will be more secure. The same applies to server programs. If you have fully managed to host make sure to select the latest version of PHP that is available, and if you’re running an unmanaged server don’t forget to install all the latest patches especially ones related to the security. One should not forget that PHP 7 has spontaneous and safe performance as compared to PHP 5 versions. Also, you have to remember that PHP 5 will not be updated and maintained anymore, so it’s time to migrate to the latest PHP version as soon as possible.

WordPress security and speed enhanced by CDN and WAF

Content Delivery Network (CDN) or Web Application Firewall (WAF) should be on your must-have list. In both cases, you have better DoS/DDoS resilience with better speed figures at the time of the Cyber- infiltration. If the DoS/DDoSCyber- infiltration is not significant, then most of your Clients will not notice any speed drop. The perfect tools to enhance WordPress security and its speed.

WordPress security and performance relation conclusion

Your main task is straightforward — reduce the number of programs employed, get rid of un-employed files and program, discard un-important features, always employ only the latest version of those programs, and don’t forget to deploy advanced tools to help protect and speed up your Web-Site. By the way, don’t forget to back up your WordPress files and list of archives before making any changes; it could save you a lot of time in case of emergency. We hope you succeed in achieving excellent results in optimizing your Web-Site, write to us in comments or on our social networking accounts what results you have achieved. Good luck!

My WordPress Website got compromised after restore. Again! Why?

Quite often we hear about the repeated security incidents related to WordPress Websites. This is not something specific to WordPress Websites; it’s more about Website maintenance and security management. Most repeated Web-Site Infiltration occurs due to the unprofessional restore of Websites after previous incidents when the consequences are fixed, but not the causes. In the end, it is all the accurate security repairs is highly based on close attention to minor details.

What have you forgotten?

There are a lot of standard procedures and tasks required for proper Compromised WordPress Website repair. But sometimes people miss some crucial steps, and everything later goes wrong. If you want to repair your Compromised Website on your own, we recommend you to read this post. Also, don’t forget to make backups periodically to have a copy of your Website files and list of archives; it is crucial if you don’t want to lose all your archives. Of course, make sure your computer is up to date and secured by any reliable security programs.

Passwords

Passwords are the front line of your Website’s security. It is critically important to employ strong passwords for all your accounts. But if your Website gets compromised, then you should change all the passwords that are somehow related to your Website. Any of these passwords might be compromised and pose a real threat to your Website even after complete repair. Here are the most critical passwords that you really have to change:

Password for WordPress list of archives.

FTP account password.

WordPress Clients with the administrator and similar roles.

Hosting account password.

Check out your .htaccess and .htpasswd files

Always check these files carefully. These files are critical in the perspective of your Website security. These files could contain infected archives added by Cyber-Criminals. For example .htpasswd could be modified and hold the access login credentials generated by Cyber-Criminals. In this case, your .htpasswd security will be compromised.

The same principles apply to .htaccess files. The Cyber-Criminals could make various exceptions and add specific rules to ensure he still has access to the Website files.

Multiple Website hosting? Check them all!

The most common reason for repeated (and successful) Website Infiltrations even after an accurate repair is the Multiple Website hosting. Let’s take an example. You have a hosting plan that allows you to host more than one Web-Site and let’s assume that you have five Web-Sites running on this hosting plan. One day you noticed that one of your Web-Site got compromised. You made the repair, cleaned up all the files and even made the hardening of this Web-Site by eliminating the weak part that was employed to infiltrate your web-sites protection barrier. Later you noticed that the same Web-Site or another one from your account is compromised.

Well, that’s because all Web-Sites on the same hosting account share the same file space, they are not isolated from each other. The Cyber-Criminals try hard to gain access to all of your Web-Sites once he has access to one of them. He can place backdoor to any Website to access the server anytime he wants to. So it’s critically important to check the security of all Websites on the Multiple Website hosting account even if even only one is compromised.

Insecure Programs

One of the biggest mistakes that one does while restoring their Website is they employ insecure programs. There are a lot of security breaches caused by vulnerable or nulled WordPress plugins and themes. Any WordPress plugin or theme downloaded from torrents, or other unreliable sources could endanger your WordPress Website.

We highly recommend you to employ only reliable program downloaded straight from the WordPress theme or plugin repository, Websites developers and well known online catalogs like Code Canyon or similar. As saving a few dollars could bring you a massive headache; you can lose more money due to a security incident. Remember, there are thousands of free WordPress plugins and themes that you can safely employ. And don’t forget to update your programs on a regular basis.

Compromised backup archive

Restoring your Website from the last back up archive could be a bad idea. If your latest WordPress back up file was generated at the time when the Web-Site was already Compromised you’re going nowhere, restoring from such backup file is meaningless.

One has to make sure their backup archive is safe and at least generated from the Website before it was compromised. Server logs could help you to identify the date when the Website was compromised.

One has to be also very careful with their archive backup, as it may contain various injections like unknown clients with administrative rights and one has to carefully inspect the list of archives before making the repair of the Website.

Website Infiltration at the server level

Your Website could be compromised not just by your Website’s program vulnerabilities; it could be easily infiltrated by exploiting server program vulnerabilities or insecure configuration. Restoring your Website will not help to solve the problem. One has to carefully analyze the way how it was compromised and if they still have vulnerable server programs or insecure server configuration, then the Website can be compromised again and again. However, the possibility of such scenarios is very slim and it mostly happens on unmanaged systems that are left without any maintenance for a very long period of time. Normally, every hosting company keeps its server program up-to-date and they also put more focus on setting server settings to maintain optimum security measures.

