It looks like the group behind the Gumblar mass Web-site infections is beginning to get serious about making some money from all of the servers that the attacks have compromised in the last 18 months. The group has begun using some of its compromised servers in spam operations that are pushing the usual array of male ego-boosters: Viagra and fake watches.
Compromised Twitter accounts have been used to post links to an exploit
portal that poses as a download site for an update to TweetDeck, the
popular micro-blogging client software package. Read the full article. [The Register]
In this video from the OWASP AppSec Research conference, Tom Brennan of WhiteHat Security discusses the current trends in vulnerabilities in Web applications and what’s driving them.
By Alex RothackerIn our last column, we focused on privilege escalation attacks, and the impact that this category of SQL injection attacks can have on the database – particularly where specific database vulnerabilities exist, and can be exploited through the manipulation of privileges. Let’s look more deeply at how organizations struggle with the issue of extensive privileges assigned directly to users – or indirectly through user groups. We’ll address what can happen when database users are over-credentialed, and what should be done to ensure you are aware of all activity that is occurring in your environment.
Alureon rootkit is back, and has acquired the ability to hijack computers running 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows, proclaimed security researcher Marco Giuliani. Read the full article. [Help Net Security]
Organized cyber thieves stole more than $600,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa
earlier this month with the help of
dozens of unwitting co-conspirators hired through work-at-home job
scams, at least one of whom was told the money was being distributed to
victims of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals. Read the full article. [KrebsonSecurity]
A Spanish security researcher has discovered a new vulnerability in Apple’s QuickTime software that can be used to bypass both ASLR and DEP on current versions of Windows and give an attacker control of a remote PC. The flaw apparently results from a parameter from an older version of QuickTime that was left in the code by mistake.
A few days after the majority of the command-and-control servers belonging to one of the variants of the Pushdo botnet were taken offline, some researchers say that there are indications that portions of the botnet are back to their old tricks, downloading new spam templates for a resumption of spam operations.
In an effort to help mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks that make normal HTTP connections look like secured HTTPS sessions, Mozilla is adding support in Firefox 4 for a new technology called HTTP Strict Transport Security that enables site operators to tell browsers to always request an HTTPS session on future visits.
The developers of the uTorrent file-sharing application have released an
updated version that fixes a problem that could allow an attacker to
load malicious code onto a user’s computer. Read the full article. [IDG News Service]
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