Ivacy VPN Review

With the levels of sophistication that cybercrime has shown, it is important that we hit back with equal forces. VPNs are one of the most effective weapons in this war and amongst the pack, a few stand out. Ivacy is undoubtedly one of them. Launched a little over a decade ago, it has become one of the most honored names in the business winning the coveted Fastest VPN award by BestVPN.com for speed.  

Online Security and Privacy

Ivacy provides the best when it comes to cybersecurity and user privacy. It has a strict zero-logging policy which means that no record of your data traffic is kept. Even if a hacker were to make their way into the system, they are bound to find nothing. The service also comes with 256-bit encryption, the highest that exists. Ivacy also offers Public WiFi security to its users. 

Fast and Unrestricted Streaming

In the beginning, people believed that VPNs were all about accessing blocked websites and downloading torrents safely. Besides several other functions, Ivacy also offers the best solution for streaming and downloading. Ivacy helps users get rid of speed and bandwidth throttling for online viewership. It also allows Smart Purpose Selection to help you deal with all types of restrictions easily. 

There are a number of streaming services like Netflix which choose to limit the viewership of their content for a number of reasons. This hits travelers more than ever. With Ivacy, not only can you watch your favorite shows without limitations but also download them via torrent without having to worry about data leaks. 

Advanced Security Features

There is a lot that Ivacy offers which may others don’t. It provides Split Tunneling and an Internet Kill switch that kills the internet when The VPN stops. The service has multiple logins which means that one account can be used to protect up to 5 devices. Ivacy also has protection for less known protocols like IPv6. 

Other similar features include DDoS protection, secure downloading, a variety of encryption protocols and a lot more. It is a comprehensive protection pack that is a must-have for most. Ivacy applications are available for every major platform including Windows, Mac, Android, iOS even Xbox and PS4. No matter what gadget you have, Ivacy protects it from cybercriminals. 

Affordable Pricing 

Ivacy has one of the most affordable bundles among all the top tier services. The pricing starts at $9.95 per month but as the duration of the package increases, prices drop and savings grow. The most widely bought package with Ivacy costs just $1.99 per month and runs over a period of two years. There is also a single year bundle that costs $3.33 per month. These amounts are billed as one transaction is advance.  

Conclusion

VPNs are becoming a crucial part of cybersecurity infrastructure for households and smaller companies. The only thing to be careful about is selecting the right service for the job. Without careful evaluation, even with a VPN you will experience the same threat levels or even more. 

British Police: Most Hackers Are Teenagers

Most hackers by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) are monitored his teens. That leaves Jamie Saunders, head of the cyber crime unit of the NCA, compared with Channel 5 News know. According to Saunders monitors the NCA a few thousand hackers.

Although the majority teens, their parents often do not know what they're up and the young people themselves not by what they are doing is illegal, according to Saunders. "We are talking about hundreds, a few thousand people we have identified and engaged in this type of crime." According to Saunders internet is still a very new field and there in society have no understanding of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, as it does for all other crimes.

Trend Micro: Only Arrests Can Stop Cyber Crime

Only arrests can really put an end to cyber crime, according to anti-virus firm Trend Micro in response to recent occurrence of various police forces against the Dridex botnet. The FBI, the British National Crime Agency (NCA) and Europol were able to disable several servers of the botnet.

The botnet was used by criminals to steal money from online bank accounts. Despite the occurrence Dridex is still active. "It was developed as a botnet as a service (BaaS). It consists of several botnets each having different configuration files," says Michael Marcos. Although Dridex is affected by the operation of law enforcement agencies were not all servers off.

It was also arrested only one member of the gang Dridex, a system administrator. The other members are still on the run and continued their activities. According to Trend Micro disrupt such operations cyber criminal activities in the short term, but long-term success is not always guaranteed. "They ensure that the least effective threats are removed and cyber criminals can learn from their mistakes. Arrests are therefore required to really put an end to cyber crime," said the virus fighter.

