Malware Piggybacks On Anti-Phishing Software
Malware authors have discovered a shortcut to create a Trojan horse program: using components from an anti-phishing product from China-based Zhuhai Kingsoft Software.
Paul Roberts
Celebrity Ashton Kutcher Firesheep’d at TED Conference
High profile celebrity Ashton Kutcher had his Twitter account hijacked at the celebrity infested Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference, TED2011, in Long Beach, California, on Wednesday.
iTunes Users Complain Of Account Hacks
More than six months after reports of wide-scale compromises of accounts at Apple’s popular iTunes online store, there are fresh reports that suggest that the accounts of iTunes users are being used to make fraudulent purchases of music, games and other merchandise.
Embattled CEO Aaron Barr says he is stepping down from his post at HBGary Federal to allow the company to move on after an embarassing data breach.
The controversy over the hack of D.C. security firm HBGary burst into the spotlight last week when comedian Stephen Colbert weighed in on the back and forth between HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr and the online mischief making group Anonymous.
Web surfers frustrated with the task of managing a forest of user names and passwords have been flocking to LastPass in an effort to simplify. But now a a security researcher says that a security flaw in that company’s Web site could reveal sensitive account details.
One of the premiere forums used by cyber criminals has been breached and a database of over 2,000 members leaked, according to reports from the Russian Website Lifenews.
The health care industry’s toothless tiger finally bared its teeth, as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a $4.3 m fine to a Maryland health care provider for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The action is the first monetary fine issued since the Act was passed in 1996.
There was lots of noise and distraction on the crowded Expo floor of the RSA Security Conference this year. After a grueling couple of years, vendors were back in force with big booths, big news and plenty of entertainment designed to attract visitor traffic. Wandering the floor, I saw – variously – magic tricks, a man walking on stilts, a whack-a-mole game, a man dressed in a full suit of armor and a 15 foot long racetrack that I would have killed for when I was 10.
With Microsoft set to release the first Service Pack for its Windows 7 Operating System to the general public on Tuesday, businesses and consumers are preparing for an update that fixes hundreds of security and functional problems, but this Service Pack is more housekeeping than a radical home makeover when it comes to security. Microsoft released SP1 to its MSDN members and TechNet Subscribers on February 16. The company said at that time that general availability of SP1 would come on February 22. The release is the first major update for the Windows 7 operating system and for the Windows Server 2008 R2 platform, comprising more than 750 so-called “hot fixes” and 39 security fixes. However, unlike high stakes updates for earlier Windows versions, such as XP and Vista, Microsoft’s Service Pack 1 for Windows 7, Microsoft has avoided wholesale changes to Windows 7 in the name of security.Among the changes that customers get with Service Pack 1 are 32 security updates of varying degrees of severity and stretching back to 2009. They include high profile fixes like MS10-061, which closed a hole in the Windows Print Spooler Service that was used by the Stuxnet worm. In recent years, the Redmond, Washington software maker had fallen into a pattern of using service pack releases – especially its first service pack – to address major security issues and shortcomings. Perhaps the best example of that was the WIndows XP Service Pack 2, released in August 2004, which added a host of new security features including a desktop firewall, an early version of the company’s Data Execution Prevention (DEP) technology and the Windows Security Center, a GUI feature that allowed users to manage their security software from a central location. Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are scheduled to be made available from the Microsoft Download Center or Windows Update on Tuesday.
