In a recent report, top security vendor Symantec had studied this underground economy and listed the top selling and advertised products. The report has some very interesting observations and it is surprising to know that sensitive data like Credit Card information is available for as low as $0.85.

The underground economy is an evolving and self-sustaining black market where underground economy servers, or black market forums, are used for the promotion and trade of stolen information and services. This information can include government-issued identification numbers such as Social Security numbers (SSNs), credit card numbers, debit card information, user accounts, email address lists, and bank accounts. Services include cashiers, scam page hosting, and job advertisements such as for scam developers or phishing partners.

Following are the top selling products and services in malware infection economy.

Bank account credentials—may consist of name, bank account number (including transit andbranch number), address, and phone number. Online banking logins and passwords are often soldas a separate item.• Cash out—a withdrawal service where purchases are converted into true currency. This could be in theform of online currency accounts or through money transfer systems and typically, the requester ischarged a percentage of the cashout value as a fee.

Credit card information—includes credit card number and expiry date. It may also contain the cardholder name, Credit Verification Value 2 (CVV2) number, PIN, billing address, phone number, and company name (for a corporate card). CVV2 is a three or four-digit number on the credit card and used for card-not-present transactions such as Internet or phone purchases. This was created to add an extra layer of security for credit cards and to verify that the person completing the transaction was in fact, in possession of the card.

Email accounts—includes user ID, email address, password. In addition, the account may contain personal information such as addresses, other account information, and email addresses in the contact list.

Email addresses—consists of lists of email addresses used for spam or phishing activities. The email addresses can be harvested from hacking databases, public sites on the Internet, or from stolen email accounts. The sizes of lists sold can range from 1 MB to 150 MB.

Full identities—may consist of name, address, date of birth, phone number, and government-issued number. It may also include extras such as driver’s license number, mother’s maiden name, email address, or “secret” questions/answers for password recovery.

Mailers—an application that is used to send out mass emails (spam) for phishing attacks. Examples of this are worms and viruses.

Proxies—Proxy services provide access to a software agent, often a firewall mechanism, which performs a function or operation on behalf of another application or system while hiding the details involved, allowing attackers to obscure their path and make tracing back to the source difficult or impossible. This can involve sending email from the proxy, or connecting to the proxy and then out to an underground IRC server to sell credit cards or other stolen goods.

Shell scripts—used to perform operations such as file manipulation and program execution. They can also be used as a command line interface for various operating systems.

Complete Report-pdf, 4MB]

To make its services more secured, Hotmail has now allowed its users to let their passwords expire after 72 hours, if they opt for it. This may sound as added hassles for many of the users, but if you are really concerned about the security of the passwords, then this is for you. Opting this option, will require you to reset your password after 72 hours.

You can use this link to use this hotmail security feature.

And many times, it is due to some careless online behavior from the user itself, which is responsible for him to be a victim. A few careful steps can help you great deal to identify and prevent falling in the trap.

One of the common way to trap innocent users is to send fake emails looking to be from a genuine source like Paypal, Ebay or your Bank. Often a careful look at the email for the sign of phishing might help you to identify and avoid phishing emails. But due to the lack of knowledge and carelessness people ignore to remain cautious and get trapped.

Iconix – A Handy Way to Identify and Avoid Phishing Emails

Iconix is a freeware plugin, which when installed, gets seamless integrated with most of the Email clients and checks the original source of the emails. If the email is coming from a popular financial institution or website, which are often targeted by the phishing scammers, then a lock icon along with the tick mark appear before the sender’s name. This identifies that the source of the email is genuine.

If you want more details about this, then you can click on the icon, which will open a TrueMark Certificate verifying the source of the email.

Iconix uses industry standard technologies like DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), a standard established many years ago and led by Yahoo! and Cisco. It uses public key encryption to prove not only that the message sender is authenticated, but that it has not been modified in transit.

[Download Iconix]

DNS Servers allow the Internet to go human-friendly and increase its usability. They are generally maintained by your ISP’s although there are public DNS server applications like OpenDNS and Google’s Public DNS as well.

How to Change the DNS Server IP Address Settings

You have to go deep down to your Windows settings and change the IP address settings in the TCP/IP Protocol settings of your network connection every time you want to switch your DNS Server settings. With so many useful DNS services available today, it sometimes becomes difficult to manually change them as it is also difficult to memorize them all.

There is a handy utility, which can do this job just perfectly for you.

DNSJump is a freeware utility, which memorizes upto 16 DNS Server IP Address settings and you can choose any of them to work at a given time, with just a single click. No more remembering of the DNS settings, and no more hassles of changing them.

