About
Dennis Fisher is a journalist with more than 13 years of experience covering information security.
The latest version of the Flashback malware that’s infecting Macs has a new command-and-control infrastructure that used Twitter as a fallback mechanism in case the normal C&C system isn’t available. This is not the first time a botnet has used Twitter for some form of command and control, but it’s a good example of the ways in which attackers are always adapting to defenders’ actions and changing their tactics.
A new project that was setup to monitor the quality and strength of the SSL implementations on top sites across the Internet found that 75 percent of them are vulnerable to the BEAST SSL attack and that just 10 percent of the sites surveyed should be considered secure.
There’s a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in all of the current versions of the Oracle database server that can enable an attacker to intercept traffic and execute arbitrary commands on the server. The bug, which Oracle reported as fixed in the most recent Critical Patch Update, is only fixed in upcoming versions of the database, not in currently shipping releases, and there is publicly available proof-of-concept exploit code circulating.
This seems to be the season for major new versions of browsers. A couple of days after Mozilla released Firefox 12, Opera has pushed out a beta of version 12 of its browser, which includes several security updates, such as private browsing and support for the Do Not Track header.
Old pieces of malware–especially successful ones–don’t really die. They typically will just sort of fade into the background as newer attacks come to the fore and grab the headlines. Such is the case for one of the more notorious headline-grabbing pieces of malware of all time: Conficker. Not only has Conficker not disappeared, attacks from the worm have actually started to increase again, according to new data.
Mozilla has released version 12 of Firefox and the big change in the popular browser is the inclusion of a new update mechanism that will allow users to enable automatic updates that won’t require user interaction. The mechanism is similar to what Google Chrome has and is part of a trend toward taking some of the responsibility for patching out of users’ hands.
The OpenSSL developers have had to re-release the fix for a serious vulnerability in the software’s ASN.1 implementation that could allow an attacker to cause a denial of service or potentially run arbitrary code on a remote machine. The updated fix only applies to version 0.9.8v; all of the other previously affected versions are already protected with the existing patch.
A long list of security, networking and computer science experts have signed a letter sent to lawmakers on Monday, asking them to drop support for CISPA and other proposed cybersecurity bills because they consider the measures overly broad and say they would infringe on users’ privacy and civil liberties. The group, which includes Bruce Schneier, Peter Neumann and others, said the bills’ focus on allowing the sharing of users’ traffic with government agencies would “unnecessarily trade our civil liberties for the promise of improved network security.”
Researchers have identified a bug in an application that can enable attackers potentially to gain control of a victim’s iPhone. The app in question, TreasonSMS, enables users to send SMS messages from a desktop Web browser by using their iPhones as Web servers.
A new version of the WordPress software is available, and the update includes fixes for a number of security vulnerabilities, including a bug in components that are used to upload media to WordPress sites. Version 3.3.2 also has some other fixes for cross-site scripting and other flaws.
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