Vulnerable WordPress plugins and themes

Make sure all your WordPress plugins and themes are not vulnerable. You can check the status of your plugins and themes by using Threat-Press archives of WordPress vulnerabilities or by using our WordPress security plugin which makes automatic checks periodically. It will notify you as soon as it finds any outdated and vulnerable plugins or themes on your Website. Please, don’t forget to update your programs on time, as soon as possible.

A lot of teams and cyber-protection professionals provide information about recently discovered vulnerabilities to make the WordPress safer, so don’t miss this opportunity to secure your Web-Site.

Clean up your search index results and blacklisting

Sometimes your Website could be marked as Infected due to the activity of suspicious program on your Compromised Website. Even after the Website repair, it can be labeled as infected. Hence, one has to notify their managers regarding these blacklists. More importantly, don’t let anyone know that your Website was compromised. Sometimes Cyber-attacks are made just to employ your Web-Site for black hat SEO spam and similar illegal activities. Also, don’t forget to employ Google Search Console or other similar tools provided by search engines to clean up results generated by indexing injected content. It will not make your Website safer, but it’s extremely important for proper Website repair after the Cyber-attack.

Finally, we would like to say that repairing the Website after the Cyber-attack is only part of the work. The main task is to keep it under constant surveillance and maintenance. Timely program updates, strong passwords and other simple security measures will help you to enhance the security of your WordPress Website.

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Implementation of CIA-Trinity For WordPress and WooCommerce Protection

CIA-Trinity is an abbreviation for confidentiality, integrity, and availability. It is considered to be the basis for all information protection models. Confidentiality, integrity, and availability are crucial to ensuring the protection of information and information systems. Each of the three CIA-Trinity parts is essential and this model can’t assure the protection of the information and information systems if one of the pieces fails. Let’s see how unique these three components are and what role they play.

CIA-Trinity I — Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an extremely essential measure to protect information and information systems. It can directly affect other parts of the CIA-Trinity. The first explanation would be that the information must be accessible only to those who have the right to access that information. You may have heard about the Principle of Least Privilege (POLP), it states that information system user must be able to access only the information that is important for regular use of the system and legitimate purpose.

Confidentiality and the Principle of Least Privilege are employed by almost all information systems. For instance, if a WordPress website has different clients with different rights, then it guarantees two things.

Each client has its own customized account, which can only be operated by the client.

Each client can have limited access to the list of archives.

Confidentiality must also ensure that other sensitive information is hidden. Just imagine what could go wrong if your WordPress configuration archives or even PHP information becomes visible to everyone. It will make the task of potential Cyber-Criminal extremely easy and he can totally skip the first technique of cyber-infiltration, as he can get all the primary information required to implement an infiltration without wasting time on deeper and time-consuming research. Proper limitation of the availability of information can protect you from potential cyber-infiltrations.

CIA-Trinity II — Integrity

The archives are only valuable if it is correct and unchanged and its integrity means that information is not altered in any way by an unauthorized person. We have a great example, imagine that you have one million dollars on your bank account and someone managed to change the records in the banking archives and reduce your savings to only one dollar just by deleting several symbols. We can safely say that archive integrity is the cornerstone of the reliability of archive and information systems.

Smallest changes could make a massive impact on information and work of the information systems. For Instance; your online store is based on WooCommerce and some unknown people succeeded in changing the price of various products on your shop from 999 USD to 9 USD, so one deleted symbol can create immense difference and can produce heavy loses for your business.

Don’t assume that integrity is the only thing that you require to ensure the of archive information. However, the integrity of your WordPress and WooCommerce or any other program’s source code is highly important. Altered program source code also could lead to huge problems, changes can be made by Cyber-Criminals to inject the infection or other unwanted programs like key-loggers, shells and similar just to gain access to your system, list of archives and client activity by stealing their credit card numbers, account passwords and more.

In summary, ensuring archive integrity guarantees system reliability and such control over archive integrity allows you to identify potential intrusion into your system.

CIA-Trinity III– Availability

It is important to make sure that the information and information system is accessible to the authorized client or viewer at all times. Some of the cyber-infiltrations like Denial-of-Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) infiltration technique is implemented by Cyber-Criminals to make your information system and its information inaccessible to client and viewers. It’s quite a prominent topic and problem. However, there are a dozen various measures like Web-Application Firewall, Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and others that can protect your WordPress Website or WooCommerce store from such types of infiltrations.

Availability also means that your information system and information must be accessible regarding acceptable client experience. It means that if you apply such protective measures, then it will ultimately ruin client experience and the access to the list of archives by asking clients to pass a lot of protective levels, it will be considered by clients as almost unavailable and inaccessible.

Conclusion

CIA-Trinity is an excellent example of how you can evaluate and harden the protection of your WordPress Web-sites and WooCommerce stores. These three parts of the Trinity depend on each other and provide a solid foundation for the protection of your information and information system. Each measure can reduce the likelihood of successful infiltration. Just remember that excessive involvement of protective measures may make your information or information system unavailable to your client.

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Cyber-Exploitation Chain and How To Protect Your Word-Press Web-Site

Cyber-Exploitation Chain is a term defined by the Lockheed-Martin Corporation scientists to describe the chain of techniques required for intrusion into the system’s networks. However, these techniques also work when we are talking about the intrusion into the web-page, in this case, web-pages created in Word-Press. Most of the principles applied by Cyber-Criminals is to make intrusion system’s networks are basically the same as making the intrusion into the web-sites.

Cyber-Exploitation Chain Techniques

There are seven techniques, to begin with, Cyber-Exploitation Chain. However, their count could vary depending on the magnitude of intrusion. These techniques are more applicable to the system’s networks, but we can adopt these techniques even when we talk about web-page security. Let’s look up at those Cyber-Exploitation Chain techniques and later we will analyze them from the perspective of Word-Press security.

