Infosecurity News
DARPA says goodbye to hacker-friendly Cyber Fast Track program
The Department of Defense is pulling the plug on Cyber Fast Track, a program aimed at tapping reformed hackers and other security hotshots to solve cyber-defense problems quickly.
Android malware blossoms as PC attacks fade
If there were any doubt that Android malware is becoming an epidemic, look no further than a study showing that the number of new malware programs for the mobile operating system has increased five-fold since the first half of 2012. PC threats, meanwhile, are waning.
RSA 2013: White Hats Need to Play a More Intelligent Game
The information security community must stop giving away the roadmap to its defense, said Art Gilliland, HP, at the RSA conference in San Francisco, February 28 2013.
Phase 3 of the Op Ababil DDoS attacks on US banks commences
al-Qassam Cyber Fighters announced the resumption on Tuesday. By Wednesday, customers of PNC Bank, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America and a number of other major banks were reporting difficulties to the sitedown.co website.
Raspberry Pi got DDoS’d
Starting late on Tuesday the Raspberry Pi Foundation was taken down by a massive SYN flood attack. The Foundation is behind the credit card-sized Raspberry Pi computer, originally designed to promote the teaching of computer basics in schools.
New botnet found in Latin America
A new botnet, AlbaBotnet, has been discovered in Latin America. It appears to be still in development and has not yet been used in anger. Currently it is designed to target two specific banks in Chile.
Oracle patches two Java zero-day exploits
Oracle has released an out-of-cycle emergency patch for Java to address two zero-day vulnerabilities, including a recently reported issue that allows hackers to download the McRAT remote access trojan. This is the fifth Java update so far in 2013.
Samsung Android devices vulnerable to lockscreen bypass
Hard on the heels of Apple iPhone lock screen bypass woes, it turns out that Samsung devices running Android version 4.1.2 have a similar bug, which allows someone to get around the screen lock.
Trolling – academics look at an online sub-culture that verges on bullying
A new study by Nottingham Trent University suggests that nearly 60% of online gamers have at some stage indulged in activity described by the university as ‘intentionally provoking or antagonizing users in an online environment’ – that is, trolling.
New survey suggests face-to-face is more important than technology for bank customers
A YouGov survey of more than 6500 people in France (1010), Germany (1053), Hong Kong (518), Spain (1006), the USA (1000) and the UK (2060) suggests that bank customers favor access to a local branch above technology such as mobile banking and social network banking.
Stuxnet has been attacking Iran since 2005
The Stuxnet malware used to take Iran's nuclear program offline in 2009/2010 is actually two years older than previously thought.
YAJ0 – yet another Java zero-day
Researchers have discovered yet another Java zero-day vulnerability being successfully exploited in the wild against browsers that have Java v1.6 Update 41 and Java v1.7 Update 15 installed.
Additional research also points the finger at China
A new paper presented at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week adds further evidence to the growing belief that China is the source of a large amount of APT cyber espionage against the West.
ISF Threat Horizon 2015 Report: The findings
But one new and emerging threat for business is reputation – cyber breaches don’t merely lose data, the associated loss of reputation reduces corporate share value.
Par:AnoIA leaks 14 GB of data from Bank of America
Par:AnoIA (Potentially Alarming Research from the Anonymous Intelligence Agency) has released 14 GB of data that it claims was lifted from the Bank of America.
Android spambot, blended threats top mobile spam threats in 2013
Mobile users are increasingly likely to be spammed. New research has revealed there were more than 350,000 unique unsolicited mobile spam variants in 2012, with the highest churn rate in December with more than 53,000 unique variants alone.
RSA 2013: CSA provides legal resources for cloud computing; issues list of top threats
The Cloud Security Alliance has announced several initiatives at this week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco that range from privacy issues, legal information, and major threats relevant to the cloud security landscape.
New emergency bug fixes for Adobe Flash
Adobe has released a new emergency out-of-band patch for Flash – the third Flash update this month and the fourth this year – fixing two vulnerabilities currently being exploited against Firefox, and a third vulnerability that could potentially be exploited.
RSA 2013: The grey area of active defense – live manipulation of Kelihos
A live demonstration of active defense at RSA this week highlights the current debate on just how active (for which read ‘offensive’) companies can be in defending their networks. Laws to prevent hacking may also protect the hackers.
RSA 2013: Interview with security evangelist Stephen Cobb
Infosecurity Editor, Eleanor Dallaway, spent a fascinating 45 minutes picking the brain of ESET security evangelist, Stephen Cobb at RSA in San Francisco.
