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Free Virus Removal Tool for download from Sophos

You know that feeling when you're pretty sure your Windows machine *might* be infected, but your anti-virus finds nothing?

Or worse, your anti-virus does detect malware, but the instructions to disinfect and rid your system of the malware are so complicated that you want to pull out your hair.

Well, Sophos has just released its Virus Removal Tool. Designed to be child's play to use, it detects and, more importantly, disinfects all those nasty viruses, spyware, rootkits and even fake anti-virus with its flagship industrial-strength anti-virus.

Best of all it is free, and for Naked Security readers, there are no details to enter before you can download and use it.

Actually, really best of all, there is no need to remove existing anti-virus that is already installed.

For the past year or so, the Virus Removal Tool has been used by some of Sophos's biggest customers to disinfect complicated malware that sneaked onto a poorly protected computer, but this is the first time Sophos has released this tool to the public at large.

Sophos has also provided a free support forum called Sophos FreeTalkwhere you can ask any questions about this and other free Sophos products.

The majority of our readers are pretty security conscious, and we know from experience that many of you are probably the IT guy or gal called upon to help family and friends sort out their computers when things go awry. Sophos hopes that this tool will make your lives a little bit easier.

Lastly, Sophos would love to hear your thoughts on its Virus Removal Tool. It sees this as a tool worth investing in, but the company wants to make sure it gets your thoughts first so it can prioritise any improvements accordingly.

Originally posted by Naked Security

The Shard - Dare devils breach security to ascend Europes tallest building

Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) Goes Viral!

Wow the CPNI is now very much public! I think this is a very brave move but I'm positive it will be a successful one. CPNI are already the public face of MI5 and a new series of YouTube videos have taking things a step further. 


What a fantastic idea, opening up their vast source of knowledge to the masses. Hopefully they will add some other resources for PhySec, PerSec and InfoSec to the channel. My head is spinning with ideas but being able to integrate their PerSec guidance into training modules (e-learning specifically) via a short video would be really useful!

There are currently 3 videos listed on the CPNI channel, they are 

Security Implications of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), Secure move to IP-based Networks (SCADA) and 20 Critical Security Controls for Cyber Defence 

ow).

One of the CPNI Channel Video's

About the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI): they provide integrated security advice (combining information security, personnel security and physical security) to organisations which make up the national infrastructure. Their advice helps to reduce the vulnerability of the national infrastructure (primarily the critical national infrastructure) to terrorism and other threats to national security.

Protective Security: Tackling The Issue of Metal Theft

A new Crimestoppers campaign has been launched to tackle metal theft. Opportunistic criminals are targeting the community by stealing metal from houses, businesses and public premises. You can help by reporting any crime you see.

Dangerous crime

This crime can also be extremely dangerous to you, your family and your community. Criminals will target children’s playgrounds, church and school roofs, telephone cabling and so on, with no regard for the potential consequences.

Among the things being stolen are:

• manhole covers
• cables used for 999 calls
• live electricity wiring

You can provide any information to Crimestoppers, no matter how small, 24 hours a day either by:

• phone: 0800 555 111 
• internet: Crimestoppers website

You have guaranteed anonymity and it won’t even show on your phone bill.

Crimestoppers is an independent, international charity providing a vital service to the public, enabling them to pass information in relation to crime anonymously in order to make the UK a safer place for all of us.

You can get more information, including a leaflet, at the following link:

• ‘Crush metal theft in your community’ (PDF 1.15 MB) – Department of Justice website

Figures show that in 2011 there were 669 recorded incidents of metal theft throughout Northern Ireland compared to 219 in 2007.

More useful links

• Crime prevention (crime, justice and the law section)
• Victims and witnesses of crime (crime, justice and the law section)
• The police (crime, justice and the law section)
• Crime prevention and community safety (property and housing section)
• Derelict buildings and squatters (property and housing section)

Chatback has previously reported on metal thefts

Fraud Women's Network - 'From Fagin to Phishing'

Last Thursday I attended the 6th Annual Event and 5 year Celebration of  the Fraud Women’s Network (FWN). The event was called “From Fagin to Phishing” 200 Years of Organised Crime with presentations from Colin Woodcock MBE – SOCA and David Chernick - MD at TREACL Ltd, and Chair of PREFIT. Both presentations were very good and took us on a professional and personal journey of how organised crime changed through the ages? Or had it? How have organisations tackled and mitigated these changes? Have they? How has it evolved and shaped the way we tackle crime and look at fraudsters today?

