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Security News Archive - General

  • Cybercrooks descend on Twitter with spam, attacks
    • Cybercriminals are rapidly using Twitter— the popular Web-messaging service — to direct users to websites that sell porn and fake drugs and trigger promotions for fake anti-virus subscriptions.
  • Researchers say they can guess your SSN
    • There's a new reason to worry about the security of your Social Security number. Turns out, they can be guessed with relative
  • Facebook bloggers reveal way to peek at private profiles
    • Two Facebook fans generated a load of free publicity for their new blog when, in their maiden post, disclosed a vulnerability in the social-networking website that could enable outsiders to view parts of profiles that are set to private.
  • 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
    • A thorough overview on how to protect your privacy on Facebook.
  • Users increasingly falling victim to malware distributed on Digg, YouTube
    • Infection of the malware called "VideoPlay," which has been spreading through malicious posts and comments on Digg and YouTube, increased 400 percent from January to February, according to Panda Security.
  • Hack forces Twitter into 'full security review'
    • Twitter Inc. has launched a comprehensive review of the defenses in its popular social network and microblogging service after hackers hijacked the accounts of several high-profile users.
  • Computer users overeager to click popup 'OKs'
    • Web surfers have a standard reaction to error messages that pop up in their Web browsers, according to new research published this week: They click "OK" and hope it will disappear.
  • European Cyber-Gangs Target Small U.S. Firms, Group Says
    • Organized cyber-gangs in Eastern Europe are increasingly preying on small and mid-size companies in the United States, setting off a multimillion-dollar online crime wave that has begun to worry the nation's largest financial institutions.
  • Details on presidential motorcades, safe house for First Family, leak via P2P
    • Details about a U.S. Secret Service safe house for the First Family -- to be used in a national emergency -- were found to have leaked out on a LimeWire file-sharing network recently, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were told this morning.
  • Researcher reveals massive 'professional thieving' botnet
    • A ferocious piece of malware that's infected up to a million PCs is stealing a "tremendous" amount of financial information from consumers and businesses that log on to their bank, stock broker, credit card, insurance, job hunting and favorite e-shopping sites, a noted botnet researcher said today.
  • LexisNexis warns of breach after alleged mafia bust
    • Information broker LexisNexis has warned more than 13,000 consumers, saying that a Florida man who is facing charges in an alleged mafia racketeering conspiracy may have accessed some of the same sensitive consumer databases that were once used to track terrorists.
  • Network Solutions breach exposes nearly 600,000
    • Network Solutions is investigating a breach on its servers that may have led to the theft of credit card data of 573,928 people who made purchases on Web sites hosted by the company.
  • Data of Soldiers, Hospital Patients Found on P2P
    • The personal information of 200,000 soldiers and 20,245 hospital patients, along with other critical data from government networks, is being made to the public through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, according to testimony yesterday at a hearing of the House Government and Oversight Committee.
  • White House among targets of cyber attack
    • A powerful Internet attack that overwhelmed computers at U.S. and South Korean government agencies for days was even broader than initially realized: targets included the White House, the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange and other official Web sites in the most widespread cyber offensive of recent years.
  • Mac Trojan targets game sites to infect users
    • Virus researchers have spotted a new variant of a Mac Trojan that attempts to change a victim computer's DNS settings.
  • 'One stop' botnet market uncovered
    • Researchers have discovered an unusually organised botnet market called the Golden Cash network.
  • ATM malware lets criminals steal data and cash
    • Malware has been found on ATMs in Eastern Europe and elsewhere that allows criminals to steal account data and PINs and even empty the machine of its cash, a computer forensics expert said.
  • Cyber Crime and Spying Threaten National Security
    • Criminals and foreign agents are using the Internet to infiltrate personal computers, spy on governments and perpetrate old-fashioned scams.
  • Audit: 52 computers missing from state agency
    • State auditors released reports Thursday that found several cases of government mismanagement, from lax oversight of a $100,000 education grant to 52 missing computers that may contain sensitive information.
  • Experts Chart Spike in Cyber Sieges
    • Cyber attacks with enough firepower to knock entire countries off the Internet have spiked in recent months, raising fresh concerns within the security community about weaknesses in the Internet infrastructure that help create such weapons of mass disruption.
  • Virginia Health Data Potentially Held Hostage
    • An extortion demand seeks $10 million to return more than 8 million patient records allegedly stolen from Virginia Department of Health Professions.
  • US cyber-security 'embarrassing'
    • America's cyber-security has been described as "broken" by one industry expert and as "childlike" by another.
  • Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project
    • Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project -- the Defense Department's costliest weapons program ever -- according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks.
