Dutch security expert Sijmen Ruwhof has scrutinized programme support of the Dutch election precinct and now makes a statement “the average iPad is more secure than the Dutch voting system.”

Taking into account SHA1 cryptography weakness of the Dutch voting system, local television station RTL wanted the expert to examine the inconsistency of its parts.

Since 2009, the Dutch election precinct does not use the electronic voting because of the ministers’ prohibition. As a result, the electronic voting systems during counting bulletins result are considered to be insecure. The voting electronic version is available for many devices such as Windows XP, non-current versions of web browser.

It is necessary to state that every computer mechanism should be as secure as an iPad to make ourselves safe from different adverse consequences.

Normally, people feel nostalgic about old school music, films, cars or video games. However, there are people who are so fond of outdated computer viruses that they even created a real museum of them. These two IT experts who initiated storage of old viruses on the Archive.org service are Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer of Finnish security company F-Secure and Jason Scott, a historian and the software library manager of Internet Archive.

Hypponen has been collecting old viruses since he got started in the information security business 25 years ago. And after the emulator of an old MS-DOS application had been presented, the idea of such a project came to his mind.

Following the above, Malware Museum was founded where you can now find about eighty malicious programs that were spread in 1980s and 1990s. The visitors can see with their eyes what happened with a PC infected with a bug and what messages its user received.
Among the exhibits of the Museum there are many viruses that stood at the origins of future malware trends. One of them is Frodo, one of the first stealth bugs. It was spread on diskettes and was activated exactly on the 22nd of September, on the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo, the characters from Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”. When being downloaded it displayed the phrase “Frodo Lives” on the screen of the infected PC.

Mikko Hypponen notes that nowadays most viruses are written by cyber criminals with the purpose of stealing or extorting money, while in 80s and 90s of the previous century it was a different era – malicious programs were created by the advanced young IT developers («happy hackers”) just for fun. For example, there used to be Casino bug, which made its victim play cards with all the data at stake. If the victim won, he got access to his data back; if not – the virus cleared the hard drive. What If a victim was not able to play the game? That’s his own problem – malware is malware.

New version of Elite Keylogger was tested by our testing team. The review is available by the link Elite Keylogger

ESET company is warning users about significant rise in malware Bayrob activity recently. Cyber criminals have been using it for stealing personal data including financial credentials.

Cyberthieves distribute Bayrob through bulk e-mail. The baiting incoming message is trying to impersonate Amazon, and its attachment contains a ZIP archive with executable file.

That’s a malicious file, and if we run it, an error message appears on the screen thus putting off our guard. At the same time, the trojan starts operating as a backdoor: cyber criminals obtain credit card information. The embedded keylogger enables them also to reach online banking credentials (logins and passwords).

With the purpose to get this data, the malware addresses the remote server, downloads other malicious programs, runs executable files and then sends the collected information to the attackers.

To contact the remote server, Bayrob can generate various URLs. One of them is registered by Amazon’s branch in Japan. Apparently, the attackers use the server that belongs to the Amazon Web infrastructure to control and send commands to the infected machines. This fact, though, does not necessarily mean that the whole Amazon platform has been compromised – the suspected server could be officially rented by third parties.

Since late 2015, Bayrob trojan has been extensively used for cyber attacks targeting users in Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Malicious software Babar is capable of eavesdropping on users’ talks and steal files from their computers, according to The Register.

This French-language malware was initially detected by Canadian researchers from CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada). At this time, however, security experts from GDATA and Cyphort Labs warned of its spreading and gave a detailed description of the dangerous application.

In fact, Babar has extensive spy functionality. Its features include typical ones like interception of keystrokes and information from the clipboard. Also, this malware is able to take screenshots.

But IT-specialists point out that Babar is also equipped with advanced features. In particular, the program can record audio chats from Skype and Yahoo. Among other things, the software is able to steal users’ files.

Such functionality resulted in use of Babar as a tool for cyber espionage. According to experts, the main targets for this malware were scientific and technological organizations in Iran, as well as the French-speaking media. Apparently, the application also has been aimed at European Financial Association and at organizations located in the countries that used to be French colonies.

Existence of such a spy tool was mentioned in the documents disclosed by Edward Snowden in his revelations. According to these data, secret service used this program to spy on francophone mass media in Canada.

By the way, attackers armed with Babar can spy on Skype users via webcam as well. Experts from the antivirus developer believe that such a method of cyber espionage as hacking webcams and interception of images it broadcasts is spreading. Through webcam, attackers can record everything the user is doing in the area the webcam covers. As a result, they may get credit card information and bank account details.

