Important of securing your online data transaction with SSL certificate

With constant threat from hackers whom continue to write smart viruses and Trojans to capture financial data, important of data security for any business is very crucial.  


I have come across some business owners that request customers credit card information without any protection at all. To make it more worst, they request the CVC Code and expiry data.  


With this level of naivety among business owners , hackers can easily intercept the valuable information for their financial gains.


To prevent this kind of problem, secure your business data transaction using SSL certificate.


SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It provides a secure connection, allowing you to transmit private data online securely. Sites secured with SSL display a padlock in the browsers URL and possibly a green address bar if secured by an EV SSL certificate.


Another way to identify that the data communication done securely between your web browser and the server is to look at the address bar where the “http” protocol has change to “https”.  For example http://mail.google.com/ change to https://mail.google.com/


By using SSL certificate, your customers could also validate your website as legitimate business. 


Why validation is important? Because it tells your customers that they are dealing with you and not a fake website developed by con artist to steal credit card information.  


You can validate a business website by checking the SSL certificate.  If you're using Google Chrome browser, click the padlock icon at the address and it will show the identity of the website owner, connection encryption type and the history. 


For further details, click Certificate Information.  In the Certificate Information, you will know to whom it is Issued To, Issues By and the validity period.  The certificate period must be valid, then only the data transaction is secure.




Details such as name, credit card number and amount can be intercepted and altered if it is done “in the clear”. SSL certificate prevents data alteration problem.


So, if you considering to do online business in the future, one way to protect your customers data and your business is to secure the data transaction with high grade SSL certificate. 


Build your website fast, elegant and securely !

What is http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/test_domain.js ?

I was getting Kaspersky Security Alert as stated below everytime I browse website's with Google Adsense Content Advertisement in it.

"Application Google Chrome contains link to web page http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/test_domain.js used to steal password, credit card number or other confidential data. Denied"

So, got bit worried whether this virus threat was a real threat or a false alert , so just browse the Net to find out more about googleads.g.doubleclick.net

Found out that there is nothing to worry about, as Google bought DoubleClick in 2007 they have some integration things to sort out and there is no harm.

To confirm the status, I sent an email to Kaspersky Virus Lab as stated below and the Virus analyst confirmed it was a false alarm.

newvirus[at]kaspersky[dot]com Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 2:50 AM

To: Me
Hello,

Sorry, it was a false detection. It will be fixed in the next update.
Thank you for your help.

>
> LANG: en
> email: Me
> product: Kaspersky Internet Security 8.0.0.506
> viruses_date: Today
>
> description:
> I am getting Kaspersky Security Alert everytime i browse a website with google adsense code it. It is giving the following alert. How do I solve this problem? I have attached the screen shot of the alert.
>
> 11/23/2009 1:47:58 AM?http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/test_domain.js?C:\Program Files\MOZILLA FIREFOX\?FIREFOX.EXE?532?"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" ?Detected: googleads.g.doubleclick.net/*?Databases
>
> uploaded files:
> kaspersky-security-alert.jpg
>
>
--------------------
Regards,
Virus analyst, Kaspersky Lab.

Virtual keyboard to secure your online transaction

Do you think hackers cannot capture your username & password which you use to access your online banking easily?

Think again, once your pc has been infected with trojan or worm with capability to capture your keystrokes then you would be most probably sending your financial data to the crooks.

Five types of keylogger software program that can capture your keystrokes.

1. Hypervisor based. It's is malware operating system that work underneath your operating system.
2. Kernel based. It resides at the kernel level of the os, very hard to write and combat. It has permission to access to any information typed on the keyboard.
3. Hook based. It is triggered by keyboard events which the os notifies it and the keylogger just record the keystrokes.
4. Passive methods. This is done by using APIs like GetAsyncKeyState(), GetForegroundWindow(), etc. to poll the state of the keyboard or to subscribe to keyboard events. Slows your pc.
5. Form Grabber based. It logs web form submissions by recording the web browsing onSubmit event functions. Data is recorded before submission over the internet and bypasses https encryption.

Money is the Main Reason

The main reason cyber criminals target this information is for money.

Interesting email conversation between two hackers, Farid Essebar (codename : Diabl0 ) and Atilla Ekici (codename : Coder )

"They can't find me," wrote Atilla Ekici, a 23-year-old Turk, in an email to his accomplice, a 19-year-old Moroccan called Farid Essebar. "Ha, ha, ha," replied Mr. Essebar. Source : Cassell Bryan-Low, The Wall Street Journal

Zotob virus / trojan enables other malicious software to be installed. For example, it enables malicious key logging programs to record credit card information.

Police found about 1600 the numbers of stolen credit cards with them.

Virtual KeyBoard

To protect your information next time when you access your paypal account or bank account is to use virtual keyboard provided by anti-virus software.

I am using Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 and it has this feature to protect us from this kind of malicious program.

Virtual keyboard is a special service embedded into Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 that prevents data interception entered from the keyboard.

To use Kaspersky Virtual keyboard.

1. Open your Kaspersky Internet Security Program.
2. Click Online Security
3. Click Virtual KeyBoard.

Now, you can enter your username and password safely in the login the form of your bank website.

Please remember that virtual keyboard cannot protect your data if you are entering your data to phishing sites or has been hacked.

Please check the authenticity of the website before entering your username and password to the website. For details on checking ssl certificate, please click here.

Prevention is better than Cure !