Protecting Against Malicious Steganography

Unfortunately, all of the methods mentioned above can also be

used to hide illicit, unauthorized or unwanted activity. What can

you do to prevent or detect issues with stego? There is no easy answer.

If someone has decided to hide their data, they will probably be able

to do so fairly easily. The only way to detect steganography is to be

actively looking for in specific files, or to get very lucky. Sometimes

an actively enforced security policy can provide the answer: this

would require the implementation of company wide acceptable use

policies that restrict the installation of unauthorized programs on

company computers.

Using the tools that you already have to detect movement and

behavior of traffic on your network may also be helpful. Network

intrusion detection systems can help administrators to gain an

understanding of normal traffic in and around your network and can

thus assist in detecting any type of anomaly, especially with any

 

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changes in the behavior of increased movement of large images

around your network. If the administrator is aware of this sort of

anomalous activity, it may warrant further investigation. Host based

intrusion detection systems deployed on computers may also help

to identify anomalous storage of image and/or video files.

A research paper by Stefan Hetzel cites two methods of attacking

steganography, which really are also methods of detecting it. They are

the visual attack (actually seeing the differences in the files that are

encoded) and the statistical attack: “The idea of the statistical attack

is to compare the frequency distribution of the colors of a potential

stego file with the theoretically expected frequency distribution for a

stego file.” It might not be the quickest method of protection, but if

you suspect this type of activity, it might be the most effective. For

JPEG files specifically, a tool called Stegdetect, which looks for signs

of steganography in JPEG files, can be employed. Stegbreak, a

companion tool to Stegdetect, works to decrypt possible messages

encoded in a suspected steganographic file, should that be the path

you wish to take once the stego has been detected.

 

Conclusions

Steganography is a fascinating and effective method of hiding

data that has been used throughout history. Methods that can be

employed to uncover such devious tactics, but the first step are aware

ness that such methods even exist. There are many good reasons as

well to use this type of data hiding, including watermarking or a more

secure central storage method for such things as passwords, or key

processes. Regardless, the technology is easy to use and difficult to

detect. The more that you know about its features and functionality,

the more ahead you will be in the game.

 

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Computer Viruses and Organized Crime

Jack M. Germain

TechNewsWorld

Internet security experts are divided on the source and purpose

of computer viruses and worms like Blaster and SoBig. But some

 

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government agencies are investigating a possible connection between

the increasing spread of infected computers and organized crime.

Recent trends are leading many experts to worry that malicious

code buried in infected computers or released in new generations of

worms will spawn targeted criminal attacks against business and

industry. “That is definitely a legitimate concern”, said Michael

Shema, a widely recognized expert on Internet security and author

of two books on the hacker mentality. Shema said there is considerable

evidence to support what otherwise would be romantic conspiracy

theories about the connection of viruses to the world of organized

crime.

“It’s still anybody’s guess who might be behind it, but the next

move [by the virus writers] will no doubt tip their hands”, Shema

told TechNewsWorld.

 

Follow the Money Trail

The SoBig.E and SoBig.F worms were created to open back door

access to infected computers. Those worms and others can update

themselves and contact predetermined servers to acquire new

instructions. A new trend in these worms includes the ability to

use hijacked computers as e mail servers to send spam without

the knowledge of the computers’ owners. And spam is perhaps the

least worrisome danger associated with back door control of infected

machines.

“There are still 400,000 to 500,000 computers infected,” said

Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host, a company that provides

Internet hosting services. Given such a large base of infected

computers, the foundation already has been laid to carry out massive

malicious attacks.

“Spam is still prevalent — somebody must be making money,” said

Shema, who is also director of research and development at NT

OBJECTives, a provider of application and Web services security. “All

of this activity is motivated by money.” It is difficult to dismiss the

significance of discoveries made by several research groups that have

been monitoring Internet crime. For example, the Honey Net Project —

a nonprofit research organization of security professionals —

published a report describing how the organization has monitored

 

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individuals trading or dealing with stolen credit card information

over the Internet.