FBI Denies Payment Advice To Ransomware Victims

The FBI provides victims of ransomware no advice to pay the demanded ransom, as has informed the American investigative know. Last week, an FBI agent in the news which said that paying the FBI ransomware victims regularly advises.

"Ransomware is so good," said FBI agent Joseph Bonavolonta. "To be honest, we often advise people to pay the ransom."A spokesman for the FBI late to anti-virus firm Sophos know that the investigative makes no recommendations to companies. However, the FBI puts the opportunities to affected companies. "It is up to the companies to decide what is the best solution for them. That is whether to restore backups, access a security professional or pay."

It also asked whether victims have to pay or not. In this case pointed to a website that recommends not to pay. According to Paul Ducklin of Sophos, people and enforcement agencies simply talk if it is not about their data. He also states that pay quite okay, but that appearance is preferred.

Ransomware Threatens With Publishing Encrypted Data

In Germany, new ransomware surfaced that not only encrypts files, but the system locks and threatens private data, to publish photos and videos on the Web. Chimera as the ransomware is called, focuses on companies.

Via so-called vacancies, job applications, contracts and applications are businesses approached. In the e-mails reference is made to a file on Dropbox for further information. This file is the ransomware which kinds of files on the computer encrypts. Furthermore Chimera searches for files on network drives to encrypt. The system then also be locked and a message appears with instructions.

The instructions let victims know that they have to pay almost 2.5 bitcoin, what with the current exchange rate is about 635 euros. The report furthermore states that if there is no paid personal data, photos and videos will appear with the victim's name on the Internet. Traditional ransomware encrypts files often alone. Threatening to steal and publishing of data is therefore not new. Chimera or eventually the data put online as claimed is unknown, said Botfrei.

FBI Recommends Ransomware Victims To Pay

The FBI regularly advises victims of ransomware to pay the ransom so that they recover their files. Ransomware is still a major problem in the United States. In June, let the FBI know that between April 2014 and June this year had received 992 complaints about the CryptoWall-ransomware. Victims should by the malware 18 million dollars have been lost.

Victims of ransomware are advised to contact the FBI, but the US detection can often advise his little else to pay if companies want their data. "Ransomware is so good," said FBI agent Joseph Bonavolonta. "To be honest, we often advise people to pay the ransom." That left Bonavolonta during Cyber ​​Security Summit 2015 in Boston know, reports The Security Ledger.

"The easiest way is to pay the ransom," as the FBI agent added. According Bonavolonta are attempts by the FBI and others to crack the encryption of the ransomware not been successful. "The amount of money that these criminals get inside is huge and that's because the vast majority of institutions pay the ransom." Earlier this year, also left the British anti-virus firm Sophos know that paying ransomware in some cases the only solution is.

A recommendation which earlier also by the Computer Emergency Readiness Team of the US Government (US-CERT) was given.

Interpol And Europol Launch Task Force Against Cyber Crime

Interpol and Europol will together launch a task force to improve the international fight against cyber crime and where law enforcement agencies from other countries can join. There will also be an alliance against abuse of digital currency to be set up by criminals.

These are two of the results of the Europol INTERPOL Cyber Crime Conference, which took place last week in The Hague.The Joint Cooperation & Compatibility Cyber Crime Taskforce Europol and Interpol will create a compatibility list to harmonize the different legal systems and codes for data requests. This should improve cooperation between different law enforcement agencies.

There will also be an alliance against abuse of digital currency for criminal transactions and money laundering. Particular attention was focused on policy, boosting operational cooperation and developing and providing training to combat the criminal use of digital currency. For example, law enforcement agencies empowered to detect digital currency of criminals, seize and confiscate.

Trainee Security Company FireEye Developed Malware

A trainee of the American security company FireEye has developed malware that cyber criminals Android phones infected and could control completely. It is a 20-year-old American who was arrested in July as part of an operation against the Darkode forum.