Cyber-Exploitation Chain

First of all Cyber-Criminal selects a target and after hours of research, they then attempt to discover vulnerabilities present in targets network. Now the next task to perform is to create remote access Infections such as a virus or worm to exploit one or more vulnerabilities of the network. Once the infection is ready, then it’s time to transmit that infection into the target’s network via e-mail attachments, web-pages or USB drives. Once the virus is in the network, then it will trigger the infected code to exploit vulnerabilities and take control. Now it’s time to create various access points that can be used to transmit other viruses, if necessary for father exploitation. Running infected code and creating access points will eventually provide access to the target’s network including the keyboard. The core objective here is destruction, encryption, and exfiltration of server archives.

WordPress security measures against each Cyber-Exploitation Chain Techniques

Now let’s analyze the techniques that Cyber-Exploitation Chain employs to make an intrusion against WordPress web-pages and see what WordPress security measures can help us to make the web-site more resistant.

Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance plays a massive role in the whole sequence of Cyber-Exploitation Chain. Usually, it is the most time-consuming technique and could determine the success of the intrusion. Here I should clarify one essential thing, a Cyber-Criminal could choose a target due to his own preferences, or he could select it because he knows for sure that it is vulnerable. And here we have to remember Google Dorking and other techniques used by Cyber-Criminals to find vulnerable web-sites.

So how do we have to protect the Word-Press website from reconnaissance that could lead to infiltration? Well, we need to control the information that is sensitive in the perspective of the website security. For example:

PHP version of your web server, if you’re running an insecure version of PHP that could be a problem.

Keep your users with administration capabilities unidentifiable, you should use other users with fewer capabilities to generate content.

WordPress backup files stored on your web server, especially if there is a back-up file of those archives.

WordPress version, especially if your web-site is powered by old version of WordPress and you can’t update it to the latest version (highly modified/legacy).

Poor archive structure and issues related to the configuration can result in unrestricted directory browsing.

Server information.

The main idea is to make information about your web-site, server, directory structure, program versions, and users less accessible. Don’t forget that Cyber-Criminal can gather sensitive information even with the Google search system. There are specialized search engines that allow searching web-pages that include particular code lines. Periodic web-site inspections associated with leakage of sensitive information is an ideal preventive measure.

However, you can’t hide everything. That’s why it’s highly recommended to keep WordPress, its plugins and themes up to date. A Cyber-Criminal can do the reconnaissance based on the particular program, he can look for vulnerable plugins and design themes on any public archives of vulnerable WordPress program versions and then look up for websites equipped with this program.

Weaponization of Infection By Installation, Delivery And Exploitation

There is a dozen of various ways using which the Cyber-Criminals can deliver their infected code to your web server. Starting from the simplest and most hazardous like FTP connection using stolen FTP credentials. That’s why your system’s security may impact the safety of your web-page. Besides FTP, a Cyber-Criminal can use other infected payload delivery techniques.

Even a contact form with the ability to attach a file to a message can be extremely hazardous if the upload of files with specific extensions is not restricted. Also, a Cyber-Criminal can use Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Remote File Inclusion, Local File Inclusion (LFI), Double Extension Injection Technique, Null byte Injection, and other techniques.

In order to ensure the success of the intrusion, a Cyber-Criminal will create a custom code that he will try to inject into your website. It might be a separate file or piece of source code that he will try to insert into the particular PHP or HTML file on your web server.In such cases, a unique code is used to prevent security systems from identifying that code. These systems often rely on the dictionaries of virus signatures earlier found on other infected web-pages. The only way to make it hard to identify is to make it unique. In most cases, this type of infection is used to create access to server files or archives. Security hardening must be directed towards the identification of virus signatures and the control of checksums of files and directories.

To make your WordPress website resistant to any of the mentioned virus delivery techniques, one has to keep all the programs including the webserver program up to date and they need to actively inspect all forms against XSS and other similar vulnerabilities. Also, we need to restrict file extensions that could be used as executable files (for example PHP) and restrict the direct access to files uploaded by contact and other forms of your web-site.

So keep in mind that Cyber-Criminal will definitely exploit any possible vulnerability. If he did a great job of reconnaissance homework, and you forgot to protect against possible intrusions, there is a good chance that he will be able to install an infected program.

Command and Control / Actions on Objective

Constant monitoring of your web-page can help you identify suspicious activity at an early stage. You need to monitor the search results related to your web-pages. This may reveal unwanted content like pharma-spam or Cyber-Criminal’s signatures left on your web-site. It can be also useful in designing preventive purposes for your website. Hence, it is extremely important that you check the log files of the server periodically and pay close attention to the unknown IP addresses that directly access particular PHP or HTML files on your web server. Because as soon as the Cyber-Criminals were able to inject and access the infected payload he probably has full access to your web-page’s files and complete control of your website. Now he can access the WordPress archives (all credentials available on wp-config.php file), he can alter any file and inject more infected code.

Other Things That Can Reveal The Security Breach

Highly increased use of server resources and/or slow web-page. Resources of your web server can be used to intrude on other web-sites, send spam, and other suspicious activities.

There is a very noticeable decrease in web-site visitors. Use Google Analytics to monitor your web-page If there are suspicious redirects on your web-page, you will notice anomalies in Analytics reports.

Is Your web-page’s (domain name) blacklisted? This may be due to several reasons, such as the distribution of a virus, spam emails, the use of web-page resources to intrude another web-

The emergence of unwanted ads, pop-ups, and content on your website.

