Ryan Naraine

The “critical” WINS vulnerability that Microsoft issued a patch for last week is now being exploited actively in the wild, according to the SANS Institute [sans.org].
The Internet Storm Center (ISC), which is operated by SANS, is receiving preliminary reports that hackers are targeting Microsoft’s WINS service on Windows NT, 2000 and 2003 servers.  Read the full story [networkworld.com]

Adobe’s never-ending run on the security treadmill hit a new gear this week with the release of patches to cover serious vulnerabilities in the ColdFusion and JRun web design and development platforms.
The patches, rated critical, cover a total of 7 vulnerabilities, some of which “could lead to the potential compromise of user accounts or the affected system,” according to an advisory from Adobe.  They affect ColdFusion v8.0.1 and earlier versions, and JRun 4.0.  Read the full story [zdnet.com]

A Miami man and two Russians have been indicted [usdoj.gov] by a grand jury in New Jersey on charges of conspiring to commit some of the largest data breaches in U.S. history.

Albert Gonzalez, 28, and the two still-unnamed Russian citizens are charged with running an international scheme to steal more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers along with personally identifying information from five companies, including Heartland Payment Systems Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Hannaford Brothers Co. The two other companies were not named in the indictment because their breaches have not yet been made public.  Read the full story [computerworld.com]  Here’s a PDF link to the indictment [washingtonpost.com]

Arbor Networks security researcher Jose Nazario has stumbled upon a crimeware botnet using Twitter as its command-and-control operation.
The botnet, which is linked to identity thieves in Brazil, uses Twitter status messages to communicate with bots — sending new links for the infected computers to contact and new commands and executables to download and run.   Read the full story [arbornetworks.com]

Apple has released Safari 4.0.3 to fix at least six security vulnerabilities that put Mac and Windows users at risk of hacker attacks.
The update is considered highly-critical and should be immediately applied on both Windows and Mac systems because of the risk of information disclosure, phishing and remote code execution attacks. See Apple’s advisory for details [apple.com]

From Network World (Ellen Messmer)
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 rated tops among five browsers tested by NSS Labs for effectiveness in protecting against malware and phishing attacks — though NSS Labs acknowledges Microsoft paid for the tests.
Nevertheless, the test process, which lasted over a two-week period in July at the NSS Labs in Austin, evaluated the browsers based on access to live Internet sites and in theory could be duplicated elsewhere. Apple Safari 4, Google Chrome 2, Mozilla Firefox 3, and Opera 10 beta were evaluated as being behind Microsoft IE 8 when it comes to browser protection against phishing and malware, mainly because Microsoft was deemed more speedy and comprehensive in delivering updates about known phishing and malware to the user’s desktop browser.  Read the full story [thestandard.com]  Here’s a link to the study and results [pdf from nsslabs.com]

Arbor Networks security researcher Jose Nazario has stumbled upon a crimeware botnet using Twitter as its command-and-control operation.
The botnet, which is linked to identity thieves in Brazil, uses Twitter status messages to communicate with bots — sending new links for the infected computers to contact and new commands and executables to download and run.   Read the full story [arbornetworks.com]