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Trent Steele's Privacy #1 Newsletter
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May 25th 2013 www.privacy-central.com
 
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Spam Makes A Comeback, Friend!

Good Morning!

Trent Steele here with all the hottest technology news, software downloads, and your personalized weekly recommendations.

Getting more spam than normal?

Technology is continually changing the way we do things.

That means sometimes we opt for one service over another, especially when it's a bundled service.

One that allows us to do away with dedicated spam detectors, for example.

But spam is still out there, so we need to make sure whatever systems we have in place...

... are capable of weeding out the rubbish!

Read this week's bonus article below
for some insight into how spam can creep back into your life when you least expect it.

Enjoy: and have a great week --


Trent Steele

Trent Steele, Site Manager.
http://www.privacy-central.com


 
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Privacy Downloads Computer Security News...
  Legal experts pitch in to appeal AT&T hacker's sentence

  
Microsoft details law enforcement requests in new report

  
Defense spokesman says DoD not dumping BlackBerry

  
Would a 3D-printed gun really be legal?

  
Former Tribune staffer denies giving hackers log-in credentials
 
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Software Downloads New Privacy & General Downloads...
  Calibre

  
Calibre (64-bit)

  
Calibre Portable

  
Accurate Printer Monitor

  
EPIM Archiver
 
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Search Term Search Term of the Day...
Did you know the number one search term yesterday was...

Facebook

Wondering what the results brought up?

Click HERE to search this term at Search-Street.com >>
 
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Recommendations Friend's Recommendations...
Every week, we recommend a series of exciting new hardware and software tools that we think you'll find interesting. Here's what we have for you this week...
 
Delete unwanted photos permanently!
Photo-Eraser!
Stop deleted photos being recovered from your memory card! Make unwanted pics and snaps vanish FOR GOOD!
www.photo-eraser.com
Be a Radio Star!
The Ultimate Podcasting Kit!
Create your own online radio broadcasts in just MINUTES -- with this all-in-one guide to all things podcast!
www.thepodcastingkit.com
Total Anonymity Online!
Anonymeister Secure Browsing!
Enjoy 100% secure browsing with the amazing Anonymeister! Hides your IP address and clears surfing traces ? for TOTAL PRIVACY!
www.anonymeister.com
 
Internet History Cleaner!
Internet History Cleaner!
Keep your PC clean and protected! Erase your browsing history and keep attackers at bay. Free Home Keylogger included!!
www.internethistorycleaner.ws
 
The Perfect Keylogger
The PERFECT Keylogger!
What happens on your computer when you're not there? Keylogger monitors your PC around the clock -- and reports directly to you!
 www.theperfectkeylogger.com
 
Keep Kids SAFE Online!
My First Browser!
Keep kids safe online! This fully-functional web browser for kids keeps you in control of your children's surfing habits!
 www.myfirstbrowser.com
 
Dynamic IP Notifier!
The All New Dynamic IP Notifier!
Let your PC notify you whenever your IP addresses change! Keep track of your IP addresses automatically!
www.dynamicipnotifier.com
 
Get deleted files back FAST!
Undelete File Recovery!
Recover your deleted files in just minutes -- with the world's MOST POWERFUL undelete software!
www.undeletefilerecovery.com
 
 
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Spam Makes A Comeback

How could spam be an issue for a security manager in 2013?

It's been years now since we all started subscribing to services that do a phenomenal job of filtering out advertisements for prescription medications and exotic vacations and dumping them into spam folders, where they usually accumulate and never bother anyone.

Until this past week, I likely hadn't spent five minutes in 10 years thinking about spam -- a testament to the effectiveness of spam filters. After all, about 98% of our incoming email is spam. If we didn't have effective spam-filtering engines, every employee would receive an extra 40 to 50 emails per day. That would hit productivity.

Probably because real spam has long been out of sight and out of mind for our employees, our general counsel was dismayed when he recently started regularly receiving emails that he deemed to be spam. He forwarded some of them to me, wondering what was going on. The emails purport to be from organizations such as ADP, FedEx and eFax, and at first glance they look legitimate. Only an inspection of the email headers would tell you otherwise.

Some of the emails contain links to questionable sites in places like China and Russia. Some include attachments that are supposedly required certificates or e-fax documents but in reality are zip files containing an .exe file. In short, these are not ordinary spam -- which is annoying and clogs networks but is generally benign. No, these are phishing attacks.

Soon, others in the company began to complain about an increase in spam. Why, I wanted to know, weren't these phishing attacks being intercepted and shuttled away from employees' inboxes?

I was aware that we have been migrating users to a managed Microsoft email service and that there had been talk of saving money by dropping our current spam provider in favor of Microsoft's spam prevention system, which is bundled with the mail service. I figured that was likely the root of the problem, and sure enough, my suspicions were right.

We previously had not only inspected attachments, but also restricted the types of attachments authorized to be delivered. We also had what is called Sender Policy Framework checking enabled, which verifies that senders are really who they say they are. When the email team migrated our email, they neglected to enable these critical security functions. And thus spam has become an issue of concern for me in 2013. Now, employees potentially could click attachments or links and execute malicious programs.

Luckily our endpoint protection software prevented most of the attachments from causing harm, but there wasn't 100% detection. As a result, I'm having my security team analyze the suspicious email attachments and links that have been identified and build rules in our security incident and event management tool to look for evidence that employees have clicked on any of them or downloaded nefarious software.

We have also recently enabled a really cool feature within our Palo Alto Networks firewalls called Wildfire, which redirects executable files to a secured sandbox, where it evaluates the program to determine whether it is malicious. Unfortunately, since this is a new functionality, we're simply monitoring the events and haven't yet enabled blocking.

We've had to take action a couple of times, but we've been lucky so far. For example, one attachment that was executed by several employees proved upon evaluation to be programmed to reach out to a server in China to download additional software. Luckily, the server in China had been taken down.

Now, we have to continue to monitor for suspicious activity, and I need to ensure that our current email architecture is deployed in a secure manner.
By Mathias Thurman.
 
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