[Download DNSJump]

Norton Power Eraser, NPE, is a freeware tool, which can attempt to find and remove such deep rooted, hidden and tough-to-detect malware and virus infections. Unlike other security applications, it does not provide you a real time protection, but is developed to be used for cleaning an already infected computer.

NPE is a portable antivirus, meaning that it does not need any installation to run. You can even run it through a USB or CD Drive. At present NPE is in Public beta, you can download it and use it for fee.

Caution: Please note that NPE is meant to be used as aggressive malware removal tool. What this means is that you should use it when most other applications and attempts to clean computer have failed. NPE is designed in such a way that you may get a few false positives while cleaning attempts.

You should use Norton Power Eraser tool when nothing else will remove an annoying program and you are willing to accept a higher risk that the scanner may quarantine a legitimate program. Because the Norton Power Eraser uses aggressive methods to detect these threats, there is a risk that it can select some legitimate programs for removal. You should use this tool very carefully, and only after you have exhausted other options.

[Download Norton Power Eraser]

Many people get confused with the name because of its similarity with the name of a huge species of lizards, that inhabits the islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, and Gili Motang in Indonesia. You can have more information about the Komodo Lizards on the Wiki page here.

But if you are looking for the a review of the Comodo Browser, then I would suggest you to check out the Comodo Browser Review from the PC Security Blog.

It gives a nice review but suggests to prefer the popular and regularly updated web browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome saying that…

Despite these useful features and security enhancements, I would still believe that security update is a very important factor behind the security of a web browser. With a vast pool of resources and information available, browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox, are in a much better position to detect and counter a potential vulnerability as soon as it is exposed. Howsoever efficient Comodo is, they cannot match the huge resources and efforts, Google can put in to immediately detect and plug-in a security hole in its browser through security update.

You should determine your Requirements:
The first thing you should do when selecting a perfect web hosting provider for your web site is to make an analysis of your preferences and requirements. To start with you should determine if you are planning to use your web site as a forum or a blog or it is going to be used for carrying out financial transactions. After you gave decide on the needs and purposes of your website, choosing your web hosting provider will be very easy.

The Cost
The next thing to be considered is of course, your budget. There are a few free and cheap web hosting companies and providers; and each of them offer a wide range of services for different prices, so it is a must to have a clear understanding how much you are ready to spend. But be very careful even though free web hosting services seem to be attractive at first sight. If you look more attentive, you will discover that they have some limitations and constraints. Free web hosting services are recommended for those who are going to build a personal web site. If you are considering free web hosting, you will have to face some pop up ads that will slow down your website and will make an unprofessional outlook of your web site.

Looking for affordable prices, make sure, you do not compromise on quality.

Customer and Technical Support:
Even if you have profound technical knowledge and know all the newest web designing developments, sometimes you will need a good technical support to be provided on time. Look for customer complaints linked to late or bad technical support about web hosting company that you are signed up with.

The availability of backups:
If you choose a web hosting company who does not provide the possibility to back up your site, you may get into trouble; so if your current web hosting provider can not provide you with this, then it is reasonable to move to another web host. It is really very important. To protect your data, backups should be done daily.

Bandwidth:
Your viewers can be disappointed if they will have to wait several minutes to load. So try to select a company that offers normal bandwidth for a definite number of visitors to your web site. Also, make sure that the plan is flexible and you can buy additional bandwidth as your website expends.

Uptime:
It is normal if a web hosting company offers 99.99% uptime; but make sure they are honest with their claims. It is suggested to search for the complaints on uptime before signing up with a definite web hosting provider.

The Space:

In the end, also consider disk space that you need and make sure that your web hosting company will be able to provide you with additional space when it is needed.

Do not push your web site into big problems. You are obliged to choose the best web hosting.

This website hosting review blog will show you a fair picture of hosting industry: what hosts we used, where we screwed and what we call the best web hosting.

Today we are living in the world where information makes life easier.

Due to this if you are properly armed with the information in your sphere of interest you can be sure that you will in any case find the solution to any bad situation. So, please make sure to track this blog on a regular basis or – best of all – sign up to its RSS. In such an easy way you will have a direct shortcut to the latest info updates here. Blogs can be helpful, you just need to know how to use them.

USB flash Drives are meant for portability. By their vary nature they can be easily carried away by you, and if you lose them, then by somebody else.

If you happen to carry sensitive and personal data on your USB drives, then you can imagine how easy it is for somebody to get access to that data, in case you lose a USB Drive. Consider using data encryption tools for safeguarding your data in case of any enatuality.

