According to the findings of a global survey from Online Security Brand Tracker, conducted on behalf of ESET (April-May 2011), nearly 50% of Internet users are using portable devices as their primary connection. The most popular devices used for Internet connectivity are notebooks (41%), followed by netbooks (3%), smartphones (2%) and tablets (1%).

When you’re in an airport, you open your laptop to read or send e-mails, looking for a free Wi-Fi hotspot. And there it is! You almost always find one and connect to send and read your e-mails etc. What you do not take into consideration is that the free Wi-Fi may have a privacy cost associated with it: the data of your connection, your personal details and other important information can be stolen when you send your message, without having any idea that such a thing could happen. Before you know it, you’re calling Lifelock for identity theft protection because your personal information has been stolen, and soon, your identity.

What should make you suspicious is when there is a Wi-Fi hotspot with a name that is not recognized or resembles an official or even a celebrity name. Also, the user must be particularly cautious in hotspots that do not need password protection for access. The ‘magic’ of the data theft happens through a proxy technology, which monitors the Wi-Fi communication and captures and stores a copy of all your data on the hacker’s laptop. This process will slow down the traffic speed of your connection but in cases of networks with many users it is difficult to say with certainty whether the slow traffic is due to the theft of your data or because there are many users connected simultaneously.

Each time the user performs a task on the internet, whether buying staff online, checking your bank account or checking of email, the computer must send the login to the network, which is a goldmine for fraudsters on the internet. Under normal conditions the connection to a secure site (such as your bank site) must start with “https” instead of “http“, which means that traffic is encrypted. Some sophisticated hackers can even steal your encrypted communication (by proxying your connections through their own computer). For this reason, extreme caution is required when giving personal information and passwords in a public WiFi hotspot.

The threats to be aware while using public Wi-Fi:

• Evil twin login interception: networks set up by hackers to resemble legitimate Wi-Fi hotspots.
• 0-day OS / app attack attempts: attacking your computer and applications in order to get access to it using unknown and unpatched vulnerabilities.
• Sniffing: software or hardware that can capture and record the traffic passing over a network.
• Data leakage (man-in-the-middle attack): Cyber-criminals who can modify network traffic, leaving the impression that the user navigates the website of a bank for instance, while, in reality, traffic is passed first through the attacker’s computer.

The latest cyber attacks have now hit Sega, another gaming company after Sony and Nintendo.

As BBC, Reuters and AFP reported, Sega announced that data for their users was compromised from their online network, Sega Pass. Confidential information such as names, birth dates, email addresses, passwords etc were stolen, while stating that the credit card numbers remained unaffected. The company admitted that data information were stolen from the database for approximately 1.3 million customers.

The Sega Pass network was shut down in order to mitigate the attack and reinforce the level of security, Sega said, and apologized to customers for the problem. Remains unknown when the network will operate again.

The violation in security was found last Thursday by the European Sega subsidiary company and was not revealed until recently. The hacker group Lulz Security, which has claimed responsibility for many of the recent major cyber-attacks, but not for the last one, voluntarily offered to help Sega to discover the culprit and punish him.

In monetary terms, the value of the data in a computer often exceeds the actual cost of the hardware and software of the machine. Therefore, encrypting the information data in our computer system is of utmost importance.

Encryption plays an important role in protecting data, not only for maintaining confidentiality of information but also to protect data from damage, destruction or alteration. An important part of the encryption process is that it allows verification of the source of information, just like an electronic signature, where the decryption key is available, while the secret encryption key guarantees the authenticity and integrity of a file.

The encryption technologies and algorithms are not limited by the properties of the storage media used. This means that data is modified to the extent that no useful information can be extracted from them, while the resources remain unaffected. It does not matter if the encryption algorithm is known to the public, because confidentiality is guaranteed by the secrecy of the unique key used for decryption.

Just because the encryption is independent of the characteristics of a storage or communication medium, it can be used for secure transfer of data through open communication channels and to protect data in portable storage devices that have been lost or the user has chosen to reject. Even if an offender has access to a file, he will not be able to decrypt the contents nor read them without the secret key.

So I decided to have a look at the latest Backtrack release (Backtrack 4 R1) which is claimed to be the best version released so far from the backtrack community. With the new Linux kernel version 2.6.34 and with significant overall improvements, this release is worth checking out. I always use the virtual machine option so that to play with it and then install the image on a hard disk by its own. Let us see below how I installed Backtrack 4 R1 on a VMWare virtual machine:

The specifications of my hardware and software are the following:

• Laptop DELL (core i3 with 4GB RAM)
• Win7 64-bit Professional
• VMWARE Workstation version 6.5.4

STEPS:

1. Download file from http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/

File downloaded is bt4-r1-vm.tar.bz2 (around 2.5 GBytes)

2. Check the file with md5.exe tool to verify that MD5 is correct. This is important because such big files sometimes get corrupted when downloaded and also to verify the integrity of the file.

