Cyber-Terrorism: Is our money safe?

Earlier this week several major banks in the United States were attacked by a cyber-terrorist group known as Al-Din-Al-Qassam, believed to be located somewhere in Iran. This group is suspected to be the same group that was responsible for the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the Bank of America. The companies affected by this attack were: Well's Fargo, PNC, U.S. Bank, J.P. Morgan, and Citigroup.

The terrorists overloaded the bank's websites by creating excess traffic which prevented the customers from accessing their accounts and completing transactions. The excess traffic was created by large networks of computers that were previously hacked. These hacked computers simultaneously began sending requests to the banks websites, which, in such high volumes, ended up crashing their site. There are very few companies today that can stay fully operational during a DDoS cyber attack. A company's ability to withstand a cyber attack is based on the available bandwidth of their network. Their bandwidth must be able to handle the normal flow of customer traffic, as well as the cyber attack or the site will crash from an overload of hits.

A security firm was hired to look into the nature of the attack so that precautions could be taken for the likely future attacks. The security firm stated that "the amount of bandwidth that is flooding the websites is very large, much larger than in other attacks...". There are several precautions that a bank can take to prevent this from happening again:

• Increase their bandwidth
• Redirect traffic to a cloud based site
• Use routing tools that will redirect traffic to other locations in order to create a balance
• Purchase software that will filter out the incoming bad traffic

With the new innovations popping up in cyber-terrorism, it is expected that this type of attack will happen again. The most important thing that companies can do to protect themselves is to ensure that they have the proper security measures in place so that they are able to stay one step ahead of the hackers and protect valuable customer and company information. These precautions should not just be limited to banking companies, as all companies are vulnerable to this type of attack, especially now that we know that this type of technology is out there.


Cited:

"US Banks Being Hacked." 3sintel. Daily Mail Reporter, Sept.-Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Sept. 2012. <http://3sintel.info/index.php?/topic/5621-us-banks-being-hacked/>.

Fernandez, Juan. "Wells Fargo Hacked, Iran Suspected of Cyber Attack Against Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase." Food World News. Food World News, 26 Sept. 2012. Web. 28 Sept. 2012. <http://www.foodworldnews.com/articles/2346/20120926/wells-fargo-hacked-iran-suspected-of-cyber-attack-against-bank-of-america-and-jp-morgan-chase.htm>.

"Wells Fargo Becomes Latest Bank to Be Hacked by Cyber Gang Seeking Revenge for Anti-Islam Film." Mail Online. Daily Mail Reporter, 27 Sept. 2012. Web. 28 Sept. 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2209403/Wells-Fargo-reveal-website-hacked-cyber-gang-seeking-revenge-anti-Islam-film.html>.

Gonsalves, Antone. "Banks Can Only Hope for Best with DDoS Attacks." CSO. N.p., 26 Sept. 2012. Web. 28 Sept. 2012. <http://www.csoonline.com/article/717350/banks-can-only-hope-for-best-with-ddos-attacks>.

iOS 6: Apple upgrade or downgrade?

Apple's new map application.

Apple launched its new mobile device operating system earlier this week to give iPhone fanatics a small taste of what is to come with their upcoming launch of the iPhone 5. This update, being of no cost to the user, includes an entirely new map system designed by Apple in the place of the Google Maps application that was featured in all previous Apple products. In addition to the new map provider, the updated also includes;

• The ability to FaceTime without Wifi
• The expansion of Siri's abilities such as sports scores and posting on social networking sites
• The ability to upload multiple photos to a photo stream
• The panorama feature in the camera app

Passbook

Within the 24 hours after launch, over 15% of iOS users have upgraded to the new operating system. Unfortunately, users of the original iPad, 3rd generation iTouch, and any iPhone before iPhone 3S will be left out of this upgrade as Apple no longer will support upgrades for those devices. This rush of downloads in a period of under a day made the wait time for this upgrade a major pain, some users having to wait over 3 hours. The upgrade can be done without having to connect your device to your PC but it is suggested that you keep your device on a charger so that you do not lose power during the download. After the download is completed the device will reset itself and reboot as if you were turning it on for the first time. Following the reboot, you will go through a few introductions screens and then you will be returned to your familiar homepage. On your homepage the only change you may notice is the addition of the Passbook application which now allows you to store movie tickets, airplane tickets, store cards, and coupons all in one place Upon closer inspection of your device, you will begin to notice minor style changes to the system, such as background fading, that makes the overall flow of the device seem more visually impressive. You are now able to use any sound file in your iTunes as the audio for your alarm clock which will be incredibly useful to many users who are tired of waking up to the nuclear warfare siren from Cold War Era.