Rohos Mini Drive – A Free USB Data Encryption Tool

Many times data encryption sunds something geeky to an average user, and that is the reason precisely people do use it. But believe me, data encryption is not so dificult. There are specialized tools, which make your life easier and allow you seamless usability. You may not even be knowing that your data is getting encryption before getting stored on your drives.

Rohos Mini Drive is one such tool, specially designed to create hidden and encrypted partition on the USB flash drive memory. You work with the files on the hidden partition without opening a special program.

Rohos Mini Drive program does not create real partition on the USB flash drive. Thus when you insert your USB drive into USB port only one drive letter will appear in Windows. Second (secured) drive will appear only after you active it by entering a password.

Main Features of Rohos Mini Drive include:

• Creates a virtual encrypted partiton volume (disk) within a USB flash drive free space
• Automatically detects your USB stick config and creates encrypted partition
• Program does not require installation to work with encrypted partiton on a guest computer. You can start it right from USB drive
• Encrypted partition is protected by password
• Encryption is automatic and on-the-fly
• Encryption algorithm: AES 256 bit key lenght. NIST approved.
• Rohos Disk Browser to open encrypted partition without having Admin rights
• Virtual Keyboard – to protect your encrypted disk password from a key logger
• Autorun Folder. Saved program’s/file’s shortcut will automatically start/open up upon disk connection
• The limit of encrypted partition size is 2 GB

In this era of Web 2.0, there are tens and sometimes hundreds of websites and forums, where you have to create an account and have a username and password and you want them to be secure also. Two of the basic premises of password security are …

Always use strong passwords: which are 8-14 characters long, do not contain any dictionary word, do not contain any of your personal information like name date of birth etc., are a mix of alphabets, numbers and special characters and have a blend of small and capital letters.

Do not repeat same password at a number of sites.

With so many expectations, it is next to impossible for an average computer user to remember all these passwords without the use of a password manager tool. There are lots of them available, some paid and other on free basis. But it has been observed them because of several reasons; sometime due to lack of knowledge about their availability, sometimes due to complexities of their operations and sometimes due to fear of sharing their passwords with a third party

However there is also another option.

Most of the popular Internet browsers today have password remembering feature. This makes our lives convenient and many people tend to use this facility. But it has an inherent weakness.

Take the case of Firefox.

Firefox has a decent password remembering facility. All passwords are stored within Firefox files. But they can easily be seen by anybody using your computer in your absence with a few clicks. To prevent this, Firefox has a facility called Master Password. Master Password allows you to specify a Master Password, which is needed when you want to see the passwords stored within your browser.

Master Password also has the facility to automatically logoff through its timeout feature, which disallows access to passwords after a default value of 300 seconds / 5 minutes. That is, if your browser is inactive for a period of 5 minutes, your firefox assumes that you are away from your computer and logs you out of the master password. You have to login again to use your stored passwords.

But what about the case when you are just leaving your computer for a couple of minutes. Is a period of two minutes is not enough for your spying colleague to come at your desk, click a few times and get access to your stored passwords. I do not find there any option, which allows you to logout of your master password, whenever you want.

How to Logout from Firefox Master Password After Timeout

That’s where the role of a useful Firefox Security Addon come into play. Firefox Master Password Timeout locks the master security device after a predefined period of inactivity to prevent unauthorized use of saved passwords. You can easily change the default value from 300 seconds to anything you want.

This important firefox security addon also allows you to logout from master password with your right click contextual menu.

Caution: There are user complaints that it wipes out all your saved passwords on install and uninstall. Please take it into consideration before downloading, installing and using Master Password Timeout Firefox Extension. The extension is available for Firefox 3.5 also although the firefox website says that it has not been updated after June 14, 2008.

1. Decide whether you want to enter the application through the company’s official sites or through job application portals.

2. Enter your Bios, your educational background, work experience and location of residence clearly. Enter your current income or how many you expect, if possible. Enter your information as detail as possible for reference.

3. When entering your resume through job sites, make sure that your applications have been arranged well with properly text format. Be tidy and easy to read. Note the size and type of letter. As a standard you can use letter type Arial, Verdana or Times New Roman with a font size range 10 to 12. If necessary ask for help from the experts.

4. Send also application letter’s cover. There, you can say what parts you want to enter in the company. This will ease them to understand your application. Do not forget to write your address and phone so you will easy contacted.

5. Enter the applications only on the best position according to your skills and experience. You can find various categories applications in several famous job sites. You can register there. Not only various job, but these sites usually also telling some jobs tips.

6. After entering applications, continue to monitor it. Whether the company is already closing the position you aimed. Usually if you pass you will be contacted. To check whether your application has been received, you can contact your company.

7. Update your application as often as possible.