SAN FRANCISCO–The Stuxnet attack has been making headlines for several weeks now, thanks to the fact that includes a pair of zero-day vulnerabilities and also has drivers signed by a stolen digital certificate. However, the real story of this novel malware attack may not be its tactics but its creator, which security experts say could be a nation-state.
A secretive volunteer group that tries to track terrorists and criminals on the Internet went to the Defcon hacker conference this past week in hopes of recruiting information security experts, but it will first have to overcome some skepticism. Read the full article. [IDG News Service]
Roughly 10,000 computer hacking enthusiasts, poseurs, geeks, nerds and government agents gathered for DefCon this weekend. In its 18th year, the world’s largest hacker convention draws people from all walks of life to learn about the latest hacking techniques. Read the full article. [Wired]
Two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) may have helped WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning spirit classified information out of military databases, according to a CNN report. Read the full article. [Computerworld]
A hardware hacking expert here at Defcon18
successfully faked several attendees’ cell phones into connecting to his
phony GSM base station during a live demonstration that had initially
raised concerns at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Read the full article. [Dark Reading]
A research group led by computer scientists at the UCLA Henry Samueli
School of Engineering and Applied Science has proved that cryptography
— the practice and study of hiding information — that is based solely
on physical location is possible by using quantum mechanics. Such a method, the researchers say, allows one to encrypt and decrypt
data at a secure location without pre-sharing any cryptographic keys
that can be used to lock or unlock sensitive information. Read the full article. [Science Daily]
Hackers appear to be increasingly counting on configuration problems and programming errors rather than software vulnerabilities in order to steal information from computer systems, according to a new study based on U.S. Secret Service investigations. Read the full article. [IDG News Service]
A researcher has uncovered a sophisticated check counterfeiting ring
that uses compromised computers to steal and print millions of dollars
worth of bogus invoices and then recruit money mules to cash them. Read the full article. [The Register]
Slovenian police will hold a press conference on Friday to discuss the
arrest of three men in connection the massive Mariposa botnet that was
disabled late last year. Read the full article. [IDG News Service]
Organizations are getting hit by at least one
successful attack per week, and the annualized cost to their bottom
lines from the attacks ranged from $1 million to $53 million per year,
according to a newly published benchmark study of 45 U.S. organizations
hit by data breaches. Read the full article. [Dark Reading]
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