ICT For Health Projects Exhibiting

27 September 2010 - 29 September 2010 Brussels, Belgium

The ICT for Health projects present at the ICT2010 conference. CD-Medics, Epilepsiae, HeartCycle, Hamam and Oldes will be exhibiting. Three eHealth related networking sessions will also take place on the following topics: Patient empowerment, EU-ASEAN Cooperation opportunities and Low-cost Imaging Technologies for Healthcare.

(Source: Europe's Information Society)

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Europe's Information Society 

With its millions of users, the world’s most popular social network has become a perfect target for hackers exploiting such a dense concentration of potential victims. Apart from phishing attacks or spam, which are now easily recognized by many Internet users, hackers are employing new methods, which for the moment at least, are proving to be successful. What to do if your Facebook profile has been hacked

Step 1: Firstly, remove all permissions that have been given to the malicious application. This is a simple process: from Account > Application settings in the top-right corner of your Facebook profile. This ensures that the application will not continue to have access to your profile once the password is changed.

Step 2: Change the login password! To keep your identity safe, it is advisable to change your password and the user name (it’s a good idea to do this from time to time anyway). This is also easy: Go to Account > and Account Settings in the menu in the top left corner of your Facebook profile. It is also advisable to use strong passwords that cannot easily be guessed.

(Source: Panda Security)

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Panda Security

Every week, hackers are creating 57,000 new Web addresses which they position and index on leading search engines in the hope that unwary users will click them by mistake. Those who do, will see their computers infected or any data they enter on these pages fall into the hands of criminals. To do this, they use an average of 375 company brands and names of private institutions from all over the world, all of them instantly recognizable.

eBay, Western Union and Visa top the rankings of the most frequently used keywords; followed by Amazon, Bank of America, Paypal and the US revenue service. This way, when users search for these names, a link to the malicious website will appear among the first results returned. When they visit these sites, one of two things will happen: either malware will be downloaded onto the user’s computer, with or without their knowledge, or the website spoofs the appearance of a genuine page, a bank say, and users will unwittingly enter their details which will fall into the hands of criminals.

(Source: Panda Security)

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Panda Security

A booby-trapped e-mail that promises free sex movies is racking up victims around the world, warn security firms. Some variants of the Windows worm contain a link to PDF that a recipient has been told to expect. Those clicking on the link get neither movies nor documents but give the malware access to their entire Outlook address book. When installed, the worm sends copies of itself to every e-mail address it can find.

The malicious e-mail messages have a subject line saying "Here you have" and contain a weblink that looks like it connects to a PDF document. Instead it actually links to a website hosting the malware.

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.

- Between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking use among internet users ages 50-64 grew by 88%--from 25% to 47%.

- During the same period, use among those ages 65 and older grew 100%--from 13% to 26%.

- By comparison, social networking use among users ages 18-29 grew by 13%—from 76% to 86%.

(Source: Pew Research Center)

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Pew Research Center

The personal details of thousands of football fans who bought World Cup tickets from official FIFA outlets have been stolen and sold for up to £500,000. Investigators are now trying to establish who purchased the information, which includes the passport details and dates of birth of up to 250,000 supporters, amid concerns it could have fallen into the hands of criminal gangs or even terrorist groups. The massive data breach, which leaves fans open to identity theft and fraud, is now the subject of a criminal investigation. It has been alleged that an employee of one ticketing agency may have been offering the information for sale. The stolen database is understood to have been compiled by FIFA, football’s world governing body, in the run-up to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

(Source: Daily Mail)

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Daily Mail

The Safer Internet Forum has been organized by the Safer Internet Programme as an annual conference on safer internet issues since 2004. It brings together representatives of industry, law enforcement authorities, child welfare organizations and policy makers. The past editions of the Safer Internet Forum have welcomed guests not only from Europe, but also from countries such as Australia, Brazil or the Russian Federation.

The 2010 edition of the Safer Internet Forum will take place in Luxembourg on the 21-22 October. This year the Safer Internet Forum will focus on the results of two major research projects funded by the Safer Internet Programme: EUKidsOnline II, which surveyed children and parents in 25 European countries about internet use, and European Online Grooming Project, the first European research project that studies the characteristics and behaviour of sexual offenders who have used the internet to groom young people.