High CPU load while browsing your web-page. This could be a crypto mining script injected by Cyber-Criminals.

Conclusion

Most intrusions techniques require a similar sequence. Cyber-Exploitation Chain is an excellent example of techniques employed by Cyber-Criminal to successfully execute the intrusion. Being aware of the potentially weak sides of a web-site’s security can help you plan additional protection. Any method you use to prevent one or other type of intrusion or sensitive archive leakage enhances the overall security status of your web-site.

Also, constant monitoring and preventive checks are necessary to accurately assess the current security status of your Word-Press web-site. Especially if you want PCI compliance for WooCommerce based online store. Your network’s security does not depend on what type of security tool you have purchased. But, it totally depends on various factors, which includes your daily online behavior, habits and security knowledge.

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The Most Common Techniques Employed By Cyber-Thieves To Compromise The Website

The Internet continues to grow at an incredible pace, with more archives of valuable information are being placed online than ever before. A significant amount of those archives distributed online is extremely valuable, including credit card details, crypto-currency, intellectual property, personal details, and trade secrets.

Businesses, governments, and consumers are also more reliant on the Internet for their daily activities. The transactions performed online are worth billions of dollars and trillions of archives of information is exchanged online every day.

The lucrative nature of the Internet has led to a significant increase in the number of Cyber-Attack from Cyber-Thieves. These Cyber-Thieves may employ various tools and techniques to gain access to the sensitive information that is found online. They often compromise the websites and network resources in an effort to extort money or steal assets from organizations.

To protect yourself and your business against Cyber-Thieves, it is important to be aware of how website compromising technique works. This guide will share the most common Cyber-Attack, to help you prepare for most types of malicious threats.

SQL Injection Cyber-Attack

SQL Injection Cyber-Attack is the most common website compromising technique. Most websites employ Structured Query Language (SQL) to interact with archives. SQL allows the website to create, retrieve, update, and delete records from the archives. It is normally employed for everything from logging the authorized client into the website to storing details of an e-commerce transaction.

An SQL injection Cyber-Attack places SQL into a web form in an attempt to get the application to run it. For example, instead of typing plain text into the field of login credentials, a Cyber-Thief may type in ‘ OR 1=1.

If the application appends this string directly to an SQL command that is designed to check if the authorized client exists in the archives, it will always return true. This can allow these Cyber-Thieves to gain access to a restricted section of a website. Other SQL injection Cyber-Attack can be employed to delete information from the archives or document new information.

Cyber-Thieves sometimes employ automated tools to perform SQL injections on remote websites. They will scan thousands of websites, testing many types of injection Cyber-Attack until they are successful.

SQL injection Cyber-Attack can be prevented by correctly filtering input from the authorized client. Most programming languages have special functions to safely handle the input or requests sent by the authorized client.

Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross-Site Scripting is a major vulnerability that is often exploited by Cyber-Thieves to compromise a website. It is one of the more difficult vulnerabilities to deal with because of the way it works. Some of the largest websites in the world have dealt with successful XSS Cyber-Attack including Microsoft and Google.

Most XSS website compromising cyber-attacks employ malicious Java-script, those scripts are embedded in hyperlinks. When the authorized client clicks the link, it might steal personal information, hijack a web session, take over client’s account, or change the advertisements that are being displayed on a page.

Cyber-Thieves will often insert these malicious links into web forums, social media websites, and other prominent locations where authorized clients will click them. To avoid XSS Cyber-Attack, website owners must filter input received by authorized clients to remove any malicious code.

Denial of Service (DoS/DDoS)

The denial of service is the latest technique used by Cyber-Thieves, in which they overwhelm a website with an immense amount of fake Internet traffic created employing several bots and this ultimately causes the servers to become overloaded with a huge amount of requests, which results in a server crash. Most DDoS Cyber-Attack are carried out using Digital-Systems that have been compromised with malware. The owners of the infected Digital-System may not even be aware that their machine is sending requests to access the archives of their website.

Denial of service Cyber-Attack can be prevented by:

Rate limiting your web server’s router

Adding filters to your router to drop packets from dubious sources

Dropping spoofed or malformed packets

Setting more aggressive timeouts on connections

Using firewalls with DDoS protection

Using third-party DDoS mitigation program from Akamai, Cloudflare, VeriSign, Arbor Networks or another provider

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF)

Cross-site request forgery is a very common technique employed by Cyber-Thieves to exploit vulnerabilities of websites. It occurs when unauthorized commands are transmitted from a client that a web application trusts. The client is usually logged into the website, so they have a higher level of privileges, allowing the Cyber-Thief to transfer funds, obtain account information or gain access to sensitive information.

There are many ways for Cyber-Thieves to transmit forged commands including hidden forms, AJAX, and image tags. The authorized client is not aware that the command has been sent and the website believes that the command has come from an authorized client. The main difference between an XSS and CSRF Cyber-Attack is that the client should be logged in and trusted by a website for a CSRF website compromising Cyber-Attack to work. Website owners can prevent CSRF Cyber-Attack by checking HTTP headers to verify where the request is coming from and check CSRF tokens in web forms. This type of diagnosis will make sure that the request has come from the internal page of a web application and not from an unknown external source.

DNS Spoofing (DNS Cache Poisoning)

This attacking technique injects a corrupt domain system archive into a DNS resolver’s cache to redirect where a website’s traffic is sent. It often employs the way of sending traffic from legitimate websites to malicious websites that contain malware. DNS spoofing can also be employed to gather information about the traffic being diverted. The best technique for preventing DNS spoofing is to set short TTL times and regularly clear the DNS caches of local machines.

