Infosecurity News
War of the Trojans: 'Alien' Invasion Spreads Third-Party Malware
A nasty Android trojan, dubbed Obad.a, is being spread using botnets controlled by other criminal groups and created using a different malware – an “alien” distribution scheme that has peaked researcher interest.
Missouri S&T Combats Campus Cyberwoes with Software Donation
When it comes to cybersecurity, universities are faced with double goals: they struggle to protect their valuable intellectual property, as well as the personally identifying information of their students, faculty and staff. A recent cybersecurity deployment at the Missouri University of Science & Technology demonstrates one approach to combating the looming danger of data breaches.
Vint Cerf: Cyber-Fire Departments Should Be the First Line of Defense
The internet pioneer and chief evangelist for Google has been calling on the industry to get the next billion people connected worldwide, with ideas that range from low-orbiting satellites to cover rural areas to connectivity delivered by giant balloons in New Zealand. He’s also tackling cybersecurity in all of this, by proselytizing the idea of a “cyber-fire department” to help protect small businesses and individuals against threats to ensure that risks do not spread.
Did the NSA Subvert the Security of IPv6?
Following the Snowden leaks revealing Bullrun – the NSA program to crack the world's encryption – there is an emerging consensus that users can no longer automatically trust any security.
Clearswift Acquires Jedda Systems
Clearswift, an information governance (or data loss prevention) specialist, has announced the acquisition of the intellectual property rights of Australian firm Jedda Systems – and CEO Heath Davies says ‘watch this space’ for more acquisitions.
With a Sale Looming, Struggling BlackBerry Joins FIDO Alliance
Marking one of the first efforts by mobility specialists to get involved in the Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance, the industry consortium revolutionizing online authentication with the first standards-based specifications, BlackBerry has joined the alliance and been appointed to the board of directors.
NSA and GCHQ Crack Majority of Encrypted Traffic
Given the effort taken by the NSA and GCHQ spy agencies to monitor the greater part of the world’s internet traffic, it was never likely that they would simply ignore all of the encrypted traffic. The latest of the Edward Snowden files show that they did not.
Hand of Thief Trojan Has No Claws
The Hand of Thief (HoT) trojan made waves when it hit the Russian cybercrime underground in July, claiming to target all Linux distributions. But the commercial malware is more like a commercial nowhere: it turns out, the hand is easily amputated.
Bugcrowd Snags $1.6 Million for Crowdsourcing Bug Hunting
Crowdsourcing is big. Bug bounties are big. Why not put them together? San Francisco/Australia-based startup Bugcrowd says why not indeed.
Barret Brown Gagged by Order of the Court
The arrest and trial of Barret Brown, activist and one time self-styled voice of Anonymous, concerns activists and media alike: in theory he faces 100 years in jail for hiding his computer, threatening an FBI agent, and publishing an internet link.
WikiLeaks Publishes Spy Files #3
WikiLeaks has published its latest tranche of files, which it calls Spy Files #3, on the global covert surveillance industry: 249 documents from 92 intelligence contractors. The purpose is to shine “a light on the secretive mass surveillance industry.”
Samsung Bundles Anti-virus into Android KNOX
Samsung is looking to thicken the walls, as it were, in its Android KNOX security-hardened mobile devices, by bundling in enterprise anti-virus from Lookout Software.
Vaz Tells SOCA to Publish the Blue Chip Hacking List
Eighteen months after Operation Millipede closed with the successful prosecution of four rogue private investigators for illegally obtaining personal information, the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) finally delivered a list of almost one hundred clients that had used the service of the PIs to the country's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
Citi Ordered to Pay $55K to Connecticut over 2011 Data Breach
The state of Connecticut has slapped Citi with a $55,000 settlement over a 2011 data breach that resulted in hackers gaining access to names, account numbers and e-mail addresses belonging to around 360,000 Citi North American credit card customers.
Syrian Electronic Army defaces US Marine Website
The Syrian Electronic Army's latest exploit has been to hack and deface a US Marines recruitment website. The defacement showed a series of photos with military-dressed personnel, faces obscured, holding handwritten messages.
FinFisher Spyware Presentation Details Leaked
FinFisher is a trojan spyware kit developed and marketed by the UK/German company Gamma Group. It is used by many governments around the world for surveillance purposes – and was notoriously found to be targeting Bahraini activists.
A Q&A with MafiaBoy
MafiaBoy was the internet alias of Michael Demon Calce, a high school student from Quebec, who launched a series of highly publicized denial-of-service attacks in February 2000 against large commercial websites including Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Dell, Inc., eBay, and CNN. Here, he talks about how he did it, the politics of cyberattacks, and the evolution of attack motivations and methods.
Infosecurity Weekly News Update: 26 August - 2 September 2013
Dan Raywood summarizes all of the top news headlines from the information security industry from the week commencing 26 August 2013.
Tor is Not as Safe as You May Think
A new research paper, due to be presented at the 20th ACM Computer and Communications Security Conference (CCS 2013) at Berlin in November, has demonstrated that over time Tor users can be discovered with a high degree of accuracy.
Black Budget: NSA's Team of Elite Hackers Tasked with 'Sabotage'
The Edward Snowden leak is the leak that keeps on giving for news organizations, apparently: New documents have been released that detail the National Security Agency and the CIA’s intelligence budget. And, perhaps not surprisingly, it points to the existence of an elite group of government hackers.