(Source: Europe's Information Society)

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Europe's Information Society

A new targeted malware attack is threatening UK bank customers. Security firm Trusteer said that it has spotted a malware attack that compromises user credentials by creating a fake bank log-in page and then uses those credentials to perform an "authorised" monetary transfer. The attack is being spread through multiple infection methods, including web-based exploits and spam email attachments. Rather than aim to infect numerous systems around the world, however, the company said that the attack is specifically targeting the UK and focusing on very few banks at a time, anywhere from three to seven in a single run.

The UK is not the first country to be targeted for such attacks. Trusteer has spotted similar operations in South Africa and Germany.

(Source: v3.co.uk)

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v3.co.uk

Americans use a range of approaches to keep informed about what is happening in their communities and online activities have been added to the mix. Face-to-face encounters and phone calls remain the most frequent methods of interaction with neighbors. At the same time, internet tools are gaining ground in community-oriented communications. In a poll conducted at the end of last year, we asked about online connections to communities and neighbors and found that in the twelve months preceding our survey:

- 22% of all adults (representing 28% of internet users) signed up to receive alerts about local issues (such as traffic, school events, weather warnings or crime alerts) via email or text messaging.

- 20% of all adults (27% of internet users) used digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues.

(Source: Pew Research Center)

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Pew Research Center

Finland has become the first country in the world to make broadband a legal right for every citizen. From 1 July every Finn will have the right to access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection. Finland has vowed to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.

Finland's communication minister Suvi Linden explained the thinking behind the legislation: "We considered the role of the internet in Finns everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment. "Finland has worked hard to develop an information society and a couple of years ago we realised not everyone had access," she said. It is believed up to 96% of the population are already online and that only about 4,000 homes still need connecting to comply with the law.

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

New Zealand has joined a global taskforce to fight online child exploitation. Police Superintendent Win Van Der Velde today signed an agreement with the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) board in Rome. VGT is made up of international law enforcement agencies, and Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope said joining strengthened an already firm resolve to tackle the online abuse of children. Police will collaborate with VGT through its Online Child Abuse Exploitation Squad (OCEANZ). VGT is chaired by the Australian Federal Police.

(Source: New Zealand Herald)

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New Zealand Herald

Experts from nearly 40 countries gathered in the Estonian capital Tallinn to discuss the latest issues in the fight against virtual attackers. Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves opened the conference with a stark warning about the seriousness of cybercrime. "Our critical infrastructure, electricity grids, transportation networks and mobile phone networks are so enmeshed and tied to the internet that any open society is open to complete and utter failure," he said. "There are no smoking guns, no foot or fingerprints in virtual reality," Estonia's Minister of Defence Jaak Aviksoo added.

Skilled hackers at the conference said malware designed to be used in attacks could be purchased for a few hundred dollars online, or even downloaded for free.

(Source: BBC)

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BBC

Police have arrested 178 people in Europe and the United States suspected of cloning credit cards in an international scam worth over 20 million euros ($24.52 million), Spanish police said on Tuesday. Police in fourteen countries participated a two-year investigation, initiated in Spain where police have discovered 120,000 stolen credit card numbers and 5,000 cloned cards, arrested 76 people and dismantled six cloning labs. The raids were made primarily in Romania, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and the United States, with arrests also made in Australia, Sweden, Greece, Finland and Hungary.

(Source: Reuters)

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Reuters

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein, Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Chief James W. Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department; and Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

(Source: Baltimore FBI)

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Baltimore FBI

Federal chief information officers and chief information security officers will convene Monday, June 14, at an annual information technology conference where they are sure to discuss the Office of Management and Budget's mandate to look toward cloud computing to cut IT costs, increase efficiencies and enable greater government-wide collaboration and data exchange. In examining the potential benefits and vulnerabilities of moving their services to the cloud, government CIOs and CISOs should ask and demand answers to some difficult questions.

Does your provider ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability with mature processes, proof of past performance, understanding of and mechanisms for disaster recovery options, and encrypted backups?

(Source: GovInfo Security)

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GovInfo Security

The 12th International Conference on e-Health Networking, Application & Services aims to bring together interested parties from around the world working in the healthcare field to exchange ideas, to discuss innovative and emerging solutions and to develop collaborations. Participants include clinicians, hospital administrators, IT professionals, researchers, educators, healthcare solutions vendors, and consultants. It will also offer an important forum for discussions on e-Health projects supported by world bodies such as ITU, WHO and the EU, including FP6 and FP7 European projects.

