D.C. Media Sites Hacked, Serving Fake AV
A number of Washington, D.C.-area media websites have been hacked and are redirecting visitors to an exploit kit serving scareware, or fake AV malware.
Michael Mimoso
Samsung’s Secure Version of Android Gets DoD Blessing
The Pentagon has given the U.S. Department of Defense permission to use the Android operating system on mobile devices. The Pentagon approved for use, the Samsung KNOX platform which enables work and personal data to coexist securely and separately on the same device.
IE 8 Zero Day Found as DoL Watering Hole Attack Spreads to Nine Other Sites
Microsoft issued an advisory warning that an IE 8 zero-day exploit was used to attack the US Department of Labor website and nine others, including government and non-profit organizations in Europe.
ICS-CERT updates a number of recommendations for critical infrastructure operators to prevent infections from the Shamoon wiper malware. Shamoon struck Saudi oil company Aramco, destroying more than 30,000 workstations.
Calls for Twitter to implement two-factor authentication would not have prevented the hijacking of the Associated Press account last week, experts said. Meanwhile, a new tool for detecting compromised social network accounts called COMPA, could provide a measure of early detection.
The United States Department of Labor website was hacked in a watering hole attack. The website was redirecting visitors to a malicious site hosting the Poison Ivy remote access Trojan.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s annual “Who’s Got Your Back?” report evaluates the privacy, advocacy and transparency positions of leading Internet companies. While most fared well, ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T, as well as Apple, Amazon and Yahoo, did not.
Mozilla has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the makers of the FinFisher spyware kit demanding that it stop embedding the notorious FinSpy program in a document masquerading as a copy of the Firefox Web browser.
Nowhere is the cat-and-mouse game between attackers and the security of users more evident than with social engineering schemes. Users’ awareness of phishing campaigns, for example, may be improving, but that’s just forcing attackers bent on identity theft and stealing payment card information to up their games.
The Google Play store has been an Eden for hackers wanting to get malicious code onto Android devices. A number of things made the marketplace too tempting for attackers to resist, including the open source nature of the operating system, lax vetting of developers, and the ability to modify code in runtime by pushing app updates from outside the store.