The researchers found that criminals have developed highly

sophisticated mechanisms for distributing stolen credit card informa

tion “through specialized IRC channels and related Web sites”.

Indeed, Honey Net researchers discovered that automatic bots were

running on at least a dozen IRC channels to enhance the organized

dissemination of stolen credit card information.

 

Other Sources

C I Host’s Faulkner said the FBI has investigated many incidents

of identity theft and related criminal activities. “Nothing ever gets

done with it, though”, he said. Faulkner believes there is little that

domestic authorities can do to take the fight to where much of

the viruses, spam and identity theft originates. “The bulk of it comes

out of China and South Korea”, he said. “Authorities there are not too

keen on helping us track down the culprits”. Part of the problem,

according to some analysts, is the large, uncontrolled computer

networks springing up throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim.

Faulkner said it is obvious to security experts that this is the

source of many virus intrusions. The poor grammar and poor language

used in messages that the viruses display are a dead giveaway.

Computer security specialist Erik Laykin, president of Online

Security Inc., sees the criminal underworld of Eastern Europe and

Russia as a prime source for the worm onslaught. “There you will

find a large stable of very bright hackers, scientists and criminal

underground”, Laykin told TechNewsWorld. “Those are smart,

effective bad guys”.

 

Credible Links Sought

Investigations have not yielded definitive proof yet about links

between viruses and organized crime, but federal authorities have

stepped up the search for a mafia connection, Laykin told

TechNewsWorld. He said the Department of Homeland Security has

issued advisories in recent months about possible connections of

virus attacks to organized crime or terrorists.

 

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“They are looking for relationships between [computer virus]

outbursts”, he said, noting that theories about crime connections to

the recent attacks by the Blaster worm have much credibility. “If the

virus writers were Chinese with anti American leanings — as some

have speculated — the worm did its job”, he said. “It damaged our

infrastructure”. Laykin doesn’t put much faith in theories that an

attack launched by the Blaster worm was responsible for the power

grid blackout several weeks ago. But given the large percentage of

Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers that are obvious targets

because of vulnerabilities in the Windows operating systems, he

concedes that massive virus infections might have played an

unplanned role.

If nothing else, infected computers could have contributed to

the delayed response by engineers, he said.

 

Playing for Leverage

Like other analysts, Laykin thinks there is a possibility that

criminals could be looking for an opportunity to take action under

the cover of a malicious code attack. “Organized crime is clearly

looking to leverage technology”, he said, pointing out that the

intelligence community recognizes that organized crime is much more

sophisticated these days than it once was — technologically speaking.

“Because of the nature of the Internet”, he said, “response to any

attack would be reactive”.

Like many Internet security experts, Laykin worries about

hidden commands that are yet to be activated in infected computers,

regardless of who put them there. “When a virus has propagated and

is sleeping, it is a malignant cancer; a particular event will set it off,”

he said.

 

Opposing View

Other Internet security gurus say theories about spammer

connections to virus attacks are not credible. “Such theories have no

credence. There are already plenty of open relays available. There

are easier ways of spamming than risking prosecution [by planting

back doors with the use of viruses and Internet worms]”, said Jerry

 

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Brady, chief technology officer of Guardent, a managed security

services and consulting services company.

“That business model just wouldn’t fit”, he said. “Spammers

wouldn’t want the notoriety”. Online Security’s Laykin offers a final

reason to support the organized crime theory. Over the past nine

months, as the SoBig worms have matured, that process no doubt

has required time and resources that would drain an individual

hacker. “If criminal analysts are accurate, then there has to be a crew

of code writers managing the development of SoBig, much like a team

would develop a piece of software”, he said.

From Laykin’s perspective, if the worms are a result of organized

crime, the sophistication of the recent worms and viruses is a clear

indication that those responsible have been closely studying the

industry’s reaction patterns and are cleverly adapting each new

generation of the worm. “One theory is that organized crime may be

examining responses to the patching”, said Laykin, concluding that

the next variant of SoBig likely will provide better answers.