But the real reason in coming together was to celebrate the FWN's 5th year anniversary, present the Stella Walsh Award and have a truly wonderful network evening where the women definitely outnumbered the men and I was one of the lucky few to be invited.

Now, some of the older, crustier and less tolerant men out there may just see this organisation as a bunch of raving feminists coming together to right all the wrongs in the world created by men. They couldn't be more wrong.  The FWN's strap line isn't we hate men, far from it. Chair, Toni Sless was recorded saying the complete opposite, but it is important to recognise there are notable differences and challenges that women face everyday. I spoke to a number of women who attended the event to ask what they get out of it and what are some of the challenges they actually face and it was all too clear that there is a distinct lack of women in senior positions within the fraud prevention and detection arena.

So what's this Fraud Women's Network actually all about then. Well any woman who works in the anti-fraud arena will know that it can sometimes be a rather male environment and lack true support and mentoring. The Fraud Women’s Network has therefore been set up to bring together women involved in all aspects of fraud prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution, to network and to share best practice, information and experience in order to help tackle the threat from fraud and organised crime head on. They aim to provide women in the anti-fraud business with:

• Networking opportunities. Our regular networking events provide an invaluable way of establishing and cementing contacts across the whole anti-fraud arena, sharing information and ideas (they also enjoy the social aspect and are good at it)
• Access to a wide-ranging education programme about the latest trends and developments in fraud and organised crime, and the newest tools to help prevent, detect and investigate fraud; 
• Mentoring opportunities. Many of the members of the Fraud Women's Network are senior within their organisations and have a great deal of knowledge, experience and advice that they can impart, as well as encouraging junior women to progress in their careers; 
• Access to the members and activities of the regional Fraud Forums, all part of the National Federation of Fraud Forums.

For all enquiries about the Network: info@fraudwomensnetwork.com or Click here: for the Fraud Women's Network website 

The winners of the Stella Walsh Award 2012 were:

• Pat Turner, Manager, Virgin Media – Long Term Commitment to Preventing Fraud.
• Jenny Playford DC, City of London Police – Outstanding Fraud Investigation

Congratulations to both, very well deserved and fascinating accounts of the work they completed.

Personally, I can see real and genuine value in this network and completely support its board, membership and objectives. Do share the above website with any women who may not be in the Network, I know they'd be welcome. I was delighted to be invited by the Chair and even more surprised and honoured to receive a mention within her introductory speech. A Big well done, congratulations and Happy Birthday to the Fraud Women's Network, keep up the good work and keep in touch.    

Yet Another Scam Email!

It must be that time of year again! My spam folder seems to be full of these scamsters!

Email sent via hassanmohamedlaw@yahoo.com

Security: A Visit To The Olympic Park

The Olympic and Paralympic Games is going to be a fantastic event for the UK and with only 126 days to go the final preparations are taking place!


I was lucky enough to have a tour of the Olympic Park today and I have to say things are looking great. Security really is top notch (and so it should be for nearly £1bn), well done to the security team on-site they are doing a great job!

Keeping Terrorism in Perspective via Stratfor

Original Source Stratfor

By Scott Stewart

As we conclude our series on the fundamentals of terrorism, it is only fitting that we do so with a discussion of the importance of keeping terrorism in perspective.

By design, terrorist attacks are intended to have a psychological impact far outweighing the physical damage the attack causes. As their name suggests, they are meant to cause terror that amplifies the actual attack. A target population responding to a terrorist attack with panic and hysteria allows the perpetrators to obtain a maximum return on their physical effort. Certainly, al Qaeda reaped such a maximum return from the Sept. 11 attacks, which totally altered the foreign policy and domestic security policies of the world's only superpower and resulted in the invasion of Afghanistan and military operations across the globe. Al Qaeda also maximized its return from the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings, which occurred three days before the 2004 Spanish general elections that ousted the ruling party from power.

One way to mitigate the psychological impact of terrorism is to remove the mystique and hype associated with it. The first step in this demystification is recognizing that terrorism is a tactic used by a variety of actors and that it will not go away, something we discussed at length in our first analysis in this series. Terrorism and, more broadly, violence are and will remain part of the human condition. The Chinese, for example, did not build the Great Wall to attract tourists, but to keep out marauding hordes. Fortunately, today's terrorists are far less dangerous to society than the Mongols were to Ming China.