  • Gov systems found on 1.9m zombie botnet
    • Government and corporate Windows PCs were among the ranks of a 1.9 million botnet recently discovered by net security firm Finjan.
  • Evidence suggests first zombie Mac botnet is active
    • Security researchers have discovered that payloads delivered by trojans in pirated versions of iWork and Photoshop earlier this year are being used to create a Mac botnet.
  • VMware Fusion bug breaches the guest-host OS wall
    • One of the benefits of using a virtualization program such as VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop to run Windows on your Mac is that anything bad that happened to Windows would only happen to Windows. A recently-discovered bug in many versions of VMware's virtualization programs—including VMware Fusion—breaks down this protective barrier.
  • Safari Charlie finds possible iPhone OS vulnerability
    • Security researcher Charlie Miller has discovered a bug in the iPhone OS that could be a potential security vulnerability. Though the iPhone is generally considered unable to run shell code in its default configuration, Miller says that he has found a method that enables execution of arbitrary shell code.
  • Pennies for your thoughts — and credit card
    • One economy apparently isn't hurting these days — the one run by identity thieves in the dark corners of the Internet.
  • Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
    • Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.
  • Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries
    • A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.
  • New ransomware holds Windows files hostage, demands $50
    • Cybercrooks have hit on a new twist to their aggressive marketing of fake security software and are duping users into downloading a file utility that holds users' data for ransom, security researchers warned.
  • Botnet based on home network routers
    • DroneBL a distributed DNS Blacklist service, says in a recent blog post that a botnet named Psybot gained control of approximately one hundred thousand routers and that it became a victim of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that was carried out by this botnet.
  • Passwords used by the Conficker worm
    • It's not possible to emphasize enough the importance of using sensible passwords on your network. Not just on the areas of your network that you don't want your users to traipse through, but also on the default network shares that are present on installations of commonly used operating systems like Windows NT/2000/XP/2003.
  • Kremlin-backed youths launched Estonian cyberwar, says Russian official
    • Members of a Kremlin-backed youth group spearheaded the cyberattacks that paralyzed Estonia's internet traffic in May of 2007, a Russian government official has admitted.
  • Cybercriminals Try Phishing With Fliers
    • As part of their ongoing effort to convince people to visit malicious Web sites, cybercriminals are experimenting with a new medium: phony advertisement fliers.
  • Fake stimulus payments
    • Fake stimulus payment e-mails request the user to complete a form to receive a stimulus payment.
  • Workers 'stealing company data'
    • Six out of every 10 employees stole company data when they left their job last year, said a study of US workers.
  • This woman sent Nigerian scam artists $400,000 - a fool or a victim?
    • This may well be the mother of all internet scam cases. Janella Spears, a reverend and a registered nurse from Sweet Home, Oregon, ended up sending Nigerian fraudsters more than $400,000 when she was promised a multi-million dollar pay out from a lost relative.
  • Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users
    • Several Internet complaint boards are filled with comments from credit card customers from coast to coast who have noticed a mysterious charge for about 25 cents on their statements.
  • Hacking The Hill
    • On October 26, 2006, computer security personnel from across the legislative branch were informed that the Congressional Budget Office had been hit with a computer virus.
  • Conviction on lesser charges in MySpace case
    • A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted Wednesday of only three minor offenses for her role in a mean-spirited Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide.
  • How spyware nearly sent a teacher to prison
    • If there's a poster child for the dangers of spyware, it's Julie Amero. The 41-year-old former substitute teacher was convicted of four felony counts of endangering minors last year, stemming from an Oct. 19, 2004, classroom incident where students were exposed to inappropriate images.
  • Destructive Koobface virus turns up on Facebook
    • Facebook's 120 million users are being targeted by a virus dubbed "Koobface" that uses the social network's messaging system to infect PCs, then tries to gather sensitive information such as credit card numbers.
  • Teen hacker confesses three-year crime spree DDoS, botnets, SWAT calls, bomb threats, credit fraud
    • A juvenile hacker with a reputation for stirring up trouble in online gaming groups has admitted to multiple computer felonies, including cyber attacks that overwhelmed his victims with massive amounts of data and the placing of hoax emergency phone calls that elicited visits by heavily armed police teams.
  • 2 Los Angeles traffic engineers admit hacking
    • Two Los Angeles traffic engineers admitted today to hacking into a computer system that controls traffic lights before a job action related to contract negotiations with the city, prosecutors said.
  • "My ex-husband stole our son’s identity"
    • Question: My 20-year-old son applied for a Macy’s charge card but was rejected. When he ordered his credit report, we discovered that my ex-husband, who has the same name as my son, opened a Comcast cable account using our son’s Social Security number, then neglected to pay $453 in charges. How can we fix this? - Name Withheld, Fla.