 

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Tech in a Time of Trouble

Reprinted from “The World in 2002”, a publication of The Economist

Group

Bill Gates

Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and chief software architect, predicts

that companies will look even more closely at the benefits of digital technology

during a recession.

 

In the wake of the dotcom meltdown and terrorist attacks, and

among 2002’s economic miseries, all the excitement about the perso

nal computer and Internet revolution of the 1990s can seem like

a distant memory. While the enthusiasm over the digital revolution

has been overshadowed by recent events, its significance has not.

The phenomenon that made digital technology an essential part of

the workplace, home and classroom is not subject to fashion.

The digital future is more important than ever.

Like every technology revolution, this one will come in waves.

The first, which spanned the 1990s, transformed how we communicate

 

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and get information. Almost overnight, the pc and the Internet

enabled businesses and people to exchange e mail, ideas and data

instantaneously. The next wave will have a far broader impact. As

the pc is joined by a growing range of intelligent devices, all connected

by faster, cheaper and more reliable network connections, we’ll see

a vast transformation of products and services into digital form, from

books to movies to business billing systems. The first ten years of

the 21st century will be the digital decade.

We’ve already seen how atoms have been transformed into bits

in many different media: that is to say huge chunks of the world’s

output have dematerialised from the physical to the virtual. But this

decade is when we’ll start to think of this digital metamorphosis—

and the productivity gains that will accompany it — in a whole new

way. Take music. It has been in digital form since analog long playing

records gave way to compact discs in the early 1980s, but until

recently you still needed some kind of disc to carry the musical data.

Now, though, music is freeing itself completely from its physical form.

As bits, it can be accessed wherever you want it, from any intelligent

device that can decode the bitstream.

We will see this phenomenon replicated in products as diverse

as software, photographs, video and books. Software has been sold

online since the earliest days of the public Internet, but only recently

has bandwidth been capable of carrying the enormous number of bits

required for sophisticated business, personal, educational or

entertainment programs. In the years ahead, as more people have

access to cost effective high speed lines, the Internet will become

the primary way in which software is distributed, updated,

maintained and even managed. Software that once came in shrink

wrapped boxes and was updated infrequently — if at all — will be

transformed into dynamic, living code that can update and repair

itself over the network.

Take another, domestic, example. Millions of people are now

using digital cameras to capture their families’ lives, and using digital

photo frames to share memories with family and friends around the

block or around the world. The ability to store and share high quality

digital video as easily is just around the corner. And while e books

have yet to take off, I’m confident that they will within the decade.

 

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New text display software and new kinds of devices, such as tablet

sized pcs, will make onscreen reading, annotating and searching easier

and more enjoyable than ever.

The long term consequences of this digital revolution will be

far reaching and overwhelmingly positive for many industries,

fundamentally transforming the economics of the marketplace. In

part, this will occur simply through a decline in costs. Digital goods

are cheaper than their material counterparts. And you only have to

make them once. Inventory costs will also fall, a result of improved

efficiency, and of being able to create a “virtual” distribution network.

E publishing, for example, offers an incredibly efficient business

model, with almost no manufacturing, packaging or distribution costs.

Along with virtual distribution will come an increasing trend

towards online billing and payments. According to Jupiter Research,

a consultancy, American companies alone spend a combined $18

billion a year preparing and delivering paper bills. Jupiter estimates

that online bill payment could eliminate 80% of this expense.

 

Digital Bespoke

The digital revolution will create an entirely new concept of self

service and an unprecedented degree of customer control. Do you

want to buy a product, or rent it and receive automatic updates? Do

you want the bits now, at a premium, or streamed to your pc overnight,

at a discount? The variations are endless, as are the opportunities.