Melting Hill

Unfortunately with every technological innovation this early in release, problems and glitches will not be far behind. The new map application that Apple designed to rival Google Maps become a minor internet sensation, and not in the good way. Issues such as incorrect locations and misguided directions have been plaguing users for the last 2 days as in some cases the application will say that it is several hundred yards off from where the physical location actually is. Along with the misguided directions, the satellite images of some major geographical locations show up as broken or swirled as if they had been painted on by Edvard Munch.

Overall Apple has once again taken a step forward in increasing the overall efficiency and productivity of their mobile devices. A few problems and glitches were expected upon launch as they are prominent in any launch of this magnitude. However with the release of the iPhone on the 21st, you can expect to see fixes and updates available to you within the next few weeks.

Cited
Lowensohn, Josh. "iOS 6 already on 15 percent of devices, firm says." CNET News (2012): n.pag. CNET. Web. 20 Sep 2012. <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57517129-37/ios-6-already-on-15-percent-of-devices-firm-says/>. 
Anderson, Rory, and Brandon Griggs. "Users: Apple iOS 6 maps are a mess." CNN Tech (2012): n.pag. CNN Tech. Web. 20 Sep 2012. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/20/tech/mobile/apple-maps-complaints/?hpt=hp_c3>. 

Facebook Buying Instagram: User Friendly or User Foe?

Today Facebook ended a 5 month negotiation with the photo sharing media site Instagram. This billion dollar deal sparks a relationship between 2 of the most popular social networking sites on the internet that can either bring a non profit organization up to par with Facebook and its billions of dollars in annual advertising revenue or bring the photo sharing site to an early demise.
Instagram is a mobile only application that allows users to post and share their own photos with their friends. Facebook however, began with a browser based site and then branched out once the app feature of mobile phones began to take off. Facebook has over 300 millions images posted a day and with the addition of the near 5 billion photos that users have posted on Instagram, this merger could potentially initiate a pure monopoly of the photo aspect of social media.

Posting a photo via Instagram

From an avid social networking users standpoint, this can have positive or negative effects on their loyal following on the site in the near future. From an optimistic viewpoint, having both of these sites working together can make the aspect of posting and viewing photos online much more simple and user friendly. For those of us who are religious social media users who post and share our every action, Instagram on Facebook is a convenient and fun way for them to immediately share cool photos with their friends and family. Instagram allows for business owners to market products and services in a creative way, while using Facebook to allow them to better reach their target audience. For both corporations, this buyout means more users for both sites which will generate more demand for advertising space thus increasing overall profits. The mobile advertising market has began to take off over the past few years as the number of people using smart phones is rapidly increasing. Facebook and Instagram's mobile apps both are well known not to have any advertisements currently but this is expected to change rather soon. The advertising revenue that the incorporation of advertising onto the mobile app will bring will greatly boost the companies net worth but can have a negative user effect. These negative user effects, whether from the perspective of the company or the user, are not just limited to increased advertising. Instagram users have grown to like the fact that the app is ad free. Now that it's combined with Facebook, Instagram users may have to adjust to the excessive influx of adds. Instagram also has its roots in being a user based non-profit application, yet Facebook could change Instagram to be a revenue generating application pushing fees on the user or the overuse of advertisements.These added advertisements could also effect the performance of Instagram, slowing down the processing speed of the phone and overall speed of the application. Facebook could also over intergrate the app into their site making it more difficult for Facebook's competitors, other social media sites, to be able to intergrate or use Instagram on their websites.

These positive and negative effects are of course for now just speculation, but with the deal finally closing we will expect to see major changes on both media sites in the near future.

Cited

_{Evangelista, Benny. "Facebook's Instagram purchase final."SFGate. (2012): n. page. Web. 7 Sep. 2012. .}