Norton cybercrime report: Time to take back your Internet from cybercriminals!

Do you possess sound Internet etiquette? Are you careful while using social networking sites? Do you trust others and share your online details? How many of you think cybercrimes are ‘usual’ going to ‘critical’? Are you even aware of any cybercrime? Who would you turn to for help, if you were attacked online?

Norton from Symantec today released the Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact in India. It covers 14 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, USA, covering 7,066 adults. This report tries to answer some (or most) of the questions above!

Norton collaborated with Anne Collier, independent expert advisor on Internet safety.

Effendy Ibrahim, Internet safety advocate and consumer business lead, Asia, highlighted the key points of yhe Norton Cybercrime Report. These include:

* A silent digital epidemic — of victims who feel powerless.
* People feel ripped off and pissed off — and lacking confidence that criminals will be brought to justice.
* Moral compasses not pointing true north — a grey area when it comes to online morals and ethics.
* People trying to protect themselves, but coming up short —  Common sense is not the best defence.

The silent epidemic

Cybercrime -- the silent epidemic!

Globally, 65 percent of the people have fallen victim to cybercrime! However, nobody seems to be talking about it! In India, 76 percent have fallen victim to cybercrimals. Only 3 percent of the global poplulation do not expect to fall victim. In India, this number is only 8 percent!

Also, 79 percent globally do not expect cybercriminals to be brought to justice. And, 57 percent Indians do not expect cybercriminals to be brought to justice either! Not very encouraging figures!

Falling victim to cybercrime can leave people feeling angry, annoyed, frustrated, violated, cheated, upset, helpless, and so on and so forth. I’ve experienced this feeling, and it was definitely similar!

Some other interesting findings from Norton’s report. Indian adults feel highly responsible for phishing — 85 percent, online scams — 81 percent, and computer viruses/malware attacks — 88 percent. It seems that Indians practice bad Internet etiquette!

And, when in trouble, who do the victims contact in India? The survey says, 46 percent call their bank, 40 percent contact the website, and 37 percent call the police!

Around a quarter of victims take a DIY approach to sorting cybercrime. Unfortunately for them, the Norton experts say that the actions they are taking won’t necessarily help them, and may not even be safe.

For instance in India, 53 percent restrict the websites they visit. This only limits people’s enjoyment of the Internet. Security software, with a search advisor tool, will let you know if a site is safe.

Next, 38 percent get a family member or a friend to sort things out. Well, many threats go undetected by out-of-date or incomplete security solutions. So unless your friends are security experts, chances are that you will still be vulnerable. Finally, 32 percent try to identify the criminal and seek justice. This is not easy. Therefore, it is always advisable to work with law enforcement agencies, rather than go it alone.

Intel's McAfee buy: Too few answers to too many questions, for now!

Yes I know I am a little late with this due to various reasons, but better late than never! On August 19th, Intel literally shocked the IT and information security world with its acquisition of McAfee for a whopping $7.68 billion approximately! Startled, a lot of folks started asking around as to why Intel did such a thing! Is Intel even doing the right thing in the first place?

The world boasts of several magnificent gadgets and devices — mobile phones and smartphones, Internet connected TVs, Wi-Fi enabled eReaders, the iPads, portable navigation devices with wireless interfaces, and so on and so forth! Now, how many of these devices actually boast of great security? Aren’t most of those unprotected?

With so many devices, besides smartphones, getting connected to the Internet every day, and with little or no on-board or ‘in-house’ security in place, this move is perhaps a masterstroke on Intel’s part!

But then, not all of such devices would run on Intel’s chips either! So? How will Intel control the hardware security market and create a monopoly — as some have been pointing out? Or, is there a much larger, hidden picture, which will get revealed over time?

Or, has this been done with the intention to rule the mobile security market, or well, security within the chip, or even device security or hardware security? Also, will this signal the end of malware?

And what about McAfee itself? Will this signal an end to all of its wonderful product development now that it will be part of Intel? What about its customers? Will some of its top executives march out? Intel says that McAfee will continue to run as is, and one hopes that it is maintained.

Personally, I was keen to know what Symantec thought of this acquisition. The company stated: The announcement by Intel to acquire McAfee emphasizes the growing relevance and need for security protection that extends beyond the PC and acknowledges Symantec’s ongoing strategy.

However, Symantec believes it is important to focus security on identities and the information people need to access, independent of the device they may be using. That will require security to work seamlessly across multiple platforms as users switch devices to use, store and transmit information anytime and anywhere. Symantec offers a broad portfolio of security and management solutions that protects customers from the largest enterprises to SMBs to consumers.

Symantec's Internet threat security report on India has few surprises!

Actually, no surprise, really! India is definitely shooting up — in the wrong direction — as far as Internet threats are concerned! The India edition of Symantec’s Internet threat security report, presented by Vishal Dhupar, managing director, Symantec India, has several key findings that will make you sit up and think! Let’s start!!

Vishal Dhupar, managing director, Symantec India, presenting the Internet threat security report, India edition.

Here are just two among the many data points. One, India, Brazil and Poland — all witnessed growth in malicious activity. In 2009, India accounted for 15 percent of all malicious activity in the APJ region, an increase from 10 percent in 2008. Also, 19 percent of the attacks targeting India, originated in India itself in 2009. So, India is rising — both as the country of origin and a target for attacks! Wonderful!

Another one: after the US, Brazil and India are prominent among the countries where Web-based attacks originate. Okay, India was also one of the highest ranked countries for Zeus infections in 2009!

So, the key findiings of the threat landscape are as follows: The underground economy remains unaffected by the global economy. Hence, users are still plagued by Web-based attacks. Targeted attacks focus on enterprises — no surprise! Next, attack kits make it easier for novices to indulge in information theft. Finally, malicious activity takes place in emerging countries (read India, among them). I will deal with all of these a bit later.

Dhupar elaborated on some best practices as well that we all — enterprises and end users need to follow. These include:
* Defense-in-depth strategies
* Proactive policy based approach to security
* Test security, and update definitions and patches.
* Educate management on security.
* Emergency response procedures with backup and restore.

As for the way ahead, cybercriminals will continue to innovate to fuel the underground economy. New age Internet technologies and usage will encourage novel propagation vectors. The global scale and origin of attacks requires international co-operation.

Reputation based security protects you from malware

(L-R): Shantanu Ghosh, VP, India Product Operations, Symantec and Joe Pasqua, VP, Research, Symantec.

Information is everything in today’s connected world! According to Joe Pasqua, VP, Research, Symantec Corp., there are 487 exabytes of data globally, growing at 51 percent annually.

Speaking about the innovative work being done at Symantec Research Labs, he said, it was the Labs’ endeavor to bring together technologies and products in new and interesting ways and help solve problems. “We have a customer centric approach to innovation,” he said.

Symantec Research Labs develops cutting edge technologies to solve real-world customer challenges in security, storage and systems management. It does core research, advanced concepts and collaboratve research.

According to Pasqua, reputation based security changes the manner in which you can protect yourself from malware. It was noticed a number of years ago that there were more of malware. “So, we decided to create a reputation score for every piece of software.”

Symantec Research Labs has an extensive and successful track record. These include core security technologies such as reputation-based security and Browser Defender. Other areas include consumer cloud services, infrastructure software, etc. Pasqua provided a sneak peak of the Symantec Mobile Reputation Security (SMRS) research prototype as well.

More details in a while.