Security News Curated from across the world
“Today’s attackers are smarter and stealthier,” warned Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technology officer at Counterpane. “They are much more likely to install spyware, as they are more interested in making money.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2152006/financial-sector-top-target
In terms of the background of this case, as set forth by the FTC, CardSystems provided merchants with products and services used for obtaining approval for credit and debit card purchases from banks that issued cards.
The FTC specifically charged that CardSystems created unnecessary risks in storing information, did not adequately assess the vulnerability of its computer network to commonly known attacks, did not implement low-cost and available defenses to such attacks, failed to use strong passwords to ward off hackers, did not use available security measures to limit access between its computer network and the Internet, and failed to employ adequate measures to detect unauthorized access to personal information.
http://news.com.com/2010-1029_3-6047097.html?part=rss&tag=6047097&subj=news
In its previous report, Symantec cautioned that malicious code for profit was on the rise, and this trend continued during the second half of 2005.
Malicious code threats that could reveal confidential information rose from 74 percent of the top 50 malicious code samples last period to 80 percent this period.
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=30685
Bogus emails that form the basis of phishing attacks contain URLs that direct the victim to a single IP address, which hosts the so-called ‘smart redirector’. When the potential victim clicks on the link, the redirector checks all related phishing websites, identifying which sites are still live before redirecting the user to one of them.
RSA Cyota senior product manager Andrew Moloney said: “As anti-phishing vendors become more adept at shutting down phishing websites, inevitably the fraudsters are looking at ways to minimise the effect this has on their hit rates.
According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, almost 50,000 phishing websites were created last year, with more than 7,000 appearing in December alone.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/08/smart_redirect_phish_attack/
A proof-of-concept is a first version of malicious code which hackers publish on the internet to show how certain vulnerabilities can be exploited. Worryingly, 12.5% of the threats had code included in disclosure.
In addition, 50% of vulnerabilities had either an exploit and/or proof-of-concept code surface within one week.
http://www.it-observer.com/news/5828/patching_window_getting_shorter/
“Living in the information age can be a boon to our prosperity and a bane to our privacy, but nothing says we have to take the bad along with the good,” House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) said.
Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone carriers are obligated to protect the Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) of consumers, but last summer the privacy watchdog Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) complained to the FCC that confidential phone records are readily available for sale on the Internet. The telephone carriers say their customer service representatives are being tricked out of the information through pretexting.
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3590151