Monthly Archives: March 2016

Security

AIEngine 1.4

AIEngine is a packet inspection engine with capabilities of learning without any human intervention. It helps network/security professionals to identify traffic and develop signatures for use them on NIDS, Firewalls, Traffic classifiers and so on.

Security

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-2915-3

Ubuntu Security Notice 2915-3 – USN-2915-1 fixed vulnerabilities in Django. The upstream fix for CVE-2016-2512 introduced a regression for certain applications. This update fixes the problem by applying the complete upstream regression fix. Mark Striemer discovered that Django incorrectly handled user-supplied redirect URLs containing basic authentication credentials. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to perform a cross-site scripting attack or a malicious redirect. Sjoerd Job Postmus discovered that Django incorrectly handled timing when doing password hashing operations. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to perform user enumeration. Various other issues were also addressed.

Avast

The Dirty Dozen tax scams: Identity theft, phone scams and phishing schemes, oh my!

 

old_man_piggy_bank.jpgIt’s that time of the year again – tax season is upon us.

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service wrapped up its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams. This year, identity theft topped the list, but phone scams and phishing schemes also deserve special mentions. It’s important that taxpayers guard against ploys to steal their personal information, scam them out of money or talk them into engaging in questionable behavior with their taxes. While discussing the topic of tax scams, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said:

“We are working hard to protect taxpayers from identity theft and other scams this filing season. . .Taxpayers have rights and should not be frightened into providing personal information or money to someone over the phone or in an email. We urge taxpayers to help protect themselves from scams — old and new.”

In addition to releasing the “Dirty Dozen” list, the IRS has also renewed a consumer alert for email schemes. This renewal came after seeing an approximate 400 percent surge in phishing and malware incidents so far this tax season.

We encourage taxpayers to review the list in a special section on IRS.gov and be on the lookout for the many different forms of tax scams. Many of these con games peak during filing season as people prepare their tax returns or hire someone to do so.

Taking a closer look at this year’s “Dirty Dozen” scams

Here‘s what you should keep your eyes open for throughout this tax season:

Identity theft: Taxpayers need to watch out for identity theft — especially around tax time. The IRS continues to aggressively pursue the criminals that file fraudulent returns using someone else’s Social Security number. Though the agency is making progress on this front, taxpayers still need to be extremely careful and do everything they can to avoid being victimized.

Avast

How to have the safest phone in the world

connecting-at-cafe.jpg

Avast SecureLine VPN keeps you safe when connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi

Unsecured networks can expose you to a hacker who can easily read your messages, steal your logins, passwords,  and credit card details.

The danger is that you never know when it could happen, or where, so having a way to secure your device when connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot is the best protection.

How to avoid the dangers of open Wi-Fi

To avoid the potential of a snoop stealing your private information, you basically have two choices: Stop using unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots or make sure you always have a secure connection by using a VPN (virtual private network), like Avast SecureLine VPN.

A VPN sounds extremely techie, and it is, under the hood. Avast mobile security developers created SecureLine to give you a secure and reliable private connection for your data between computer networks over the Internet. Your outgoing and incoming data is encrypted and it travels in its own private “tunnel” and is decrypted at the other end.

When you use Avast SecureLine VPN, everything you do is anonymous. We don’t keep logs of your online activity, and thanks to SecureLine, no one else will either.

Get a 7-day free trial of Avast SecureLine VPN

Avast SecureLine VPN for Android and iOS takes all that tech goodness and puts it in a simple-to-use app. All you do is tap a connect button, and the app does the rest.

Install Avast SecureLine VPN on your iPhone or iPad and try it free for 7 days.

Install Avast SecureLine VPN on your Android smartphone or tablet and try it free for 7 days.

After you install Secureline, click connect and choose a server from 27 locations in 19 countries, or let SecureLine choose the closest one. You can turn the secure connection on and off with one click.

Security

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-2921-1

Ubuntu Security Notice 2921-1 – Sebastian Krahmer discovered that Squid incorrectly handled certain SNMP requests. If SNMP is enabled, a remote attacker could use this issue to cause Squid to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code. Alex Rousskov discovered that Squid incorrectly handled certain malformed responses. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Squid to crash, resulting in a denial of service. Various other issues were also addressed.