Infosecurity News
Retina Scans? Yes Please! Just Not for Passwords or PINs
Cue the Mission Impossible theme: Europeans (especially the French) really like the idea of biometrics – ultraviolet fingerprint authentication, vein topography scans and the like – when it comes to slipping into secure corridors and preventing international criminals from moving across borders. But when it comes time to use them for ho-hum applications like password replacement? Not so much...
35,000 Unauthorized Logins at Konami Video Games Company
Konami Digital Entertainment announced on Wednesday that it had experienced 35,252 unauthorized logins (out of 3,945,927 attempts). This occurred within days of a similar experience at Nintendo.
Attackers Using Dropbox and Wordpress to Target, Disguise and Distribute
Trusted and popular cloud services Dropbox and Wordpress are being incorporated into sophisticated, targeted APT-style attacks by the same Chinese group thought to be behind the New York Times compromise late last year.
Hitachi ID Systems releases updated ID management offering
The Canada-based ID management specialist has unveiled a new release for its ID Management Suite, with additional features. The firm has also inked a deal with one of Europe’s leading telecommunications providers.
Morningstar Provides (some) Information About Breach
Morningstar Inc, an investment research firm, has disclosed a breach that compromised 2300 credit card details and possibly 182,000 user names and passwords; but the company has provided little additional information.
EMC's RSA Division Acquires the Aveksa IAM Company
Authentication lies at the heart of security -- ensuring that only authorized users can access relevant data is the basis of keeping data safe and companies compliant. This is the role of identity and access management (IAM) systems. But in recent years it has become increasingly difficult.
Attack on South Korean targets part of a larger cyber-espionage campaign
The March 20 cyber-attack on South Korean financial services and media firms, known as Dark Seoul, was thought to be significant not only for the high-profile nature of the targets but also for the use of a Master Boot Record (MBR) wiping functionality that erased the hard drives of infected PCs.
Patch Tuesday preview: July 2013
Microsoft will issue seven security bulletins in this month's Patch Tuesday tomorrow. Six are marked critical and one is marked important, heralding a busy period for both desktop and server admins.
99% of Android Devices Vulnerable to App Modification
A stealth start-up founded last year has discovered and described a vulnerability that it claims affects 99% of all Android devices – in fact every device sold since Android 1.6 (Donut); that is, nearly 900 million devices.
The European Parliament has voted in favor of a new directive on cybercrime
By a vote of 541 to 91, with 9 abstentions, EC proposals for a directive on stiffer penalties across Europe for cybercriminals have been adopted by the European Parliament. Denmark has chosen to opt out of the directive, preferring to maintain its own system.
Darkleech now delivering ransomware
Darkleech compromises the Apache web servers that deliver a large part of the internet. It fetches an instance of the Blackhole exploit kit, which delivers the Nymaim ransomware. $300 to get your computer back.
Ubisoft, maker of Assassin's Creed and Ghost Recon, breached
Ubisoft, the French game company that asked Kaspersky Lab to make sure hacking in its upcoming Watch Dogs game looks real, got hacked for real with names, emails and passwords stolen.
CEOP's annual report on the threat of child abuse
The UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has published the second of its annual Threat Assessment of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse reports.
MI5 and GCHQ: Britain facing 70 advanced cyber attacks per month
The UK’s MI5 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have revealed that according to their information-gathering activities, Britain faces around 70 sophisticated cyber-espionage operations per month against its government and industry networks.
Europe furious over latest Snowden revelations
Spiegel Online reported Saturday that it had seen Snowden documents indicating that the NSA had 'spied' on both the EU's diplomatic representation in Washington and its representation to the United Nations.
NIST revamps mobile device security guidelines for smartphone era
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published a mobile device management guide for federal agencies seeking secure methods for workers to use smartphones and tablets.
Fake Opera 'update' pushes Zbot malware
Norway’s Opera Software has issued an advisory this week detailing a June 19 attack by hackers who breached the company’s network and used one of its older, expired code-signing certificates to digitally sign a Zeus-based piece of malware and package it as an update for the Opera internet browser.
Lotus F1 builds a secure, reliable network
While the Lotus F1 Team prepares for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend, Infosecurity talked to its CIO about the network and security demands in a very unusual business.
Facebook Fix SMS Hack Bug
A UK security researcher has disclosed a bug in Facebook's code that allowed him to take over any Facebook account in less than a minute - and earned himself a $20,000 bug bounty in the process.
Bruce Schneier joins EFF; stays with BT
Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography, Secrets and Lies and other books, founder of Counterpane (now BT Managed Security Solutions), and designer of the Blowfish and Twofish encryption algorithms, has joined the board of EFF.
