The Internet Threat Landscape

Treat your password like your toothbrush?

Treat your password like your toothbrush, don’t let anyone else use it and change it every six months. (Clifford Stoll)

Password security has been one of the longstanding IT security issue to date. While many IT administrators enforce periodic password change by the employees, many of them do not, turning a blind eye to on their vulnerability. It is advised that even home users choose three complex; easy to remember but difficult to guess passwords. Use the first password as a general one for the majority of sites that require passwords to login. The second password, use for your email account and only your email account. Finally use the third password for any websites that could have financial consequences such as online banking or payment sites.

Here's an article on SQL injection vulnerability : http://countermeasures.trendmicro.eu/orangefr-compromised-245000-clear-text-passwords-exposed/

Search Engines and Malware

According to InternetStatsToday, 55% of the younger internet users use search engines more than the adult group on a daily basis. Although online search engines are reasonably reliable and convenient, but they are not 100% safe. Hackers can make use of search engines as a tool for their malicious activities. For the past year, we do find several attacks making use of the services provided by search engines. 

Hackers make use of SEO manipulation and SQL injection methods. Once the affected keyword is being searched and the designed search result is clicked upon, the user will get their system infected instead of getting what they intended to search for.

If you are using Internet Explorer to search, you can consider using free tool like TrendProtect where it will warn you if the link is malicious.