Monday, November 24, 2014

CYBER ATTACKS - Outdated Internet Browsers

"Your outdated Internet browser is a gateway for cyber attacks" PBS NewsHour 11/18/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Major U.S. government agencies have been the target of cyber-attacks of late.  The State Department is the latest.  During the past week, officials had to temporarily shut down an unclassified e-mail system after a suspected hacking.  In recent months, the White House, the Postal Service and the National Weather Service all have been targeted.

Meanwhile, as the holiday season approaches, retailers and the business world are on the lookout for breaches.

A new book breaks down the pervasiveness of what’s happening.

Jeffrey Brown has our conversation.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Hardly a week goes by anymore without a report of some major cyber-breach, whether it’s targeting retailers, the government, or any and all of us.  The attacks are generated in a new netherworld of crime, some of it individualized, even chaotic, other parts of it extremely well-organized.

Writer and journalist Brian Krebs has uncovered some major breaches, including the one on Target that compromised the credit card data of tens of millions of people.  He writes about all of this on his blog Krebs on Security and now in his new book, “Spam Nation.”

And welcome to you.

BRIAN KREBS, Author, “Spam Nation”:  Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN:  You are peering a world of cyber-crime that few of us ever see.  What does it look like?

BRIAN KREBS:  It’s a pretty dark place.

JEFFREY BROWN:  It is?

BRIAN KREBS:  Yes, absolutely.

But it’s not as dark as you might imagine.  If you’re somebody who doesn’t know their way around, there are plenty of people willing to show you the way.  They might take a cut of the action to help you do that, but it’s not as dark…

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