New version of Spyrix Personal Monitor was tested by our testing team. The review is available by the link Spyrix Personal Monitor

Malware authors state that proof-of-concept versions have been created solely for educational purposes. Two anonymous developers have presented experimental versions of two malwares – rootkit Jellyfish and keylogger Demon. Their main innovative feature is the ability to use graphics processor (GPU). These malware programs exploit GPU rather than the CPU to operate in a stealthy way and increase computational abilities. Both programs work on CPU and exploit GPU functions to mint Bitcoins and other virtual currencies.

Jellyfish is a Lynux based rootkit proof of concept project utilizing the LD_PRELOAD technique from Jynx (CPU), as well as the OpenCL API developed by Khronos group (GPU).

This code currently supports AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards.

Demon keylogger has not been described in details by the developers. However, they have announced the key idea of this experimental project- to demonstrate the possibility of monitoring the system’s keyboard buffer directly from the GPU via DMA (direct memory access), without any hooks or modifications in the kernel’s code.

The authors insist that these experimental programs have been developed exclusively with educational goals, and the developers are not liable for further use of rootkit Jellyfish and keylogger Demon.

Are webcam takeovers a myth or a real danger? Many unexperienced PC users have thought about this problem. At times, people are so much nervous about webcam hacks that they prefer not to use this great technological advancement at all. Is it true that a voyeur can secretly watch you through your own computer? Regrettably yes, it is possible – there occurred a number of such infringements of privacy. For example, recently a hacker has been arrested and judged for that. He had placed surveillance programs on girls’ Pcs by sending e-mails. When the e-mail message was being opened, the PC became web-exploit, allowing this hacker to view his “victim”.

This case is far from being a single one. Any of us can find himself in the same situation.
The high-risk group include people who do not use antivirus protection. Their computers can be attacked by malwares and Trojan Horse software which enable hackers to control your webcam.
Operation system vulnerability is another source of computer breaking and gaining access to webcam. For instance, there is such a vulnerability in UAC Windows 7 – due to it a vicious malware can change UAC settings making a computer unprotected against hackers. How does this viral infection happen? A program virus file is created, and after it has been moved to someone’s computer (for example, masked off as an image enclosed in incoming email attachments) it gains access to computer’s system files including webcam’s one.

What needs to be done to guarantee that your private life is fully protected against uninvited visitors? Firstly, don’t freak out. Just because your webcam can be hacked doesn’t mean it’s likely to be hacked. Webcam hacking cases are not that frequent. There should be a serious goal for that, because hacking is quite time-consuming. The hacker of the described above crime used hacking for racketeering – demanding money from girls. Still, if you are eager to secure your privacy, you would better draw your attention to the following ideas:

If you wish to keep your webcam safe from any breaking, just tape a piece of paper over your webcam! An alternative would be to unplug it whenever you aren’t using it – there is no one hundred percent guarantee that you are not being chased at a certain point in time.

You can also keep track of your webcam’s indicator light – if it’s turned on, the recording is being done.
Noone would be able to hack you webcam if he knows just your IP address. It is assigned to your computer by your provider, but does not indicate the exact route to your system. IP address seems to be insufficient info for gaining access to your webcam.
For your more assurance that your computer and your webcam are secured against hacks, you should install high-quality and time-honored software. Compared with PC webcams, TV webcams are, normally, easier to get hacked, because their operational systems have not been modified and updated to the required level yet.

Everyone surfing the web should be cautious. There are some simple rules to follow. You needn’t open spam email attachments and messages from an unknown source – they might contain Trojan viruses which would help intruders gain access to your webcam. You should download and install drivers on your devices (including your webcam) only from official developer’s sites.
You should use fire wall, update applications in your system, and the system itself too.

If you take your PC to a repair shop, you must chose a reliable one with trustworthy staff. Unfortunately, they have a possibility to infect your PC with spy or Trojan viruses in such a repair center.
There are two things at the same time – ease and trouble. On the one hand, you should not worry too much about this problem, because common user’s webcams do not attract hackers that much. On the other – who know? In any case, forewarned is forearmed!