Social Engineering Techniques

In some cases, the greatest weakness in a website’s security system is the people that operate it. Social engineering seeks to exploit this weakness. The Cyber-Thieves will convince a website administrator to divulge some important information that helps them exploit the website. There are many forms of social engineered Cyber-Attacks, including:

Phishing

The authorized clients of a website are sent fraudulent emails that look like they have come from the website, then the client is asked to divulge some information, such as their login details or personal information. Cyber-Thieves can employ this information to compromises the website.

Baiting

This is a classic social engineering technique was first employed in the 1970s. The Cyber-Thief will leave a device near your place of business, perhaps marked with a label like “employee salaries”. One of your employees might pick it up and insert it into their Digital-System out of curiosity. The USB stick will contain malware that infects your Digital-System’s network and compromises your website.

Pretexting

The Cyber-Thief will contact you, one of your customers or an employee and pretend to be someone else. They will demand sensitive information, which they employ to compromise your website. The best way to eliminate social engineered Cyber-Attack is to educate your employees and customers about these kinds of threats.

Non-targeted website Attacking

In many cases, Cyber-Thieves won’t specifically target your website. Instead of your website, they will be more focused on exploring vulnerabilities present in your plugin, content management system or templates.

For example, they may have developed an attacking technique that targets a vulnerability in a particular version of Word-Press, Joomla, or another content management system. They will employ automated bots to find websites using this version of the content management system in question before launching a Cyber-Attack. They might employ the vulnerability to delete stored archives from your website, steal sensitive information, or to insert malicious program onto your server.

The best way to avoid website compromising Cyber-Attacks to ensure your content management system, plugins, and templates are all up-to-date.

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Be-Aware of ZBot Trojan Malware

What is ZBot Trojan Malware?

ZBot Trojan Malware is a form of malicious software that targets Microsoft Windows and is often used to steal financial data. First detected in 2007, the ZBot Trojan Malware has become one of the most successful pieces of botnet software in the world, afflicting millions of machines and spawning a host of similar pieces of ZBot Trojan Malware built off of its code. While the threat posed by ZBot Trojan Malware dwindled when its creator purportedly retired in 2010, a number of variants showed up on the scene when the source code became public, making this particular infection relevant and dangerous once again.

Detection

ZBot Trojan Malware is very difficult to detect even with up-to-date antivirus and other security software as it hides itself using stealth techniques. It is considered that this is the primary reason why the ZBot Trojan Malware has become the largest botnet on the Internet and it has been estimated that the ZBot Trojan Malware infected 3.6 million PCs in the U.S. in 2009. Trained security professionals are recommending that businesses must offer training to their users and educate them to avoid clicking on hostile and suspicious links in emails or Web-sites. In addition to that, they should always keep the antivirus protection of their systems up to date.

Crackdown By Law Enforcement Agencies

In October 2010 the US FBI announced that Cyber-Criminals in Eastern Europe had managed to infect computers around the world using ZBot Trojan Malware. The virus was distributed in an e-mail, and when targeted individuals at businesses and municipalities opened the e-mail, the Trojan software installed itself on the victimized computer, secretly capturing passwords, account numbers, and other data used to log in to online banking accounts.The Cyber-Criminals then employed that knowledge to acquire the access of victim’s banking credentials and conduct unauthenticated transactions of thousands of dollars. These Cyber-Criminals often earn a commission, by routing the funds to other accounts controlled by a network of money mules. Many of the U.S. money mules opened bank accounts employing fraudulent documents and false names, as they were recruited from overseas. Once the money was in the accounts, the mules would either wire it back to their bosses in Eastern Europe, or withdraw it in cash and smuggle it out of the country.More than 100 people were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and money laundering, over 90 in the US, and the others in the UK and Ukraine. Members of the ring had stolen $70 million.In 2013 a Cyber-Criminal was arrested in Thailand and deported to Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Early reports said that he was the mastermind behind ZBot Trojan Malware. He was accused of operating Spy-Eye (a bot functionally similar to ZBot Trojan Malware) botnets and suspected of also operating ZBot Trojan Malware botnets. He was charged with several counts of wire fraud and computer fraud and abuse. Court papers allege that from 2009 to 2011 those teams of Cyber-Criminals “developed, marketed, and sold various versions of the Spy-Eye virus and component parts on the Internet and this helped cyber criminals to have a customized approach to acquire victims personal and financial credentials without breaking a sweat. In addition to that those Cyber-Criminals also broadcasted Spy-Eye on Internet forums devoted to cyber-crime and other illegal activities. The Spy-Eye botnet control server was situated in Atlanta and as a result, the charges in Georgia were only related Spy-Eye.

What ZBot Trojan Malware Does to Computers

The ZBot Trojan Malware can do a number of nasty things once it infects a computer, but it really has two major pieces of functionality.First of all, it builds a botnet, which is a network of infected systems that are covertly operated by the ZBot Trojan Malware’s owner. The botnet provides those Cyber-Criminals with tons of valuable information that can be used to execute large-scale massive attacks.ZBot Trojan Malware also acts as a financial services Trojan designed to steal banking credentials from the machines it infects. It accomplishes this through website monitoring and keylogging, where the ZBot Trojan Malware recognizes when the user is on a banking website and records the keystrokes used to log in. This means that the Trojan can get around the security in place on these websites, as the keystrokes required for logging in are recorded as the user enters them.Some forms of this ZBot Trojan Malware also affect mobile devices, attempting to get around two-factor authentication that is gaining popularity in the financial services world. Basically, the ZBot Trojan Malware only infects the system that is operating on Microsoft Windows, However, some of the latest versions of the ZBot Trojan Malware have been found exploiting BlackBerry, Symbian and Android devices.The creator of the ZBot Trojan Malware released the source code of the infection out in the public in 2011, opening the doors for the creation of a number of new, updated versions of the ZBot Trojan Malware. These days, even though the original ZBot Trojan Malware has been largely neutralized, the Trojan lives on as its components are used in a large number of new and emerging infections.