This was a great forum for cyber criminals. The American was active in this forum and sold here, along with a Dutch accomplice, his Dendroid malware. Facing a US judge the man known to be guilty and made his apologies to the victims of his malware. He also said that he would use his skills in the future to protect computer users. FireEye security company had already announced in July that the trainee was sued by the authorities.

The Dendroid malware was offered at a cost of $ 300. Once active on a machine could steal the malware files and text messages, take pictures, surf the history readout and record conversations without casualties this had passed. The American was in his own words over a year working on the development of the malware. If convicted, the men could be imprisoned up to 10 years and a fine of $ 250,000, so inform the AP and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The judge will rule on December 2.

Credit Card Details 93 000 Customers Web.com Stolen

Domain registrar and hosting company Web.com has 93 000 customers warned that their credit card information, name and address details are stolen in a recent attack. On August 13, discovered the company, which has 3.3 million customers, an intrusion on one of the computer systems.

Web.com states in the announcement of the intrusion that the credit card information of 93 000 clients, "possibly" stolen. In the FAQ, however, with further explanation let the company know that the credit card data has actually been stolen.Affected customers will be notified by mail. In addition, a year of free credit monitoring are offered. Also, different credit card processors would be informed now. How the attackers could strike late Web.com not know. "Despite our efforts is not a company immune from cyber crime," said a response from the company.

IPhone Users Target Fraudulent Crash Message

Owners of an iPhone are still the target of popups fraudulent crash reports and scammers have already moved their operations to the UK. The last few months, especially American iOS users got to see the message on their device.

Meanwhile, there are also reports that British users see the messages, so let the Daily Mail know. The pop-ups using JavaScript, so it is impossible to close the browser in the normal way. According to the report in the pop-up iOS crashed and should be contacted directly with the "support staff." The telephone number of scammers who argue that there needs to be paid to fix it. It is a sum of 43 euros to British victims must deal and 73 euro prompted to Americans.

In addition, the scammers ask for the credit card information of their victims. On the Apple forum in recent months dozens of topics and responses to find people who report to you got . Users who have to deal with the pop-up to close Safari by tapping twice on the home button and then clear the browser history, as Apple on this page explains. What kind of websites users come into contact with the pop-ups is unknown.

Trainee Security Company FireEye Suspected Of Cyber Crime

A trainee of the American security company FireEye is suspected by the US government to develop and distribute Android malware. The 20-year-old man Dendroid the malware could have developed. With this malware, it is possible to infect Android devices and to control remotely. According to the indictment , the trainee would Dendroid-malware offered by the Darkode Forum, yesterday by the FBI offline was extracted.

The man is studying at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and was twice an intern at FireEye. There he was engaged in researching Android malware. In a statement to CNN FireEye confirms that the trainee is indeed indicted by US authorities and that his training has been discontinued for the time being. There is now an investigation into the activities of the man's place. According to CNN, there are concerns that the intern has compromised software FireEye and has the knowledge and tools of the company used to commit cyber crime.

Anti-virus firms Symantec and Trend Micro warned in the past for the Dendroid malware, which attackers full access to can get an Android device. Then data from the device can be stolen and it is possible to listen in on calls and take pictures.Dendroid was for a sum of $ 300 on forums offered for cyber criminals.

Finnish Teenager Convicted Of Computer Crimes

A 17-year-old Finnish teenager was sentenced in Finland to a suspended sentence of two years for a large number of computer crimes. The boy needs help "combating cyber crime," notes the website Daily Dot according to reports in the Finnish media .

The Finn was convicted based on 50,700 counts of computer crime. It was to include data breaches, credit card fraud, money laundering, fraud and violating commercial secrets and other matters. He placed with stolen credit cards at various retailers orders. In one case, he happened to wine from Ireland. The Finland Times reports that the teenager also the e-mail traffic of 15,000 users of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) intercepted and network traffic of the university sent to another server.