New version of REFOG Personal Monitor was tested by our testing team. The review is available by the link REFOG Personal Monitor

If you suspect your partner is cheating you, it is most likely to be true – as statistics proves. Nowadays, cell phones are most helpful for committing adultery. A devoted partner is unlikely to share his personal phone number with a stranger. Finding an unknown phone number in the incoming calls log of your partner’s mobile can be the first step in your search to detect a cheater. A mobile has become a right hand in the adultery affairs since there emerged a possibility to make calls from everywhere, to send messages and delete them immediately, etc. Modern mobiles normally have at least three communication options – text messages, calls and chats. They help a lot to stay in touch with a lover and to plan an adultery. A message like: “I’ve missed you so much” is clear, isn’t it?

A cheater would certainly try to delete all the compromising messages and calls logs. Mobile phone spy software would allow you to track user’s activity on a phone of your interest, if you only have an access to it.

The application can register all the calls and SMS that have been done via the phone. You can monitor your cheater’s phone by checking photos and activities in social networks.

You can easily identify your partner’s location and surroundings if you do not trust him or her. Love affairs will force him or her to lie about his/her location. Make it your habit to ask your partner on the phone where he/she is at the moment and then check the location data with the info from GPS or cell ID. Mobile phones can also be used as a listener-in. With an appropriate phone spy software installed any smartphone can be used as a “bug” to listen-in the surroundings.

As a rule, a smartphone spy application offers the following functions:
• Access to calls and SMS logs containing contacts and phone numbers.
• Monitoring activities in social networks.
• Control over photo and video recording – all the photo and video materials taken by your spouse’s phone will be logged for you to see them.
• Possibility to check all the correspondence items. You will be able to study them even after they have been deleted from the phone.
• Monitoring contacts: the app tracks each contact in your spouse’s phone and logs info for you. Newly added one will also be registered.
• GSP-coordinates tracking allows you to find out the phone location in online mode following it in footsteps. You are always able to be aware about where your partner currently is by tracking GPS – coordinates on Google Maps.
• The program allows turning on a microphone secretly for listening-in the surroundings. That seems especially suitable when you find out that your partner is not where he says he must be. This is practically a tool to take him red-handed.

Commonly, you can view logs remotely from your PC or cell phone, evoking no suspicion. Spy software in operation is not displayed on a screen and stays invisible for a user. Even after the calls data has been deleted, your mobilespy application will be able to track it – you will receive the info you need.

Why is a keylogger – an invisible workplace surveillance or parental control software – necessary?

Staff working time control, programs and sites monitoring, data leakage protection. Keylogger software tracks everything users do on your computer. It can be used either in total stealth (in the invisible mode), as a spy program, or in an open mode. In the last case users are aware about being spied but can not avoid that. From the moral point of view, such spying (especially, the invisible one) is a questionable thing. Quite often, however, there’s no other choice. For example, when staff members use confidential data, the additional security steps have to be undertaken. Someone should monitor the staff involved and ensure that this data stays unknown to anybody else outside the office. In addition, employee tracking is required when you need to know exactly what staff members working at the PCs spend their time for, to make sure whether under-age kids or their guardians follow the laws, etc.

1. Staff Working Time Logging

Staff monitoring software allows you to aggregate the following data: what programs have been used, what sites have been visited, and how much time has ben spent for that. Apart from other, this information will allow you to optimize staff schedules. Normally, staff members devote a part of their working day to personal necessities. That is inevitable, because they need some change in their monotonous working process and a little rest. Although, you must know how much time during the day they have actually worked.

2. Increase of Staff Motivation and Work Discipline

Apparently, if an employer monitors staff members’ activity and they know about that, their motivation grows. Nobody would spend his working hours on entertaining sites or computer games if he keeps in mind that his boss will soon know about it – keylogger is in operation. Definitely, staff members would improve their attitude to work. Though, such personnel management problems as insufficient discipline and low motivation can not be solved only by spying on employees in the workplace.
As mentioned above, keylogging software can also be used in an invisible mode. Then, users do not suspect about being spied upon.

3. Personal Curiosity Satisfaction. Responsibility for Under-Age Kids (Parental Control)

Would you like to know about your wife (husband) or a girlfriend (boyfriend)? What and with whom does he/she chat for hours via messenger? Does your better half secretly visit dating sites? What sites do your kids visit? And how many hours do they spend playing computer games? How many hours a week do your programmers really do coding? What portion of a working day does your secretary spend playing her favourite Free Cell game? And what does she gossip about you with her best friend? Surely, you want to know about your kids as much as possible: whether they use their PCs for appropriate purposes only; whether they visit porno-sites, play computer games for money, fall among evil companions or become scam victims.
Computer monitoring software can give your answers to all those questions.