These advances will be equally welcome to both large and small

businesses alike. The Internet has already greatly enhanced the ability

of small businesses to sell their products globally. The next wave of

the digital revolution, powered by technologies such as XML

(eXtensible Markup Language), will enable those small firms to tap

resources from around the world, combining their expertise with

those of others to customise their products and services for customers.

In a digital world, product or service development increasingly

becomes collaborative. And the factors of production themselves

become fluid, because it is the processing technology, rather than

the goods themselves, that is being reproduced.

There are some potential pitfalls as the digital revolution

advances. As it becomes easier to make perfect counterfeit copies of

 

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an increasing number of products, the issue of how intellectual

property rights are protected will be of growing concern—especially

in those countries where enforcement remains inadequate. Clearly,

some industries have struggled to make the jump to a digital world,

but far more are reaping the benefits of this transition. Investing in

tomorrow’s technology today is more critical than ever to future

competitiveness.

 

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Shaping the Internet Age

Bill Gates

Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corp.

 

Less than a quarter of a century ago, the Internet was an obscure

network of large computers used only by a small community of

researchers. At the time, the majority of computers were found in

corporate information technology (IT) departments or research

laboratories, and hardly anyone imagined that the Internet would play

such an important role in our lives as it does today. In fact, the very

idea of a “personal computer”, much less millions of them connected

by a global network, seemed absurd to all but a handful of enthusiasts.

Today, the Internet is far from obscure — it’s the center of

attention for businesses, governments and individuals around

the world. It has spawned entirely new industries, transformed

existing ones, and become a global cultural phenomenon. But despite

its impact, today’s Internet is still roughly where the automobile was

during the era of Henry Ford’s Model T. We’ve seen a lot of amazing

things so far, but there is much more to come. We are only at the dawn

of the Internet Age.

In the years ahead, the Internet will have an even more profound

effect on the way we work, live and learn. By enabling instantaneous

and seamless communication and commerce around the globe, from

almost any device imaginable, this technology will be one of the key

cultural and economic forces of the early 21st century.

Why is the Internet such a powerful and compelling technology?

First and foremost, from its conception in the academic

community (largely as a result of government sponsored research)

 

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to its subsequent development and commercialization by the private

sector, the Internet has evolved into a uniquely independent

information exchange — one that is able to grow organically, can

operate reliably with little centralized management, and is built

entirely on common standards.

It is those common standards that helped make the Internet so

successful. From TCP/IP (the technological protocol that is

the “traffic cop” for Internet data) to HTML and XML (the twin

lingua francas of the World Wide Web), common standards have

opened up the Internet to anyone who speaks its language. And since

the language of the Internet is universal and easily grasped, any

business can create products and services that make use of it. That

openness has produced amazing technological competitiveness.

To thrive on the Internet, every business has to make its products,

services and interface more attractive than competitors that are only

a few mouse clicks away.

The “killer application” that transformed the Internet into

a global phenomenon was the World Wide Web. Developed in

the late 1980s at the European Center for Nuclear Research

(CERN) from research by Tim Berners Lee, the Web was initially

created to share data on nuclear physics. By using hyperlinks and

graphical “browsing” technology, the Web greatly simplifies the

process of searching for, accessing, and sharing information on the

Internet, making it much more accessible to a non technical

audience.

As the Web’s popularity surged among students, researchers and

other Internet enthusiasts, an entirely new industry emerged to create

software and content for the Web. This explosion of creativity made

the Web more compelling for users, which encouraged more

companies to provide Internet access, which encouraged still more

individuals and businesses to get connected to the Internet. As

recently as 1994, there were only 500 fairly modest Web sites

worldwide; today the Web has close to 3 billion pages. We can expect

this growth cycle to continue and even accelerate, thanks to more

powerful and cheaper computers, higher speed Internet access on

a wider range of devices, and advanced software that makes it all

work together.

 

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Breaking Down Barriers

The main advantage of any new technology is that it amplifies

human potential. In the 20th century, electricity, the telephone,

the automobile and the airplane all made the world more accessible

to more people, transforming our economy and society in the process.

