ISP Outage, Not Hackers, Take Down MasterCard’s Site
UPDATE: An Internet Service Provider outage, not hackers, was to blame for the unavailability of MasterCard’s website early Tuesday morning according to a statement from a company spokesman.
Government
U.S. Playing Catch Up in Security for Contactless Devices
AMHERST, MASS.– The U.S. may boast the world’s largest economy, richest technology companies and a lion’s share of its top research universities. But when it comes to the subject of security of RFID (Radio Frequency ID) and other contactless technologies, America is still playing catch-up.
DHS Unveils Effort to Focus on Software Security
The long string of attacks against popular Web sites, high-profile companies such as Sony, and government networks has brought the problem of common and easily exploitable vulnerabilities into the public eye, and the Department of Homeland Security today is unveiling a new effort to help address the issue. The plan, which is in conjunction with MITRE, involves identifying the introduction of a new scoring system to help evaluate software projects against a list of common programming errors.
Pavel Vrublevsky, the head of a prominent Russian payment-processing company, ChronoPay, was arrested in Russia on suspicion of hiring someone to launch a denial-of-service attack against one of his company’s main competitors. The arrest is the latest in a series of high-profile actions against people and groups around the world suspected of being involved in the global cybercrime ecosystem.
This is the second in a two-part interview with Aaron Barr, the former CEO of HBGary FederalIn the second half of his exclusive interview with Threatpost, former HBGary CEO Aaron Barr – speaking before the arrest of alleged Lulzsec member Ryan Cleary in the UK – talked about the likely law enforcement reaction to the Anonymous and Lulzsec hacks, the mainstream media’s portrayal of the hack of HBGary, as well as how he was picking up the pieces after the embarrassing hack of his employer.
A 19 year-old UK man was charged on Wednesday for the role he played in attacks on the UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) as well as UK’s British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), according to a statement released by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU).
The age-old adage that there’s “no honor among thieves” appears to be playing out in the world of hacking, as well, as members of the online hacking group Lulzsec published information identifying two associates they accuse of informing on them to authorities.
UK authorities have arrested an 19 year-old from Essex, England who is believed to be a member of the anarchic group Lulzsec following an investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and British intelligence.
The U.S. CERT has issued a security advisory firms using industrial control systems software from the Chinese firm Sunway in the U.S. after a researcher discovered remotely exploitable holes that could be used to knock out or take control systems running the company’s software.
This is the first in a two-part interview with Aaron Barr, the former CEO of HBGary FederalEach of us has made mistakes in our lives – woeful errors that we’ve been forced to learn from at great personal cost. Blessedly, those painful experiences are typically private affairs. Tears are spilled. Mea culpas are issued to those we’ve wronged, then we, the folks we hurt and the storm clouds move on.