(Source: IEEE Communications Society)

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IEEE Communications Society

With over 3.4 million users of the internet in Kenya, research indicates that the importance of the internet outstrips those of several key developed countries. Even so, the latent demand for local content is underlined by the fact that surveys show that lack of local content is the main reason many Kenyans shy away from accessing the internet. On the launch of the grant facility, the CEO, Kenya ICT Board Paul Kukubo, commented, “We are pleased that we are launching this grant at a time that the ICT industry is growing and access to the internet all over the country has vastly improved.

The future for content industry is bright. Talent, creativity and skills are key drivers of competitiveness in the content sector and we expect that this grant will enable Kenyans everywhere to develop world class locally relevant content and get this industry to rapidly match the lucrative opportunities for talented content developers in developed nations.”

(Source: Afrinnovator)

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Afrinnovator

In Africa, few countries have started their security project and fulfilled some good steps; other countries have now started implementing national mechanisms for combating cybercrime and other related threats; however, a sizeable number of African countries still do not have a strategic plan and are unable to start their first actions. These countries need to be assisted and supported, through guidance and advisory services as well as experience and information sharing with others. Knowledge and information sharing is indeed the missing link at the moment.

CERT-AFRICA is ultimately the resource outlet that will help security experts to share and enhance collaboration to address security threat by connecting leading African security experts and bringing them around a common project. While CERT-AFRICA will be inward looking for its activities, it will also be a conduit for connecting African countries to ongoing efforts within international instances such as the FIRST, the ITU, ICANN, UNCTAD, OIC, etc.

(Source: CERT Africa)

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CERT Africa

The number of internet threats coming from the UK has increased in May, according to research by managed security firm, Network Box. The UK is now responsible for nearly six (5.9) per cent of the world’s internet viruses, up from three per cent in April. The only countries that produce more viruses than the UK are Korea (16.26 per cent) and the US (11.68 per cent). The US and India continue to dominate the production of the world’s spam, with the US producing 10.7 per cent, and India 7.1 per cent (similar figures from last month).

Russia has seen a decline in viruses produced from within its borders – possibly an early result of Russian hosting service, PROXIEZ-NET – notoriously used by criminal gangs – being taken down earlier this month.

(Source: Network Box)

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Network Box

Internet security firm Sophos has warned Facebook users to be on the alert for a scam which sends a spam message to all of their friends on the social network. Sophos, in a pair of blog posts late Monday, said "hundreds of thousands" of Facebook users have fallen for the scam which it dubbed "likejacking." It said some Facebook users had received a message such as "This man takes a picture of himself EVERYDAY for 8 YEARS!!" and were encouraged to click on a link. "This of course posts a message to your newsfeed, your friends see it and click on it, and so it spreads," Sophos said.

That followed a similar scam that spread on Facebook the week before involving a fake posting tagged as the "sexiest video ever," according to Sophos.

(Source: AFP)

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AFP

With the threat of cyber wars lurking, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nation's arm, has asked countries to take the ‘no-first-attack' vow in order to avert chain of events. “There have been countries at (cyber) war already. A wrong attack could lead to a chain of events. Like they do with regard to nuclear arms, the countries should take a vow that they would not attack first,” Mr Hamadoun Toure, Secretary-General of ITU, said.

“We need to have an international framework to make cyber space peaceful. Some say, it might take 10 years. Even if it takes that long, we need to start now (to get there),” he said. “It will be like a cyber tsunami. It would be a catastrophe if a war were to start. In order to achieve a secure cyber space, countries should have a legal and regulatory framework, technological readiness (with a robust response team), a coordinated national effort and capacity building,” he said.

(Source: Business Line)

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Business Line

According to the latest data by Trend Micro, a leading Internet security company, more than 2 million computers were hacked and 476 million spam e-mails were sent in Turkey between June 2009 and May 2010. With Internet an increasingly integral part of daily life, criminals are finding new playgrounds in cyberspace.

In 2004 there were 680 million Internet users and 3 million malwares globally. Six years later, the number of Internet users increased to around 1.7 billion, but malwares jumped 10-fold to 30 million. The nature of the Internet also makes it harder to track down a criminal of cyber crime, as it crosses borders and is hard to understand. “It is not like a bank robbery. There is no eyewitness or video footage,”

(Source: Hurriyet Daily News)

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Hurriyet Daily News

"People that play these fast-paced games have better vision, better attention and better cognition," said Daphne Bavelier, an assistant professor in the department of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester. Bavelier was being a presenter at Games for Learning, a daylong symposium on the educational uses of video games and computer games. The event, the first of its kind, was an indication that electronic games are gaining legitimacy in the classroom.

