News. BBC web site reports recent EU data on spread of viruses on computers and smartphones. Italy is at the fourth place in the list of most hitten countries. The 2010 figures, released by the EU's statistics office to mark Internet Safety Day, show the safest countries were Austria and Ireland. The figures also detail financial losses online.  They show that 3% of net users in the 27 EU states lost money due to phishing attacks or fraudulent payments.  The survey covered more than 200,000 computer users across the 27 countries in the European Union and was conducted during the second quarter of 2010.

(source: bbc.co.ouk) 

Also smartphones are attacked. This because of their diffusion. The first conclusion that comes to our minds, is that there is the need for a more ample and deep awareness programme. Some of the most frequent weaknesses are: antivirus software and antimalware not timely updated; access to not “recommended”  web sites (“XXX”, unknown sites,  etc.); etc. The worst thing is that, in spite of all wornings by the banks and consumer associations, the average user still do not recognize a phishing attack and gives his/her credentials to the criminals. Our “anti phishing attacks observatory” is collecting what is being done in other countries (UK, France, Germany, France, Austria, etc.) and will send a report to our members  

RFID cards under attack. 

Our observatory recommends software developers to be aware of virus injection through RFID cards created by hackers.The damage is made possible due to weaknesses in programming style followed by some programmers.The RFID bogus responds to the read action by giving back a programming language recognizable instruction that will make a damage (e.g.: stopping a database) or open a door to a virus or trojan.  

Business Continuity: the scope. 

  The last issue of the Business Continuity Magazine (www.thebci.org) contains an interesting article on errors done when establishing the scope of the Business Continuity Management System (BCMS).