Another way to mitigate the impact of terrorism is recognizing that those who conduct terrorist attacks are not some kind of Hollywood superninja commandos who can conjure attacks out of thin air. Terrorist attacks follow a discernable, predictable planning process that can be detected if it is looked for. Indeed, by practicing relaxed, sustainable situational awareness, people can help protect themselves from terrorist attacks. When people practice situational awareness collectively, they also can help protect their communities from such attacks.

A third important component in the demystification process is recognizing and resisting the terror magnifiers terrorist planners use in their efforts to maximize the impact of their attacks. Terrorist attacks will cause tragedy and suffering, but the targeted population can separate terror from terrorism, and minimize the impact of such attacks if they maintain the proper perspective.

Propaganda of the Deed

As we begin our examination of perspective and terror magnifiers, let's first examine the objective of terrorist planners.

Nineteenth-century anarchists promoted what they called the "propaganda of the deed," or using violence as a symbolic action to make a larger point, such as inspiring the masses to undertake revolutionary action. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, modern terrorist organizations began to conduct operations designed to serve as terrorist theater, an undertaking greatly aided by the advent and spread of broadcast media. Some examples of early attacks specifically intended as made-for-television events include the September 1972 kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the December 1975 raid on OPEC headquarters in Vienna. Aircraft hijackings quickly followed suit, and were transformed from relatively brief endeavors to long, drawn-out and dramatic media events often spanning multiple continents. The image of TWA Flight 847 captain John Testrake in the window of his cockpit with a Hezbollah gunman behind him became an iconic image of the 1980s, embodying this trend.

Today, the proliferation of 24-hour television news networks and Internet news sites magnifies such media exposure. This increased exposure not only allows people to be informed minute-by-minute about unfolding events, it also permits them to become secondary, vicarious victims of the unfolding violence. The increased exposure ensures that the audience impacted by the propaganda of the deed becomes far larger than just those in the immediate vicinity of a terrorist attack. On Sept. 11, 2001, millions of people in the United States and around the world watched live as the second aircraft struck the south tower of the World Trade Center, people leapt to their deaths to escape the raging fires and the towers collapsed. Watching this sequence of events in real time profoundly impacted many people. Its effect was far greater than if people have merely read about the attacks in newspapers.

In the wake of 9/11, a wave of terror swept the globe as people worldwide became certain that more such spectacular attacks were inevitable. The November 2008 Mumbai attacks had a similar, albeit smaller, impact. People across India were fearful of being attacked by teams of Lashkar-e-Taiba gunmen, and concern spread around the world about Mumbai-style terrorism.

Terror Magnifiers

Such theatrical attacks exert a strange hold over the human imagination. The sense of terror they create can dwarf the reaction to natural disasters many times greater in magnitude. For example, more than 227,000 people died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami compared to fewer than 3,000 people on 9/11. Yet the 9/11 attacks spawned a global sense of terror and a geopolitical reaction that had a profound and unparalleled impact upon world events over the past decade.

As noted, the media magnifies this anxiety and terror. Television news, whether broadcast on the airwaves or over the Internet, allows people to experience a terrorist event remotely and vicariously, and the print media reinforces this. While part of this magnification results merely from the nature of television as a medium and the 24-hour news cycle, bad reporting and misunderstanding can build hype and terror.

For example, a Mexican drug cartel on March 19 detonated a small explosive device in a vehicle in Ciudad Victoria. In the wake of this minor attack, the Mexican and U.S. media breathlessly reported that cartels had begun using "car bombs." Journalists on both sides of the border failed to appreciate the significant tactical and operational differences between a small bomb placed in a car and the far larger and more deadly vehicle-borne explosive device, a true car bomb. The Colombian Medellin cartel employed car bombs in Bogota; it is quite significant that the cartels in Mexico have not yet done so despite possessing the necessary capabilities.

The traditional news media are not alone in the role of terror magnifier. The Internet has become an increasingly effective conduit for panic and alarm. From hysterical (and false) claims in 2005 that al Qaeda had pre-positioned nuclear weapons in the United States and was preparing to attack nine U.S. cities and kill 4 million Americans in operation "American Hiroshima" to 2010 claims that Mexican drug cartels were smuggling nuclear weapons into the United States for Osama bin Laden, a great deal of fearmongering can spread rapidly over the Internet.

Website operators who earn advertising revenue based on the number of unique site visitors have an obvious financial incentive to publish outlandish and startling terrorism stories. The Internet also has produced a wide array of other startling claims, including oft-recycled e-mail chains such as the one stating that an Israeli counter-terrorism expert has predicted al Qaeda will attack six, seven or eight U.S. cities simultaneously "within the next 90 days." This e-mail first circulated in 2005, and periodically has reappeared since then. Although it is an old, false prediction, it still creates fear every time it circulates.