How the ZBot Trojan Malware Infects Computers

The ZBot Trojan Malwarehas two main methods of infection:Spam messagesDrive-by downloadsThe spam messages often come in the form of email, but there have been social media campaigns designed to spread the infection through messages and postings on social media sites. Once users click on a link in the email or message, they are directed to a website that automatically installs the ZBot Trojan Malware. Because the ZBot Trojan Malware is adept at stealing login credentials, it can sometimes be configured to steal email and social media credentials, enabling the botnet to spam messages from authentic sources and acquires a vast range of expansion.Drive-by downloads happen when the Cyber-Criminals are able to corrupt legitimate websites, inserting their malicious code into a website that the user trusts. The ZBot Trojan Malware then installs itself when the user visits the website or when the user downloads and installs a benign program.

How to Protect Yourself

Prevention through safe Internet practices is always the first step in staying safe from the ZBot Trojan Malware. This means avoiding potentially dangerous websites, like those offering illegal free software, adult material or illegal downloads, as the owners of these types of websites often have no problem allowing ZBot Trojan Malware’s owner to host their software on the site. Being safe also means not clicking on links in email or social media messages unless you were expecting the message. Remember: Even if the message is from a trusted source, if that source is afflicted with ZBot Trojan Malware, the message could still be corrupt.Staying safe also means being safe when interacting with financial institutions while online. Two-factor authentication, where the website sends a confirmation code to a mobile device to confirm the login, is a must. Remember, though, that some offshoots from Z-Bot Trojan Malware have also infected mobile devices, so using this kind of authentication shouldn’t be seen as a cure-all.It is extremely essential that one should have a powerful, updated antivirus solution in their system. However, it won’t help you from visiting unsafe websites where you might find the Trojan, but it definitely has the ability to detect that Trojan malware when it tries to enter into your system. Additionally, these solutions can scan your system and remove the infection, if it already exists on your machine.While there are a number of antivirus solutions out there, including a number that offers a free trial period, it’s important to choose one that’s from a leader in the industry that updates their solutions constantly. The fact that the Z-Bot Trojan Malware source code is public means that there will be no end to the damage that this infection can do, and every few years you can expect that new versions of the Z-Bot Trojan Malware will arise. Only a security vendor that is constantly vigilant against new threats has what it takes to truly protect you from the Z-Bot Trojan Malware in the future.The Z-Bot Trojan Malware has come a long way in just a few years, coming out of nowhere to infect millions of computers around the world in a relatively short amount of time. Even though the original creator may not be running the Z-Bot Trojan Malware any longer, the fact that its code is online and constantly being talked about updated. In addition to that various Cyber-Criminals are making the latest improvements in that malware, hence it will continue to be a threat for years to come. Understanding that it’s out there and taking steps to keep yourself, your finances and your family safe is imperative for anyone who wants to avoid the headache and financial pain of identity theft.

[vbktechnologiesllp]

The Different Types of Ransomware Cyber-Attacks

It is quite normal to freak out when your precious data is held by some bunch of Cyber-Thieves and without proper protection against Ransomware Cyber-Attack, you could fall victim to a range of different Ransomware Cyber-Attacks.

This article explores such types of Ransomware Cyber-Attack and some of its famous examples.

What is Ransomware Cyber-Attack?

Before we explore types of Ransomware Cyber-Attacks and famous examples of Ransomware Cyber-Attacks, let’s start with the basics what is Ransomware Cyber-Attack?

The Ransomware Cyber-Attack is a type of malware that Cyber-Thieves use to hold people to ransom. The Cyber-Thieves targets an individual or organization with Ransomware Cyber-Attack and plants a malware to their computers through links in phishing emails or by attachments, one of the latest technology to target the organization is by infecting websites with such malware. Once a computer or network is infected with Ransomware Cyber-Attack, the malware block access to the system, or encrypts the data on that system. Cyber-Thieves demand that the victims pay a ransom in order to regain access to their computer or data.

Types of Ransomware Cyber-Attacks

There are two main types of Ransomware Cyber-Attack: Crypto Ransomware Cyber-Attack and another is locker Ransomware Cyber-Attack.

Crypto Ransomware Cyber-Attack encrypts valuable files on a computer so that the user cannot access them.

Cyber-Thievesthat conduct crypto Ransomware Cyber-Attackmake money by demanding that victims pay a ransom to get their files back.

Locker Ransomware Cyber-Attack does not encrypt files. Rather, it locks the victim out of their device, preventing them from using it. Once they are locked out, Cyber-Thieves carryout locker Ransomware Cyber-Attack, which results in the demand of a ransom to unlock the device.

Examples of Ransomware Cyber-Attack

Now you understand what Ransomware Cyber-Attack is and the two main types of Ransomware Cyber-Attack that exist. Let’s explore 10 famous Ransomware Cyber-Attack examples to help you understand how different and dangerous each type can be.

Locky:

Locky is a type of Ransomware Cyber-Attack that was first released in a 2016 Cyber-Attack by an organized group of Cyber-Thieves. This malware has the ability to encrypt over 160 file types and it spreads into your system by tricking you to install it via fake emails or with infected attachments. This method of transmission is called phishing, a form of social engineering.

Locky targets a range of file types that are often used by designers, developers, engineers, and testers.

WannaCry:

WannaCry is Ransomware Cyber-Attack that spread across 150 countries in 2017.

