If you aren’t using OpenDNS to protect your small business network, now is the time to to give Clear Choice Computer a call to get it set up. It is well worth the initial investment, it is a free service , and it will protect you from any number of issues now and in the future. You may very well get better browsing performance as a result that your users will thank you for.
When you set up your network, typically you don’t give your DNS settings any further thought. If you have a cable or DSL modem, you hook it up and it automatically gets its DNS settings from the cable or phone company’s DNS servers.
What I will do is change these settings, to reflect the DNS servers at OpenDNS. The initial setup process should take less then an hour, including time to educate your office manager how to make changes to the system once implemented. This is a free service, and in case you were wondering, they make money on serving ads when you type in a domain that doesn’t exist.
Internet security experts are warning of a new rash of malware attacks that can hijack the security settings of a wide variety of devices on a local area network, even when they are hardened or don’t run on Windows operating systems.
Once activated, the trojan sets up a rogue DHCP, or dynamic host configuration protocol, server on the host machine. From there, other devices using the same LAN are tricked into using a malicious domain name system server, instead of the one set up by the network administrator. The rogue DNS server sends the devices to fraudulent websites that in many cases can be hard to identify as impostors.
This kind of malware is definitely dangerous because it affects systems that themselves are not vulnerable” to the trojan, all you need is one system infected in the network and it will affect a lot of other nonvulnerable systems.
Of course, one way to thwart the attack is to hardwire DNS server settings into your iPhone, computer or other net-connecting device. This will direct it to bypass the rogue DNS server even if the device is unfortunate enough to get its internet connection from the impostor DHCP server.
Source: The Register
The Conficker/Downadup worm managed to slither onto millions of PCs worldwide at its height, but after it initially infected a computer it only really acted to spread itself, and didn’t cause further harm. Until now.
Symantec reports today that it has found a new variant of the virulent worm that will identify antivirus software or security analysis tools running on the infected PC, and attempt to shut down those programs. This is a strong signal that the worm’s mysterious creators haven’t abandoned their creation in the face of worldwide attention, as some in the industry have theorized, but may still have plans to make a buck off their work.
Source: PcWorld
FireFox has released a new version on March 4. It addresses 5 security issues, and several issues found in Firefox 3.0.6. Please upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible, if your not using FireFox why not give it a try. You can download the latest version by visiting: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