The teenager was also part of the Lizard Squad have been. The group was last year responsible for DDoS attacks on the networks of Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. The Finnish teenager was also interviewed by the British television channel Sky News for the DDoS attacks. Were the attacks on the networks of Microsoft and Sony hacked thousands of home routers are used.

Macro-Malware Steals Thousands Of Documents From Companies

From late February to mid-March, assailants carried out a campaign macro malware was used to steal passwords and documents thousands of businesses. The attack began with an e-mail contained a Word document. In the document were hidden macros that, when activated by the receiver, malware installed.

Via this malware were then the credentials of workers and business documents stolen. According to anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab , the attackers managed to steal a total of 10,000 documents of companies, mainly from Thailand and India, although Belgian companies were targeted. In addition, also found thousands of stolen credentials, coming from hundreds of infected computers. By looking at the stolen credentials, according to the virus fighter very clear that workers malware statements sent to each other, since the host names and internal applications were the same.

Criminals Steal 460,000 Euros Via E-mail Hack

A British family that sold a house in London and thought to be 460,000 euros richer, has been the victim of an email in which criminals hack the money left over to make their statement. Two days before the home sales mailed the lawyer's family asking for account information.

The homeowner mailed his account details and bank code number back. According to the Daily Telegraph knew criminals to intercept e-mail and sent from the same email account, a new message. It claimed to ignore the previously sent invoice data and make the money to another account. After the sale was the lawyer 460,000 euros to that account. A few days later the property owner contact the lawyer, after the fraud came to light and the police were called and banking.

The account of the crooks was frozen, leaving a small 375,000 euros could be secured. 85,000 euro, however, was already included. According to several law firms there is a trend in which law firms are the target of all kinds of scams. Rob Hailstone of the Bold Legal Group, representing 350 law firms, states that financial information should never be sent via unsecured e-mail.

Both attorneys and clients confidential matters would have to send encrypted as well. In addition, consumers are advised to use a strong password for their email account. The homeowner served both at the law firm and the bank in a complaint. A supervisor argued that the law is indeed responsible. However, the bank denies all liability.

Beebone Malware: FBI Praises Cooperation With Dutch Cyber Cops

The FBI is proud to work with the High Tech Crime Team (THTC) of the Dutch police that this week along a botnet pulled off the air. It was a joint operation of the THTC, the FBI, Europol and various security companies was against the malware, which in the press releases of the various investigative services Beebone or AAEH was mentioned.

However, the malware also known as Vobfus and Changeup, Symantec, so let know . It is a worm that first appeared in 2009 and spread through the Autorun feature of Windows. A year later, the worm used the LNK vulnerability allowing the Stuxnet worm spread knew. There were also social engineering used by Changeup.

Working of Beebone Malware

On infected USB drives and network folders worm placed a copy of itself with the names Porn.exe, Sexy.exe, Passwords.exe and Secret.exe and created the executable files with the names of all existing files. These files have a folder icon, so it seemed like it was a folder. Since Windows file extensions by default does not show users could thereby unintentionally activate the malware.

Additional malware

Changeup active once installed all sorts of malware, including malware that tried Internet banking data and passwords to steal, as well as fake virus scanners and ransomware, according to the FBI. The US investigation service went to court with a request to take up 100 domain names that use the botnet to communicate with infected computers. Something the judge gave permission. Then the investigative services were these domains to the servers of Internet providers and Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) of views on the world.

"Botnets as Beebone have made ​​all over the world victims, which shows why a joint approach to global investigative services with the private sector is so important. The FBI is proud to cooperate in the fight against botnets with our partners in the European Cybercrime Centre of Europol, the Joint Action Cybercrime Task Force (J-CAT) and the Dutch High Tech Crime Team, " said FBI Assistant Director Joseph Demarest.

Small Percentage Of Botnet Servers Hosted In Netherlands

Two years ago there was still controversy when McAfee reported that the Netherlands in the Top 3 countries stood with most botnet servers, but now the situation has changed, according to anti-virus firm Trend Micro. The virus fighter analyzed more than 3,000 servers for botnets in 2014 infected computers were aiming. It turned out that was hosted 2.6% of botnet servers in the Netherlands.