The Internet has the same revolutionary impact—individuals and

businesses can overcome geographical, cultural and logistical barriers

and improve the way they live and work. Because it amplifies our

potential in so many ways, it’s possible that the long term impact of

the Internet could equal that of electricity, the automobile and the

telephone all rolled together. How?

The Internet makes the world smaller. The ability to communicate

and exchange information instantaneously and across vast distances

has enabled more individuals and businesses to participate in

the economy, regardless of their location. Large companies can

connect with employees, suppliers, and partners around the globe,

and small businesses can find their customers anywhere in the world.

Businesses can hire knowledge workers almost regardless of where

they are, greatly expanding employment opportunities for people in

the United States, and giving developing nations the ability to

become economic powerhouses by providing information technology

services to the rest of the world. The Internet, along with other

computer technologies, is literally enabling some developing

countries to “leapfrog” the industrial revolution and jump straight

to the Internet Age.

The Internet brings people closer together. Before the Internet,

it was possible to keep in touch with relatives and friends across

the country or around the world—but it was also expensive. Today,

communicating with a friend in Japan is as easy and cheap as

communicating with a friend across town, and families regularly use

the Internet to keep in touch with far flung relatives. Millions of

people with shared interests—no matter how obscure—exchange

information and build communities through Web sites, email and

instant messaging software. Using innovative accessibility aids,

people with disabilities can use the Internet to help overcome

barriers that .prevent them from leading more productive and

fulfilling lives.

 

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The Internet makes the world simpler. For businesses, the

Internet breaks down logistical barriers, offering greater flexibility

and power in the way they do business. It shrinks time and distance,

simplifies complex business processes, and enables more effective

communication and collaboration—a giant corporation can now be

as nimble as a tiny startup, while a family firm located in a remote

rural village now has the world as its marketplace. Combined with

advanced productivity software, the Internet enables individual

knowledge workers to use their time more efficiently, and to focus

on more productive tasks. And it gives consumers the ability to shop

smarter, to find the best products at the right prices. In fact, it

empowers them in ways that once were available only to large

companies, enabling them to join with others to buy products at lower

prices, and bid competitively around the world.

 

What’s Next?

The Internet has already revolutionized the way we live and

work, but it is still in its infancy. In the coming years, a combination

of cheap and powerful computing devices, fast and convenient

Internet access, and software innovations could make the Internet

as common and powerful a resource as electricity is today.

Today, most people access the Internet through their home or

office PC, but as microprocessors become cheaper and more powerful,

Internet access will also be available from a wider range of smart

devices, from tablet sized PCs to smart cellular phones — even familiar

household appliances. People will be able to share information

seamlessly across devices and interact with them in a more natural

way, using speech, handwriting and gestures. Eventually, they will

be able to interact with a computer almost as easily as they do with

each other.

And all this computing power will be interconnected, as high speed

Internet access becomes available in more areas and in many different

ways, both wired and wireless. Advances in communications

technologies, along with increasing public demand for Internet access,

will eventually ensure that Internet connectivity will be commonplace

at home, at work or on the move.

 

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Communication between devices on the Internet will be greatly

enhanced by new Internet standards such as XML, which offers a way

to separate a Web page’s underlying data from the presentational

view of that data. Whereas HTML uses “tags” to define how data is

displayed on Web pages, XML uses tags to provide a common way of

defining precisely what the underlying data actually is. XML

“unlocks” data so that it can be organized, programmed and edited.

This makes it easier for that data to be shared across a wider range of

PCs, servers, handheld devices, and “smart” phones and appliances.

While today’s Internet consists of isolated “islands” of data that are

difficult to edit, share and integrate, tomorrow’s Internet will break down

those barriers and enable people to access and share the information

they need — regardless of whether they’re accessing the Internet from

their PC or any other device.

All these advances will soon create a ubiquitous Internet —

personal and business information, email, and instant messaging, rich

digital media and Web content will be available any time, any place

and from any device.