Designed to exploit a vulnerability in Windows, it was allegedly created by the United States National Security Agency and leaked by the Shadow Brokers group. WannaCry affected 230,000 computers globally.

The Cyber-Attack hits a third of hospital trusts in the UK, costing the NHS an estimated £92 million. Most of the authentic users were jammed out and a ransom was demanded in the form of Bitcoin currency. The Cyber-Attack highlighted the problematic use of outdated systems, leaving the vital health service vulnerable to Cyber-Attack.

The global financial impact of WannaCry was substantial -the cybercrime caused an estimated $4 billion in financial losses worldwide.

Bad Rabbit:

Bad Rabbit is a 2017 Ransomware Cyber-Attack that spread using a method called a ‘drive-by’ Cyber-Attack, where insecure websites are targeted and used to carry out a Cyber-Attack.

During a drive-by Ransomware Cyber-Attack, a user visits a legitimate website, not knowing that they have been compromised by Cyber-Thieves.

Drive-by Cyber-Attacks often require no action from the victim, beyond browsing to the compromised page. However, the user only gets infected, if they click on an infected link or they download random software without determining the authenticity of the website. One must always remember that the malware is a code that is disguised in such software or links. This element is known as a malware dropper.

Ryuk:

Ryuk Ransomware Cyber-Attack, which spread in August 2018, disabled the Windows System Restore option, making it impossible to restore encrypted files without a backup.

Ryuk also encrypted network drives.

The effects were crippling, and many organizations targeted in the US paid the demanded ransoms. August 2018 reports estimated funds raised from the Cyber-Attack were over $640,000.

Troldesh:

The Troldesh Ransomware Cyber-Attack happened in 2015 and was spread via spam emails with infected links or attachments.

Interestingly, the Troldesh Cyber-Thieves communicated with victims directly over email to demand ransoms. The Cyber-Thieves even negotiated discounts for victims who they built a rapport with a rare occurrence indeed. However, It is never a good idea to negotiate with Cyber-Thieves. Avoid paying the demanded ransom at all costs as doing so only encourages this form of Cyber-Attack.

Jigsaw:

Jigsaw is a Ransomware Cyber-Attack that started in 2016. This Cyber-Attack got its name as it featured an image of the puppet from the Saw film franchise. This malware gradually exterminates more of the victim’s files each hour that the ransom demand was left unpaid. The use of horror movie imagery in this Cyber-Attack caused victims additional distress.

CryptoLocker:

CryptoLocker is a Ransomware Cyber-Attack that was first seen in 2007 and spread through infected email attachments. Once the malware is done searching for the valuable file to encrypt, then it blocks those files to raise the demand of a ransom. This type of malware has affected around 400,000 systems and law enforcement eventually managed to seize a global network of compromised home systems that were used to spread this malware. This allowed them to control part of the criminal network and grab the data as it was being sent, without the knowledge of Cyber-Thieves.

Petya:

Petya is a Ransomware Cyber-Attack that first hit in 2016 and resurged in 2017 as GoldenEye. It spreads through employment departments by running a fake job application email with an infected Dropbox link. Rather than encrypting specific files, this vicious Ransomware Cyber-Attack encrypts the victim’s entire hard drive. It does this by encrypting the Master File Table (MFT) making it impossible to access files on the disk.

GoldenEye:

The resurgence of Petya, known as GoldenEye, led to a global Ransomware Cyber-Attack that happened in 2017.

GandCrab:

GandCrab is a rather unsavory Ransomware Cyber-Attack that threatened to reveal the victim’s porn-watching habits. Claiming to have compromised user’s webcam, GandCrab cyber-thieves demanded a ransom or otherwise, they would make the embarrassing footage public.

Ways to spot a Ransomware Cyber-Attack email

Now you understand the different examples of Ransomware Cyber-Attack that individuals and companies have fallen prey to in recent years.

Many of those targeted in the Ransomware Cyber-Attack we have discussed became victims because they clicked on links in spam emails, or they may have opened infected attachments.

So, if you are sent a Ransomware Cyber-Attack email, how can you avoid becoming the victim of a Cyber-Attack?

The best way to spot a Ransomware Cyber-Attack email is to check the sender. Is it from a trusted contact? If you receive an email from a person or company you do not know, always exercise caution. Avoid clicking on links in emails from untrusted sources, and never open email attachments in emails from senders you do not trust. Be particularly cautious if the attachment asks you to enable macros. This is a common way Ransomware Cyber-Attack is spread.

Using a Ransomware Cyber-Attack Decryption

If you become the victim of a Ransomware Cyber-Attack, do not pay the ransom. Paying the ransom that the Cyber-Thieves are demanding does not guarantee that they will return your data. These are thieves, after all. It also reinforces the Ransomware Cyber-Attack business, making future Cyber-Attacks more likely.

If your data is backed up externally or in cloud storage, you will be able to restore the data that is being held to ransom. But what if you do not have a backup of your data? We recommend contacting your internet security vendor, to see if they have a decryption tool for the Ransomware Cyber-Attack that has compromised your privacy or visit the No More Ransom site — an industry-wide initiative designed to help all victims of Ransomware Cyber-Attack.

Avoid becoming a victim of the next Ransomware Cyber-Attack.

[vbktechnologiesllp]

Dangers of DoS Denial of Service Cyber-Attack

What is a denial-of-service (DoS) Cyber-Attack?