President Barack Obama recently identified the creation of good educational software as one of the "grand challenges for American innovation," and the federal Department of Education's assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Innovation and Improvement, Jim Shelton, was to attend Thursday's conference. Panelists were to discuss how people learn and how games can be engineered to be even more educational. "People do learn from games,"

(Source: AP)

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AP

A few weeks ago I came across several email messages in Spanish purporting to have been sent by Western Union: As you can see, this is a typical message sent as spam that we have seen in many guises. It tries to pass itself off as some kind of official notification from well-known companies -anyone from UPS to Apple or even Panda- with the real aim of trying to trick users into running the attached file. However, this time when I saw the message I couldn’t help but smile. Why? Because I thought there was a certain irony about the message claiming to have been sent by Western Union, a company used by virtually all cyber-criminals.

Should we be pointing an accusatory finger at companies like Western Union? There are those who would argue that this is like criminalizing the Internet just because there are users that abuse its services. Fair enough. But if Western Union is just like any other company, why is it used so insistently by criminals?

(Source: PandaLabs)

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PandaLabs

On 23 November 2010 the Belgian Privacy Commission will organize an international conference on privacy and scientific research. The conference will take place in the context of the 2010 Belgian EU presidency and focuses on several target groups, first of all the European data protection authorities, but also national and international academics and researchers. Two areas of scientific research will be examined: historical and clinical-medical research. The conference is primarily intended as a discussion forum on best practices in both areas. That is why workshops will be organized alongside the traditional plenary sessions.

"Privacy & Scientific Research: from Obstruction to Construction" was opted for as the working title of the conference, the objective of the event being a reflection on how to integrate privacy protection in scientific research without making it an obstacle. And what's more, the quality of research will only be improved thanks to privacy protection.

(Source: Commission For The Protection Of Privacy)

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Commission For The Protection Of Privacy

It might go against conventional wisdom, but a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project is adding fuel to the argument that young people are fast becoming the gurus of online reputation management, especially when it comes to social networking sites. Among other things, the study found that they are most likely to limit personal information online — and the least likely to trust free online services ranging from Facebook to LinkedIn and MySpace.

Marlene McManus, 21, is among those young adults. On the job hunt since graduating from Clark University in Massachusetts, she's been "scouring" her Facebook page, removing photos that contain beer cups and any other signs of college exploits. She's also dropped Twitter altogether. "I have to present a public face that doesn't have the potential to hurt my image," McManus says.

(Source: AP)

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AP

CYBER-GEDDON has been overhyped, but IT security professionals need to find new ways of dealing with the never-ending threats, says Scott McIntyre, chief security officer for Amsterdam-based ISP XS4ALL Internet. "The sky is not falling, the situation is not as bad as many make out, but we need to accept that the internet has been 'pwned' (compromised or controlled by rivals)," he told the AusCERT 2010 conference on the Gold Coast last week. "We need to maintain a sense of proportion and adjust our expectations about internet security,"' he said.

"Not everything that happens is a major crisis, you don't need huge cyber bunkers because there's a worm on the network -- this should be your daily routine by now." Mr McIntyre, who is also a member of the Dutch computer security incident response team KPN-CERT, said the industry was stuck in "a weird loop of going backwards and forwards" on the same issues.

(Source: The Australian)

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The Australian

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the Internet social network will roll out new privacy settings for its more than 400 million users, amid growing concerns that the company is pushing users to make more of their personal data public. "Many of you thought our controls were too complex," said Zuckerberg in an opinion piece published on Monday in The Washington Post.

"Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark," said the 26-year-old Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room in 2004. In the coming weeks, Zuckerberg promised, Facebook will add privacy controls that he said would be much simpler to use. Facebook will also give users an easy way to turn off all third-party services, Zuckerberg said.

(Source: Reuters)

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Reuters

Malaysia’s Information Communication and Culture Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, said that the country plans to work in collaboration with a number of countries in the fight against cyber crime. “The rise in cyber security attacks over the last few years reinforces the urgency to address the issue through the establishment of appropriate global frameworks for assessment and exchange of information related to cyber security,” he said at the opening of the World Information and Communication Summit in Seoul.

Last year the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (IMPACT) opened its global headquarters in Cyberjaya, Malaysia. IMPACT is a platform for governments and industry players to exchange ideas and best practices and work together in combating cyber threats.

(Source: Malaysia In Focus)

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Malaysia In Focus