This puts the Netherlands in ninth place in the list of countries. Leader is the USA (21%), followed by the UK (9.5%) and India (6.1%). If there specifically looked at botnet servers used in targeted attacks coming Netherlands not even appear in the list.Trend Micro noted that the location of a botnet server says nothing about the country or the criminals behind the infection.

"Most botnet servers are not located in countries that are thought to shelters for his cybercrime panels. Instead, it is a reflection of the wider internet landscape where countries with an extensive infrastructure all kinds of servers hosting that are popular with cybercriminals," said the researchers

Spamhaus Sees Increase In Botnet Servers In 2014

The past year were more servers detected that were used by botnets to control infected computers, according to Spamhaus in a new survey published. According to the anti-spam organization comes as no surprise that there are more botnet activity was observed.

Most botnet servers are located at providers with undermanned abuse departments, inadequate abuse policy or who are not able to detect abuse on their network efficiently and fight. The areas used by cyber criminals for their botnet servers are mainly registered with registrars in countries with lax laws and enforcement against cyber crime.

Last year saw Spamhaus 7182 unique IP addresses when a botnet server was hosted. An increase of IP addresses 525 (7.88%) relative to 2013. In 48% of cases, however, it was a hacked web server. The botnet servers were hosted on different network in 1183. Most botnet servers were found in the French OVH, German and Dutch Hetzner Leaseweb. Spamhaus notes that this is just about the raw numbers and the numbers say nothing about how long a botnet server is active, or the provider responds quickly to takedown requests.

When it comes to registrars where cyber criminals domain names for their botnet server register the top 5 consists only of Russian and Chinese registrars. Furthermore, are also American registrars extended in the overview. Regarding the tld who choose the cyber criminals is most likely to domains ending in .com and .ru. Further from the survey shows that most botnet servers are used for controlling banking Trojans, Trojans that are designed to steal money from online bank accounts. 4565 servers (63.5%) were used for this type of malware.

"IP addresses are insufficient evidence against North Korea"

The evidence that the United States against North Korea when it comes to the hack of Sony is weak, says a security expert who analyzed the IP addresses used in the attack. Last week, the FBI said in an official statement that the Asian country was responsible for the intrusion on the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment, the theft of all data and sabotage of thousands of computers.

However, the FBI is careful in the words chosen, says security expert and blogger " krypt3ia ". He sees in the choice of words that the investigative unsure. Initially the attack was linked not to North Korea by the FBI, and is now said that the country is the culprit. "Something that makes people like me crazy," he notes. The expert therefore decided to look at the IP addresses used by the malware and introduced himself, the question of whether the resources are to be used or used only by North Korea.

IP Addresses

The IP addresses that the attackers used are from Thailand, Poland, Italy, Bolivia, Singapore, Cyprus and the United States.These include for which proxies and servers can be used by anyone. For one of the servers Krypt3ia found the credentials on a Chinese forum. The IP addresses appeared more frequently used for other cybercrime activities such as sending spam and controlling compromised computers.

"If all IP addresses are used by the US as evidence that North Korea has carried out this attack, I think the evidence is weak," said the expert. Most of these systems are in fact well-known compromised machines that are used for all kinds of cyber crime purposes. Also, many of these types of compromised servers are shared by attackers with each other.

North Korea has used such tactics in the past, according to the expert circumstantial evidence that is inadmissible in court.However, Obama announced that the US will take appropriate action against North Korea. The expert then also questions whether the US base their theoretical response on circumstantial evidence, which he makes reference to the so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Further, according to the expert whether there because of a break-in at a single entertainment company in Hollywood should be acted upon at the state level. "When I go to Twitter and the news I see is marketing hype and unjustified award ... and it will lead to our mutual destruction," concluded the blogger.