A denial-of-service (DoS) Cyber-Attack occurs when legitimate users are unable to access information systems, devices, or other network resources due to the actions committed by a malicious Cyber-Criminal. Services affected may include email, websites, online accounts and other services that rely on the affected computer or network. A (DoS) Cyber-Attacks executed by a Cyber-Criminal by flooding the victim’s network with abnormal traffic until the target loses their ability to respond and simply crashes or the authentic users fail to access the server. DoS Cyber-Attacks can cost an organization both time and money while their resources and services are inaccessible.

Common Denial-of-Service Cyber-Attacks

There are many different methods for carrying out a DoS Cyber-Attack. The most common method of Cyber-Attack occurs when a Cyber-Criminal floods a network server with traffic. In this type of DoS Cyber-Attack, the Cyber-Criminal sends several requests to the target server, overloading it with traffic. These services that request can be illegal and with mostly fabricated return addresses. This results in a scenario where the server is overwhelmed, due to the constant process of shooting junk requests. This ultimately misleads the server in its attempt to authenticate the requestor and helps the Cyber-Criminals to exploit the vulnerabilities of the server.

In a Smurf Cyber-Attack, the Cyber-Criminal sends Internet Control Message Protocol broadcast packets to a number of hosts with a spoofed source Internet Protocol (IP) address that belongs to the target machine. The users of these bugged packets will then responded to the victim’s host will be overwhelmed with those responses.

An SYN flood occurs when a Cyber-Criminal sends a request to connect to the victim’s server but never completes the connection through what is known as a three-way handshake. This is the method employed in a TCP/IP network to develop a connection between a local host/client and the server. The improper handshake leaves the connected port in an occupied status and it then lacks the ability to process further requests. ACyber-Criminal will continues to send requests, saturating all open ports, so that legitimate users cannot connect.

Individual networks may be affected by DoS Cyber-Attacks without being directly targeted. If the network’s internet service provider (ISP) or cloud service provider has been targeted and compromised, the network will also experience a loss of service.

What is a Distributed Denial-of-Service Cyber-Attack?

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) Cyber-Attack occurs when multiple machines are operating together to Cyber-Attack one target. DDoS allows for exponentially more requests to be sent to the target, therefore increasing the Cyber-Attack power. It also increases the difficulty of attribution, as the true source of the Cyber-Attack is harder to identify.

DDoS Cyber-Criminals often leverage the use of a botnet — a group of hijacked internet-connected devices to carry out large scale Cyber-Attacks. Cyber-Criminals take advantage of security vulnerabilities or device weaknesses to control numerous devices using command and control software. Once in control, a Cyber-Criminalcan command their botnet to conduct DDoS on a target. In this case, the infected devices are also victims of the Cyber-Attack.

Once established, the botnet — made up of compromised devices — may also be rented out to other potential Cyber-Criminals. Often the botnet is made available to “Cyber-Attack-for-hire” services which allow even the most unskilled user to launch DDoS Cyber-Attacks.

DDoS Cyber-Attacks have increased in magnitude as more and more devices come online through the Internet of Things (IoT) (see securing the Internet of Things for additional information). IoT device often makes the victim vulnerable exploitation by utilizing default passwords without sound security postures.

Infection of IoT devices often goes unnoticed by users, and a Cyber-Criminal could easily compromise hundreds of thousands of these devices to conduct a high-scale Cyber-Attack without the device owners’ knowledge.

How one can avoid being part of the problem?

While there is no way to completely avoid becoming a target of a DoS or DDoS Cyber-Attack, there are proactive steps administrators can take to reduce the effects of a Cyber-Attack on their network.

Enroll in a DoS protection service that will detect abnormal traffic flows and redirect traffic away from your network. The DoS traffic is then filtered out, while clean traffic is passed on to your network.

Create a disaster recovery plan to ensure successful and efficient communication, mitigation, and recovery in the event of a Cyber-Attack.

It is also important to take steps to strengthen the security posture of all of your internet-connected devices in order to prevent them from being compromised.

One has to always install and maintain security software.

One has to always install a firewall and configure it to restrict incoming of abnormal traffic from suspicious host.

Evaluate security settings and follow good security practices in order to minimalize the access other people have to your information, as well as manage unwanted traffic.

How do you know if a Cyber-Attack is happening?

Symptoms of a DoS Cyber-Attack can resemble non-malicious availability issues, such as technical problems with a particular network or a system administrator performing maintenance. However, the following symptoms could indicate a DoS or DDoS Cyber-Attack: For Instance, unusually slow network performances, unavailability of a particular website, or an inability to access any website are the most common symptoms of a DoS Cyber-Attack.

The best way to detect and identify a DoS Cyber-Attack would be via network traffic monitoring and analysis. The Network traffic can be easily monitored by employing an intrusion detection system and the network administrator can also set up a secure rule that develops an option of alerts, if it detects any anomalous traffic load or if the source of the traffic or drops network packets that meet certain criteria.

What do you do if you think you are experiencing a Cyber-Attack?

If you think you or your business is experiencing a DoS or DDoS Cyber-Attack, it is important to contact the appropriate technical professionals for assistance.

One must always contact their Network Administrator to confirm whether the reason behind service outage is due to maintenance or an in-house network problem. They can also monitor network traffic to confirm the presence of a Cyber-Attack, identify the source and mitigate the situation by applying firewall rules and possibly rerouting traffic through a DoS protection service.

Contact your ISP to ask if there is an outage on their end or even if their network is the target of the Cyber-Attack and you are an indirect victim. They may be able to advise you on an appropriate course of action.

In the case of a Cyber-Attack, do not lose sight of the other hosts, assets, or services residing on your network. Many Cyber-Criminals conduct DoS or DDoS Cyber-Attacks to deflect attention away from their intended target and use the opportunity to conduct secondary Cyber-Attacks on other services within your network.