Hacker Safety Seal is All Deceptive

As per reports, around 80,000 Websites globally bear a green color display that claims them to be sage from hacking. The display is given by ScanAlert, a firm engaged in daily scanning of Websites of its clients to track any security flaws.

In January 2008, ScanAlert was kept on defensive side after Geeks.com, a site that still holds the display of McAfee's ScanAlert certifying that it is safe from hackers, sent a letter to the users informing them that their site was hacked in December 2007.

As per the data posted on The Consumerist by Jerry L. Harken, the Genica's Security Chief, the customer information, which includes Visa credit card information, may have been pilfered of an unrevealed number of customers of Geeks.com.

The post also informs that the earlier proofs inform that the hacking took place in one of several periods in 2007, ScanAlert withheld its logo from Geeks.com following detection of flaws in the site.

But the situation at Geeks.com has raised a debate on the importance of security confirmation like Hacker Safe logo. ScanAlert also remarked that the service of scanning can solve some online security problems and the logo is an important tool for marketing.

On the contrary, the detractors at ScanAlert claimed that the service only give a fake assurance of security to the companies. However, the attackers have accepted to compromise systems containing this logo.

David Kennedy, Head of SecureState, profiling and e-discovery practice of LLC, said that the logo of hacker safe is completely ridiculous, as reported by PCWorld on March 11, 2008.

David also said that the spontaneous probes of ScanAlert give very general information about vulnerability in identification. They pay attention on spotting vulnerabilities in network system in place of identifying hard Web application loopholes like cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and SQL injection.

David also said that Web apps are consistently evolving and always changing. On the other hand, vulnerability scans depends on static data to recognize security issues.

A famous Computerworld columnist and President of Minnesota Privacy Consultants, Jay Cline, said that accessing the logo of Hacker Safe does not ensure completely that hackers will never compromise a site, as reported by PCWorld on March 11, 2008.

Related article: Hacker & Virus in MySpace

» SPAMfighter News - 3/20/2008