Infosecurity News
DarkComet RAT, used by Syrian regime to spy on activists, shut down
The website of the DarkComet remote administration tool (RAT), which was used to spy on opposition groups by the Syrian regime, has closed down permanently.
Evolve or perish: Chinese professor develops evolutionary cryptography
A professor in China has developed a new cryptosystem, called evolutionary cryptography, that draws on evolution theory in biology to construct more secure encryption.
Venture capital group pumps $22.4 million into SIEM provider AlienVault
AlienVault, a San Mateo, Calif.-based security information and event management (SIEM) provider, has received $22.4 million in funding from a venture capital group led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Sigma.
High tech car thief jailed
The high tech theft of motor vehicles is likely to rise as their computer content increases. In an early case, Alan Watkins was last week jailed for car theft that involved hacking, GPS tracking and motor car identity theft.
Printer Bomb infects through .htaccess redirection web attack
Symantec researchers have determined that the Milicenso trojan (also known as the Printer Bomb) is downloaded by an .htaccess redirection web attack that has infected at least 4,000 websites.
Most security professionals predict breaches will increase this year
A disturbing 93% of IT security professionals believe that data breaches will increase this year, according to nCircle’s 2012 Information Security and Compliance Trend study.
Assume everyone is infected, EU agency advises banks
The EU’s cybersecurity agency is recommending that banks should assume that all customers’ PCs are infected and institute security measures based on that assumption.
How to get a Google Reward – go public
A loophole in Google Apps was remarkably simple, found by Indian blogger Saket Jajodia, and reported to and rapidly closed by Google. But getting recognition for the discovery was less easy.
Fog Computing; or catching the insider the DARPA way
The insider threat is generally acknowledged to be a serious threat to data security. For companies it can lead to the loss of IP; for governments, the loss of state secrets. Fog Computing is a new approach to detecting and preventing that threat.
Android Malware Samples Predicted at 250,000 for 2012
Trend Micro has provided details on the Android threat: the volume of malware; the types of malware; specific families and what they do.
New variant of the police scareware virus emerges
The police virus continues to evolve, from scareware to ransomware – and a new version that can be described as very scary ware.
Protecting US secrets costs taxpayers big bucks
The cost to protect US government secrets reached more than $11 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2011, up 12% from FY 2010 and more than double the cost in FY 2001, according to a report by the National Archives.
Defense organizations to ramp up cybersecurity spending
Global defense organizations are expected to increase their cybersecurity budgets by an average of 6% over the next 12 months, according to a report by ICD Research and Strategic Defence Intelligence.
Indian Navy secrets stolen and sent to China
Computers in India’s primary eastern seafront naval establishment at Visakhapatnam were reportedly infected with spyware that sent classified information to IP addresses in China.
Big Data can cause big headaches for infosec professionals
Along with the benefits that can be gained from Big Data come attendant security risks, notes Savvis' Ed Moyle.
Windows 8 has larger attack surface than Windows 7, researcher warns
The attack surface in Windows 8 is bigger than in Windows 7 because of new components and changed processes, especially with the Metro interface, warns a McAfee researcher.
Win32/Gataka: a new banking trojan readies itself
As if there aren't already enough banking trojans to worry about, with SpyEye and Zeus, Carberp and OddJob, ESET is now warning that Gataka (aka Tatanga) – another man-in-the-browser trojan – appears ready for take-off.
Atomic clocks and earth rotation cause major outages
Several major systems reported outages this weekend. Some, such as Pinterest, Netflix and Instagram, were caused when lightning took out Amazon’s servers in Virgina. Others were caused by the more mundane and predictable Leap Second.
Baby Boomers more savvy about computer security that digital natives
Despite growing up in the computer age, Gen Y is less savvy about computer security than the Baby Boom generation, according to a survey by Check Point.
US, Canada agree to crossborder privacy principles
The US and Canada released a 12-point statement on privacy principles on Thursday, which provides common rules for crossborder sharing of personal information.
