Dennis Fisher

About

Dennis Fisher is a journalist with more than 13 years of experience covering information security.

FTC Settles Charges With Android App Developer Over ‘Unfair’ Default Settings

In a landmark move, the Federal Trade Commission has settled charges it brought against the maker of a P2P file-sharing application that the commission alleged included unfair default settings that caused users to unknowingly share photos, videos and other personal data. The settlement with FrostWire LLC may well be an indication that the federal government is going to be taking a hard look at the way developers set up their apps and what users know about the data they collect and share.

P2P Version of Zeus Botnet Appears

A new version of the Zeus malware has appeared, and this does not seem to be a minor upgrade, but a major custom version of the Trojan, which now sports a P2P capability that does away with the use of the domain-generation algorithm used in earlier versions and instead uses a hardcoded list of IP addresses to provide infected PCs with new software and config files. This is a throwback to the way the malware used to behave, but it comes with a twist: There no longer is a master URL that infected machines contact to get updates, making it much more difficult to track the Trojan’s activities.

Attackers Adjusting Tactics to Evade Reputation Systems

BARCELONA–As in life, reputations on the Internet take time to build up. Attackers interested in making a quick buck aren’t necessarily the most patient lot, so as the various repuation systems on the Web have gotten more sophisticated and accurate, the bad guys have had to adjust their tactics and find new ways to evade them and plant their command-and-control servers.

Researchers Analyzing Attack Patterns With Cloud-Based Malware Data

by Dennis Fisher

BARCELONA–Successful targeted attacks against companies such as RSA, Google and others have made huge splashes in the news in the last year or two and drawn a lot of attention to the phenomenon. But it’s not just the successful attacks that are interesting, security researchers say. In many cases, the failures contain the really useful data.

Chinese DDoS Bots Lack Sophistication, Stealth

by Dennis Fisher
1

BARCELONA–China may have caught and passed many western nations in terms of economic power and military might, but, despite its reputation as a major player in the malware economy, many of the bots and DDoS tools that come out of the country are shoddy, cobbled-together malware full of bugs and with no real effort made to hide themselves.

Inside the Takedown of the M00p Malware Crew

by Dennis Fisher
1

BARCELONA–As online crime continues to grow in volume and expand in scope, encompassing a massive number of scams and operations around the world, security researchers, lawmakers and others are pushing for better cooperation among law enforcement agencies and the security community in taking down the attackers behind these schemes. There are precious few examples of successful operations that have succeeded in recent years, but one that can be considered a model of how things can work is the investigation into the m00p malware-writing crew that began more than seven years ago.

HTC Working on a Fix for Data Leak Problem

by Dennis Fisher

Officials at mobile handset maker HTC said they are working on a patch to fix a problem with many of its Android devices that enables any app with Internet permissions to access a large cache of user and device data that a proprietary tool called HTCLoggers collects. The company said on Monday that it was looking into the claims.

HTC Android Phones Leak Private User Data

by Dennis Fisher
4

There is a serious security issue with a variety of HTC Android phones that enables any app with Internet permissions to access a huge amount of private data on the device, including call logs, email addresses, SMS messages, last known GPS location and more. The problem was introduced via an update to the HTC phones that installed a tool called HTCLogger that collects the data.

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