Live tweets from attack sites, cell phone calls from people trapped by terrorist attacks to news outlets and the proliferation of cellphone videos on outlets like YouTube also have helped increase the vicarious-victim aspect of terror attacks. In some locations, state media will attempt to suppress media coverage, but these alternate media sources still get the news out to the wider world.

Sometimes even governments act as terror magnifiers. Certainly, in the early 2000s the media and the American public became fearful every time the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raised its color-coded threat level. Politicians' statements also can scare people. Such was the case in 2007 when DHS secretary Michael Chertoff said his gut screamed that a major terrorist attack was imminent and in 2010 when the head of French internal intelligence noted that the threat of terrorism in France was never higher.

These warnings produce widespread public concern. A number of reasons exist for providing such warnings, from trying to pre-empt a terrorist attack when there is incomplete intelligence to a genuine concern for the safety of citizens in the face of a known threat to less altruistic motives such as political gain or bureaucratic maneuvering (when an agency wants to protect itself from blame in case there is an attack, for example). As seen by the public reaction to the many warnings in the wake of 9/11, including recommendations that citizens purchase plastic sheeting and duct tape to protect themselves from chemical and biological attack, such warnings can produce immediate panic, although, over time, as threats and warnings prove to be unfounded, this panic can turn into alert fatigue. This fatigue resulted in the DHS scrapping their color-coded alert system in 2011.

Those seeking to terrorize can and do use these magnifiers to produce terror without having to go to the trouble of conducting attacks. The empty threats bin Laden and his inner circle issued about preparing an attack larger than 9/11 -- threats propagated by the Internet, picked up by the media and then reacted to by governments -- are prime historical examples of this.

Stepping Back from the Spectacle

Groups such as al Qaeda clearly recognize the difference between terrorist attacks and terror. This is seen not only in the use of empty threats to sow terror but also in the way terrorist groups claim success for failed attacks. For example, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) declared the failed Christmas Day 2009 "underwear" bombing a success due to the effect it had on air travel. In a special edition of Inspire magazine published in November 2010 following the failed attack against cargo aircraft using IEDs hidden in printer cartridges, AQAP trumpeted the operation as a success, citing the fear, disruption and expense that resulted. AQAP claimed the cargo bomb plot and the Christmas Day plot were part of what it called "Operation Hemorrhage," an effort to cause economic damage and fear, not necessarily to kill large numbers of people.

As noted above, practitioners of terrorism lose a great deal of their ability to create terror if the people they are trying to terrorize place terrorism in perspective. Terrorist attacks are going to continue to happen because there are a wide variety of militant groups and individuals willing to use violence to influence either their own or another country's government.

Terrorist attacks are relatively easy to conduct, especially if the assailant is not concerned about escaping after the attack. As AQAP has noted in its Inspire magazine, a determined person can conduct attacks using a variety of simple weapons, such as a knife, axe or gun. And while the authorities in the United States and elsewhere have proved quite successful in foiling attacks over the past few years, any number of vulnerable targets exists in the open societies of the West. Western governments simply do not have the resources to protect everything; not even authoritarian police states can protect everything. This means that some terrorist attacks invariably will succeed. How the media, governments and populations respond to those successful strikes will shape the way the attackers gauge their success. Obviously, the response to 9/11 meant the attackers probably were far more successful than they could have hoped. The London bombings on July 7, 2005, after which the British public went to work as usual the next day, were seen as less successful.

The world is a dangerous place. Everyone is going to die, and some people are certain to die in a manner that is brutal or painful. Recognizing that terrorist attacks, like car crashes and cancer and natural disasters, are part of the human condition permits people to take prudent, measured actions to prepare for such contingencies and avoid becoming victims (vicarious or otherwise). It is the resilience of the population and their perseverance that determine how much a terrorist attack is allowed to terrorize. By separating terror from terrorism, citizens can deny the practitioners of terror the ability to magnify their reach and power.

Read more of Stratfor's excellent series on the fundamentals of terrorism below:

Click here for The Myth of the End of Terrorism.

Click here for Detection Points in the Terrorist Attack Cycle.

Click here for Detecting Terrorist Surveillance.

Click here for A Practical Guide to Situational Awareness.

Click here for Jihadism in 2012: A Persistent, Low-Level Threat.

Read more: Keeping Terrorism in Perspective | Stratfor