3. Uncompress the image with WinRAR (it took some time for winrar to open the archive – Be patient here.)

4. In VMWARE go to File>Open and select the virtual machine (BT4-R1) which you extracted above.

5. I then selected “Edit Virtual machine settings” and increased the memory from 768MB to 1024MB.

6. Then click on “Power on the virtual machine”
If you get a message that “This virtual machine may have been moved or copied” I selected “I copied it”.

7. After the Virtual machine boots up, you will get a prompt:

bt login:

Use root/toor as initial username/password

You will get the root prompt:

root@bt:~#

Now we must change the root password to something really strong.

root@bt:~# passwd
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

8. Now do the fix-splash as advised by the backtrack website:

root@bt:~# fix-splash

And then reboot

root@bt:~# reboot now

9. After the machine boots up, start the graphical interface:

root@bt:~# startx

DONE

Some other notes:

I like to have my virtual machine with direct access to the network interface of my host computer, so I always go to the virtual machine settings (“Edit Virtual machine settings”) and change the network adapter from “NAT” to “Bridged Mode“. With that, the LAN interface of the Backtrack in the virtual machine will have direct access to the network. If you have a DHCP server in the network, the Backtrack system will receive IP from the network, or otherwise you can configure static IP. Let’s see how to do both options below:

IP address from DHCP Server

ifconfig eth0 up
dhclient eth0

Static IP

ifconfig eth0 100.100.100.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
route add default gw 100.100.100.2 eth0

Also, you need to edit the /etc/resolv.conf file and change the nameserver line to add your DNS IP address.

The security problems associated with unsecured WiFi networks when you sit on the beach, cafe, etc., the applications that “show” your geographical location, the information exchanged through social networks etc are hiding serious security threats for your PC and for your personal information as well.

The use of secure wireless networks, encryption or hiding of data on disk to prevent “theft”, and serious precautions during online shopping or banking transactions, are among the practical security measures that users need to follow for protecting their personal information.

With the proliferation of social networks and the numerous applications used to share information via the Internet, PandaLabs, the anti-malware labs of Panda Security, advise users to take additional steps to avoid falling victims to malicious actions during the holidays.

These types of “geo-location” applications are used widely in recent years. Facebook applications such as Doorpl or Trip Advisor (which describes the current location of someone or the desired destination of someone), the Twitter geolocation utility (which shows from which location your tweets are sent), or the location services via GPS mobile devices (iPhone and Android users) are just some examples.

PandaLabs constantly analyze the latest trends in Internet and are able to advise users for their protection throughout the year and more specifically during a massive holiday period like the summer.

If you take your own computer with you on vacation:
- Before you do anything, keep a back up of all your data.
- Make sure you have a reliable and updated antivirus/antimalware protection software and that all necessary security patches are installed.
- In order to mitigate the consequences of theft of your computer, use the encryption technology for information stored on your hard disk, even if such work is tedious and complicated. This will prohibit any access to your files without correct password.
- Clear the temporary files, logs, cookies and password reminders or auto-complete features you use on the browser. This would eliminate the automatic access to webmail, social networks, bank accounts or your favorite online stores.
- Do not connect on unprotected WiFi networks, as you can “get hooked” by hackers who can intercept information shared with your community. Even if you have to pay for network access, it is better and safer to use a secure network you can trust.
- Pay attention to email. The phishing attacks and spam are becoming smarter for stealing sensitive personal data.

If you use another computer on your vacation:
- It’s better not to use someone else computer. You do not know what is installed on this computer. It is possible that PCs in cyber-cafes, hotels or airports, from where you might log into your bank account, etc. are infected by a dangerous Trojan Horse.
- If you do not really have a choice and must go into websites that require your personal credentials, make sure you change them immediately after use in order to minimize the risk.
- Avoid doing online transactions if possible. Remember that any information you enter can be used by another user.
- Do not accept any inducement for storage of personal data offered by many web browsers.
- When you are finished using the computer, delete all temporary files, browser history, the cookies, the log files and any other information stored on computer.
- If you download something on the computer, remember to delete it before turning the computer off.

Using social networks
- Never use the travel planning applications offered by these networks in order to be sure that it is impossible to identify who you are. Do not accept the geolocation detection (geolocation function) in Twitter and do not use this technology in mobile phones.
- Do not reveal your plans for your holidays in chat rooms, IRCs, social communities, etc.
- If you spend time in chat rooms while you’re on vacation, do not disclose any personal or confidential information to someone you don’t know.
- Share the above tips with your children, which are often more open to good faith to share information via the Internet.
- If you notice any suspicious behavior while you are connected to a social network (people with great interest for other people’s destinations, dates, etc.) contact the police. Prevention is always better than cure.